On the first day of my journey through heaven and hell, Sarah Chaplin-Brice
met us at the door saying: “I will show you the facilities. It takes 19
seconds. There's the dining area, loo, shower, and you sleep upstairs.
That's it. Ha. Ha. Ha!”
Trevor the turkey strutted in the field beyond the barn door. A log-stove
hogged one corner and outside ran a stream I could actually hear. Upstairs,
eight shiny mattresses stood on end like so many soldiers. Around me, rough
stone walls. Slate roof. Wooden floor. Chilled air. Skylight. Nineteen
seconds.
Welcome to the world of camping barns. The accommodation is basic, but you
stay dry if it rains and although facilities are meagre, the locations of
these magnificently gaunt buildings are remote and beautiful. And the cost?
Well, that's the other thing: £7 a night. How can you lose?
Friend Peter and I were testing this very question through an inventive new
scheme that links several Lake District camping barns using specially
produced walking maps that create two, three, or four-night voyages into the
wild countryside around Keswick in the Lake District.
Walk all day, then in the evening fetch up at one of these converted buildings
that hang like rough pearls on the string of your own footslogged travels -
and slob out. You can book online, pay beforehand, shoulder your pack and
sleeping bag... and off you go.
So that's what we did, arriving that first night at rambling Low Bridge End
Farm, in the remote hamlet of St John's in the Vale, where wild-haired Sarah
made us so welcome with her jokes, jollity, cakes and jam that we
volunteered to walk Tess the dog for her while waiting for the pub to open.
Next morning we packed our stove, plates, cups, clothes and sleeping bags.
Then we wolfed down a trouser-busting breakfast (£6.50) and set off up the
valley following laminated maps and detailed route descriptions - which
proved decent enough but occasionally flawed, each sheet taking us to the
next barn via one or two whimsical ambiguities, but also loads of grand
sights.
Anne Graves at Catbells, our second barn, made us welcome, showing us a
similarly beautiful old-stone building with a raised sleeping platform and
mattresses, a lavatory and shower block a few yards away - hot water by
meter, roughly a pound a shower. We bought coal in a bucket (£2) and set a
blaze going while outside, ducks quacked, hens strutted, fields smouldered
silently green, and distant fells dusted with spring snow cupped a
sheltering valley.
If there is an afterlife, there would definitely be a place in it for this
kind of experience, which has to do with earning pleasures - of walking
across fine but hard countryside so that your skin tingles with sweat and
cold air; then heaving what's left of your body into a comfy seat while
beautiful bar staff ply you with good things and smile as if you matter.
Then back to another empty barn that was, again, ours alone (they can share
eight to 12, but on these nights we hit lucky).
Next morning, we set off again for another day's walking, this time harder,
climbing a total of 700m (2,300ft) up Catbells mountain and along a peak
wittily called High Spy. The distances we could see were immense and filled
with lakes, rivers, mountains and teetering vales, all wrapped in a sense of
adventure that we just would not have felt had we been heading for a hotel,
a cosy B&B even.
It wasn't exactly hellish, our third night. More a kind of uneasy purgatory.
The only café in Rosthwaite was closed on Wednesdays; the “local” pub, the
Riverside Bar, had no hand-basin in the urinals and sold bar wine at
restaurant prices.
But the final disappointment was that we shared Dinah Hoggus barn, just
outside the tiny village, with six university students. They were lovely
blokes, but having a bunch of jolly vodka-boys “tiptoe” back into the dorm
at two in the morning somehow stole our accumulated serenity.
Next day, another great walk completed the circle taking us back to our cars,
and Tess the dog, and lovely, jolly Sarah. It had been a terrific trip,
though next time I would probably book sole usage of the barns, which is
still cheap. It's not that I don't like strangers, just that our kind of
journey dwelt in the land of boyish make believe. And that's best done
alone.
Need to know
A Lakeland Camping Barn (01946 758198, www.lakelandcampingbarns.co.uk)
costs from £7pp per night plus power and heating. Anyone can book a barn for
sole use (multiply the maximum number the barn can accommodate by £7), which
is a requirement for families with children under 5 and pet owners
You can also do this in the Alentejo region of portugal.. you can tour the region by foot or horseback.. great food/wine country.. I stayed at rio tejo retreats.. it felt like the we were the only people on earth.. heaven!
Sarah Townsend, dublin, ireland
Never mind the hair, Sarah's cooking rocks!
Mike, Bristol, UK
Apparently with the right contacts you can do something similar in Serbia...
Tom, London,
Take note of Roe's point on the unpredictability of your sleeping partners in these barns. Unless you book sole use in advance you may end up sharing with a large, inconsiderate group whose noisy, drunken late night revels will guarantee you a sleepless night of seething impotently.
John Paul Jones
John Paul Jones, Bridlington, UK
I can certainly recommend jolly Sarah's cakes from mfirst hand experience.
David, Ottawa, Canada
Barn hopping, hmmmm, is this going to be a new Olympic sport?
Marc, Paris, France