Being a volunteer at the Hawk Conservancy Trust is hard work and challenging but it has numerous benefits.  One of these presented itself during the August bank holiday weekend.  It is usually the most demanding weekend of the year with up to 800 visitors expected daily; add to this a round trip of almost three hours each day to get to the Trust from home here in Dorset and I was going to be pretty tired.

Because of this I asked Tracey if, with another volunteer, Julez, I could camp in the car park on Saturday night.  She agreed and so on Saturday morning I set off with sleeping bags, tents and a torch.

While driving my thoughts turned to how great it would be to camp not in the car park but in the meadow.  When I arrived at the trust I ask Julez what she thought and she agreed that it would be ‘cool beans’ which to you and me means that it was a brilliant idea.  With this I approached Ash who agreed.  I was so excited we were going to camp in the meadow. Hooray!

It was at lunchtime that things changed.  Ash had been thinking about it and wanted to join our camp with his two sons; he would bring sausages and light a fire and we would have a proper camp.  I was not sure about a fire in the meadow with visions of a blackened landscape for bank holiday Sunday, but Ash assured me all would be fine.

The youngsters supervising the BBQ (note Ashley's double sprung matress in the background)

Once the park had closed we started making camp, the scent of rosemary was gorgeous as we erected the tents, and Simon another volunteer came and helped us, later joined by his daughter Collette, who works in the coffee shop.  Collette’s enthusiasm led to another tent being brought up from Ash’s house and now there were seven of us camping.

The funniest part of the evening was when Ash was unloading the Landover full of equipment he brought with him, with a mischievous smile he looked at Julez and myself and said “I like camping but I do need a double sprung mattress to sleep on”, with that he pulled out of the vehicle a double spring camp bed with mattress.

Morning, campers!

The fire was lit and we settled down to sausages and coffee, sharing stories and jokes in a magical setting, with a back drop of children laughing and running round the meadow.  Later research students arrived, with the Tawny owl project sponsors, who had spent the evening tracking the owls in the local woods. 

We enjoyed baked bananas and chocolate before saying goodbye to our guests and settling down for the night, with Simon identifying constellations of stars for us.

In the morning we struck camp early and were back on the park at 8.30 to start a day’s work, happy albeit a little weary.

Experiences like that only come round once in a while, so thank you to everyone who came along, and thank you to James for not sneaking down and scaring us in the night, despite Ashley boys’ encouragement.