Campingninja Blog

When a ninja’s got to go, a ninja’s got to go.  Thanks to a few late evening drinks, I couldn’t get to sleep in my tent without one last trip to the bathroom.  So I unzipped the tent and with my shiny bright torch light leading the way through the pitch black darkness of the night, I caved into nature’s calls and left my nice warm bed for the fresh night time air, and sleepy-eyed, wondered across to the bathroom. 

Much to my surprise, a crowd of people lined the field along the edge of the campsite.  There were some old people and some young people, and some people in between, and some who looked like it must have been way past their bedtime.  But it was clear that something had made them all come out and gather together for some kind of special occasion, and it was one which I was yet to find out about.

As I made my way across the field of the campsite with my little torch lighting the way along the windy path, they all began cheering.  I was only on my way to the bathroom.  There really was no need for all the attention.  In fact, on my way to the toilet in the middle of the night, to be honest I didn’t really want all the extra attention!  And I was puzzled to think what all the fuss could be about. 

Then I remembered - the Olympic torch relay.  Oh…

So I thought that in the spirit of the Olympics, I’d better start to run.  So I ran fast, like a true ninja, all the way over to the bathroom block. 

The onlookers began cheering even louder and clapped along with my every footstep.  I could feel the buzz of excitement in the air, although it was a little disconcerting that people were making all this fuss over my trip to the toilets.  Probably there had been some kind of misunderstanding as quite often happens, that I’d managed to get myself mixed up in.  But I wasn’t going to stop running, as I kind of needed to go to the bathroom! 

A few strides later I reached the bathroom block and switched my torch off ready to go inside.  ‘‘Booooooooo!!!’’ the crowd of people sighed.   

‘‘False alarm!’’ I called out to them, as I flickered my little torch on and off in a somewhat Morse code-esque fashion, trying to muster something along the lines of ‘‘don’t worry!  I’m not an official torchbearer!’’ out in code.  For it wasn’t the real Olympic torch I was holding like everyone in the crowd had thought.  It was merely my ever ready little ninja camping torch.  A well-used, trusty little torch, but whether or not it truly deserved all the fame and attention, now that is debatable!

It was very much time to put the FTSE 100 to bed.  The weekend was here and this game of numbers was more about choosing some hopefully lucky lottery numbers, and the Ninja 500 – a Camping Ninja’s 500 tell-tale signs that the Spring/Summer 2012 camping season is well under way.

So here we go for the Ninja 500…

101 Dalmatians (or any breed of dog, in any quantity) allowed at Campingninja’s dog friendly campsites. 
 
117 days to go until the start of the Olympics and the party of happy campers Camping at the Games.

1 campsite available to book in beautiful Italy for anyone looking to escape Olympic fever in the UK this summer.
 
44 Spring daffodils brightening up the back garden.

More than 9 consecutive sunny days in a row in the Monkton Avenue area over the last couple of weeks and plenty of degrees warm enough for comfortable camping.

1 great Real Campers Meet Real Campsites campaign launched for keep it real campers.

5 whole more months left of every ninjas favourite, Spring/Summer camping season.

7 individual space raiders left in the bag for me to munch on while diarising the Ninja 500.

2 free days off work for the Easter weekend coming up.

4 spaces taken up with passengers in the ninja wagon, and 4 friends coming on this weekend’s camping trip.

8 precious centimetres of breathing space between each passenger with camping baggage squashed along the back seat of the ninja wagon.

10 minutes estimated until they all get slightly claustrophobic and annoyed!

A 12 track mixtape to listen to in the ninja wagon on our journey to the campsite – because for camping weekends away, it’s not just about where you’re going, but the fun you have on the way to getting there too.

3 pitches booked at the campsite and 173 miles of scenic driving to take in en-route.     

A quick adding up on my solar powered camping calculator (because doesn’t everyone always take one of those camping with them?) totals an almost perfect 501.  That means 1 more space raider to eat, yummy!  Then the Ninja 500 is complete.  Magic!

After a week of begging, ‘‘Please, no more raisins!’’ at the seemingly endless hoards of mince pies, mini stollen, slices of Christmas cake and helpings of Christmas pudding coming my way throughout the Christmas festivities – much to my delight (and relief!), raisin season had finally ended and a happy New Year had begun. And with just 2 days to go until the Camping At The Games priority booking opens, I simply could not wait to find out what campsites would be on offer during the Olympics. The excitement was almost too much to bear. In fact, to say I was excited was an understatement. I ninjatastically just couldn’t wait!

But until Thursday 5th January, all I could do was to wait. And sadly, there was only one thing for a waiting Camping Ninja to do to take my mind off it – eat more raisins!

Raisins in January was without a doubt, wrong, but I was sure it would be worth it, as then on Thursday, my 2012 Christmas would be sure to come early. Happy really early Christmas and Happy New Year! Here’s to a fantastic 2012 of camping, the Olympics and the following months less-raisined!

It was the long awaited stag weekend for one of my old friends named Johnny. We all gathered together in a minibus packed full of luggage and a surprise airline ticket was placed in each of our hands. Ooh, where would we be going I wondered? Then as if by magic, we were transported from a chilly November morning in the UK, to warmer climes and the hotel mecca and sunny beach resort of Benidorm in Spain.

