Camping in Shropshire

by Alan Cole · Monday, July 4th, 2011

I’ve barely ever been to Shropshire properly before but we’ve just got back from a lovely weekend camping just outside of a little village called Marshbrook, not far from Church Stretton in the Shropshire Hills.

Camping

We were there to do the CRC MTB-Marathon on Sunday (more on that in another post) but as part of the entry fee you get free camping on site for Friday, Saturday and Sunday night if you wish along with lots of other things. As it was such nice weather and we had a new tent to try out we headed across the border on Friday evening.

As we drove onto the campsite we saw Darren (Badexcuseforasailor from Forces-of-Nature). We didn’t know that he was going to be there but we had a chat as we set the tent up. We then all headed down to the event village which was just below the camping field. We checked out the lay of the land, registered for Sunday’s event and went for a steak dinner in the Station Inn which was on the site.

Sunset

The food was good, although the set up was a little odd and there wasn’t a huge amount between us all. After a bit more of a chat and some chilling as the sun set we all headed off to bed.

The campsite itself was nice too, very basic as it was just a temporary site in a field above the event village with some portaloos, a water bowser and some showers. It did however have nice views out over the surrounding, very hilly, Shropshire countryside.

Saturday was spent mainly in the campsite for us. Morgan made friends with some other children and they were off playing on their bikes, playing rounders, climbing tress getting stung by stinging nettles and doing other things that boys do. We also wandered down to the event village to check out the various stalls and bought a couple of ‘T’ Shirts. Morgan’s simply had the slogan:

Chocolate &

Sweets &

Bikes

Which we thought was pretty cool!

Camping in Shropshire

My brother Jay and Brad, along with one of Jay’s sons, Harry, arrived later in the day, just in time for Jay and I to head off to do a MTB skills course that we had signed up to do. It was OK and we may have learnt something, but with a fairly large group and only 1.5 hours we didn’t do much and didn’t really get much feedback on what we were doing either. It was a nice excuse to play on our bikes though.

As well as the free camping and free bike skills course, there was a free pasta party on Saturday night so we obviously went to the event village for that and had our free pasta, followed by some chicken rolls cooked on the BBQ by the tents.

The weather stayed kind to us all weekend and the race itself was good – I’ll write about that separately, but while Jay, Brad and I were out riding on the Sunday, Harry and Morgan did a couple of skills courses too while Anna chilled (as much as you can chill when trying to keep an eye on Morgan) in the sunshine. Before long though it was time to pack up and head home.

Waiting in line

Morgan

Skills Training

All in all a great weekend camping and a good event too. It’s nice to make a weekend of such things and it makes the actual bike ride just another thing that is happening. The organisation was good, the location was perfect and there is always something happening. It’s not a quiet, secluded camping trip as you are packed into what becomes a pretty busy campsite, but that’s part of the fun and the fact that everyone is into biking and the great outdoors makes for a really good atmosphere. Just wandering around the campsite is good as there are plenty of shiny bikes to look at, all manor of tents and camping arrangements, and of course the occasional biking fashion faux-pas to giggle at!