advice please - 1st family camping trip

[manitz]

Hi I posted quite a while ago but haven't got www at home now so v infrequently check at work.

I have now bought an outwell indiana 4, sort of small self inflatable bed things, a stove with a grill and a table with attached chairs as dh loved it. We are considering staying at this site or this one . What do you think of this kit? have we made any huge mistakes so far? shoudl we have boiught the monty (which I wanted but dh preferred the indy)? ANy opinions/experiences of the sites?

I've printed out an earlier thread with details of what to take but can someone explain what an ehu is? do I need to buy something more to use it or can I get away iwth a coolbox. Main issue is refrigeration, noticed that the fishguard site has a freezer for icepacks seems cheaper to me.

After the camping we are off to brecon beacons for the green man thing. Can we pitch sucha big tent at a festival and sheould we keep our kit in the car? I haven't ever had stuff to nick at a festival before.

ta very much

maybe everyone is away, quick update - I've booked the fishguard one so I'll see how it goes. Anyone with advice wld be great.

your links aren't working. for me anyway. I'm also a 1st timer and was hoping to pinch some tips, we go in 2 weeks. have you tried your inflatable bed things? Are they comfy? Where'd you get them?
no idea about ehu.

enjoy your trip

Fishguard
Trefalunpark

Monkey - I bought inflatable beds from Argos - very comfy - you can also buy a pump that works of the car ciggy lighter.

ta

monkey where are you going in two weeks? We also go then (12aug). What tent did you get?

The beds we got are different to the ones from argos and were selfinflating mats like hte ones on www.outwell.com (look under accessories). we tried them in the bedroom (on carpet) so I have no idea how they are going to be. I used to camp in greece when I was younger and used foam mats which were fine. My back aint as good as it was but we'll see. Planning to be camping every year from now on as it cost £100 for the week at fishguard which is fantastic.

How did I get the links so wrong? any news on an ehu?

we're going to France. We used to go camping years ago & have an old battered 2 man tent. We've decided to hire a static caravan thingy and bring our little one & if it goes well, then we'll get a big tent for us all. I've also got a foam roll up from the old days, but my old bones need more now, lol. Just spent 2 nights camping in the back garden on a trial run. So our 2 weeks in France (we go 5th till 19th then staright to school, gulp) will be a trial run. I think the kids will really love it, but don't want to go crazy just in case. I like the look of theones that have a living room in the middle & 3 bedrooms radiating off it. dunno name.

can't beat £100 for a week, can you?

re the links, I just got '404 not found' for both

yeah I got that on the links too. we've got a 3 and 1 year old so I wanted bedrooms next to ours so we could truly experience hell and just in case they were disoriented in the night.

i got that with the links too. how is school starting in mid aug? wld love to go to france and might try next year though hope to have a newborn then too to add to the fun and excitement. am hoping these self inflating things are better than foam mats. not keen on blow up beds generally.

I think you'll love your Indiana, I have it's predecessor the Colorado, and the side by side bedrooms thing is great.

Don't listen to these Monty fiends, I like a bit of grass with my camping and it's really easy to sweep out, in this weather a cool breeze coming intot he tent is just what you need.

An ehu is a long adaptor that you plug one end into the site electrics and then you have sockets in your tent to plug stuff into (low wattage kettle / lights / electric cool box / DVD player } There's a reasonably priced one here You can very easily camp without one, we did until last year, but with one it means that your butter doesn't go runny!!

hope that helps!
I

Hi there. For a weekend a coolbox should do but much better than cool blocks are large bottles of water as they keep cold longer (not quite full to allow for expansion). Also freeze whatever you can (eg I've done batches of little sausages for the beach etc). Be warned that as stuff thaws things get damp so keep food in sealed packets/bas/boxes. I have had foam mats, self inflating and full airbeds and there is no competition - full airbeds are best.
We took kids for 3 weekends last year at 15m and 4y and they loved it. Did a week at half term and the (now) 2 yr old is still talking about it.

take some waspeaze

thanks very much. was only able to look today as back at work again! I think we are going to try not to spend any more money this year and will go with the frozen bottle idea - the site has a freezer we can refreeze packs etc. We'll have to stick with the beds and might need to upgrade at some point later.

Thanks for the comment about the (lack of) sewn in groundsheet tbh we looked on a wet day and the monty had a puddle in the middle. we figured that it would be easier to detach a ground sheet and shake it out or sweep it rather than one attached - hadn't thought about breezes. Very excited now, dry run in garden this weekend. hurrah. Thanks also for waspease tip, spesh for my baby who is partial to barefoot escapes.

We managed in very hot weather last year without an electric cool box. Buy what you need each day and get used to runny butter! I'm going on Monday - can't WAIT.

Hi Matitz, we're going to Green man as well.
we will be taking our Monty 6 so your Indy 4 will be fine. I haven't been to Green man before but have been to various others and there are always big family tents at family festivals. I have never heard of any camping kit being stolen. It would be a massive PITA to trek across to your car every time you needed something.
my only tip - take a plastic backed picnic mat every time you wander into the festival site.
see you there!

I will be there with snafu (who posts here a bit, tho she's gen allergic to camping threads) and some midwives. Very much looking forward to it, will camp in fishguard for the week b4, glad to hear we won't be the only ones with huge tent. look out for a brand new indy (pitched next to pink gerbera dome from tesco) and two little girls hurtling barefoot cross old fire pits and lurking wasps! Have you got your tickets yet? we haven't.

'Er and er plastic bags!

We don't have electric cooler, but we will next year- IoW last week about 32, was just impossible to keep anything cool, gave up on butter altogether. Plus ds1 hates supermarkets with a vengeance so we don't want to do the every day shop any more.

So hot last week our plastic glasses cracked

Going to get a day tent next year to keep stuff in (cooler than our tent which is dark coloured- but we do early season camping so it's swings and roundabouts)