We past hotel after hotel; weaving through streets laden with high rise buildings; passing endless hotel swimming pools; and traipsed along the long sandy beach. With my pop up tent placed keenly on the back of my ninja knapsack, I was on a mission to find a campsite to pop my tent up at.

We’d been walking around all day, all night even, and I was longing to see one of the brown camping and caravan signs with an arrow pointing in the direction of a quiet and peaceful campsite. Even with my ninja super sight I was finding it hard to see my way through the disco lights. Was hoping to find a campsite no more than a drunken dream I wondered? Perhaps a few too many drinks were causing me to see everything as one big blur, so I figured I’d need some local help to track the campsites down.

So I asked a friendly Spanish lady passing me on the street where I could find the nearest campsite around here, to which she very enthusiastically replied:

‘Viva la fiesta. Viva la noche. Viva los DJs.’

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing! The people here are crazy, I thought to myself. So I called out to my friend Johnny who was walking along the street behind me, and I said to him:

‘Johnny, which way did she say for the campsite?...

My friend Suzie had inadvertently managed to get the camping Frisbee stuck high up at the very top of one of the campsite trees.  We’d given everything a go trying to get it down – shaking branches, rattling the tree trunk, and even tried coaxing it into coming down with a few gentle words of encouragement – but it seemed that there was no way that the Frisbee was going to budge. 

So on the orders of the rest of the Frisbee team (‘Camping Ninja, you’ve got to go and climb the tree!’), I found myself tightly gripping onto the tree trunk and a couple of metres up above ground before I knew it. 

It was a long way up and after being overtaken by a squirrel, for the first time on ninja record, I found my ninja skills hugely inadequate in the climbing department.  There was a lot to be learnt from the skills of the bushy-tailed-monkey-nut-hoarding furry creature racing up the tree before me. 

I made a note in my secret diary of my new identified training need, but until then, it would be a little while longer until we could resume our game of Frisbee…!

I was used to hearing the birds sing.  In fact the bird music, or twit hop is one of the most relaxing sounds to a Camping Ninja’s ears – the sweet sounds of those delicate tweets from nature when you’re camping.  But this time these bird-like noises were different. 

Not specific to early in the morning, or to the early evening when most birds start do their final chatting before going to sleep – these softly spoken bird tweets seemed to be only audible when I was either on my way in or on my way out of the campsite shower block.

But where were the noises coming from?  Was I picking up some kind of alien activity due to my super powerful ninja sense of hearing?  Or had I gone completely mad and started hearing voices in my head?  I hoped it wasn’t that, and I didn’t think it was as I didn’t yet believe that the doors and walls of the shower block had three heads and the voice of my Auntie Matilda, or think that they were out to get me.

I tried to pick out the words they were saying and translated it from Bird to English on the ninjabile.  Something about being hungry for worms and growing feathers.  Very strange.  I wondered what it was all about and despite racking my brains and thinking with all my ninja power, I still couldn’t figure out where the little noises were coming from.

Back at the tent I asked the others if they’d heard the funny noises too, but no one had.  I was sure I wasn’t just being paranoid.  Had I forgotten to take the ninjapod out of my ears?  No, and I didn’t remember ever downloading a track with lyrics about worms and feathers anyway.  Had my Twitter feed gone into a live broadcast directly into my ears? … I thought about the possibility of that one for a little while, until I remembered it was only 2011 and not 2015.  Technology via the ninjabile was not that advanced yet.  There had to be another explanation.

The next morning it all became clear.  A note had been taped to the cigarette bin that was attached to the outside of the shower block.  It read ‘Birds nesting. Please do not use’.

Ah.  That was where all the little twittering had come from.  A family of birds had ingeniously turned the cigarette box into a nesting box and made it their home.  It dawned on me that the reason the chicks only seemed to be tweeting at me, was probably because they thought I was their Ninja Papa going past (same kind of nose you see). 

Well who can blame them for wanting to stay at the campsite, as this campsite has been great.  So good in fact, that these non-ninja's have extended their stay and made a temporary home here.  Actually I am tempted to do the same myself too, but I’m built much more for tents than little boxes.  Big ninja head, small cigarette box, it wouldn’t work!

With all the different tents you can see at campsites, there really is something for everyone.  From trailer tents and camper vans, to caravans, little pop up tents and 8 man palaces, big tents, small tents, and of course ninja tents too, there are many different styles of camping homes to choose from.  Now that's diversity.  And I don't mean as in the dance troupe (they're cool and everything but I'm much more of a Peridot fan myself).  

If it's true what they say about dogs looking like their owners, I wonder if the same applies to tents?  (That's tents that look like their owners, not tents that look like dogs!)...  Looking around our campsite, it does seem to be the case.

Proud owner of a tent that looks like you or not, as every camper knows, no matter how much you love your own tent, there's always another one at the campsite that catches your eye and admiration too.     

In amongst a field of tents encompassing decades of style – 70s cool and simplicity, tents with a little bit of an 80s flavour, and tents from the early 90s that can't help but remind you of a pair of Bermuda shorts – this one here would be my favourite today (as per ninja cam photo). 

To the tent of the day - a retro gem of a tent, and the tent to steal a ninja's heart away.