Cherry Hinton 4-6 Nov 11

Midweek saw a change of plan for the coming weekend (Families eh? Who'd have 'em). Resigned to a weekend confined to home, Debs had the bright idea of "going local", which seemed a barking mad idea until I mentioned it at work the following day and people generally thought it a great idea. We trawled the Camping Club website for somewhere nearby, although the website was playing up with dead links and not much information. Finally we found a site at Trumpington, near the park and ride and walkable into Cambridge. After much to-ing and fro-ing on the pathetic Camping Club Site we found that the campsite has now closed for the winter and the nearby Caravan Club site at Cherry Hinton was showing fully booked. So, on Thursday night went to bed a bit depressed and not looking forward to a potentially boring weekend.

We were, however, quite impressed with the Caravan Club website, which was significantly more user friendly and useful than the Camping Club website. On the off-chance, I rang Cherry Hinton - still fully booked but they suggested I call back later. I rang at 1500hrs. They had space! Quick call to Debs telling her that we had to be on site by 1900hrs and asking what she wanted packed. In record time, the bus was home, fridge packed, clothes packed, 30 litres of water on board and fridge/freezer cooling ready for the off as soon as she got home. Luckily, she managed to get an earlier train and we left home just before 1800hrs and arrived on site in good time.

Cherry Hinton is a delightful site placed in an old chalk quarry, once used to mine Lime for the mortar for the University. It is, however, very dark and we had to get Tom onto his alloted spot in the darkness, which took a few shunts backwards and forwards as we couldn't see the hardstanding in the dark.  

Once in and settled, the beer was opened, the curry heated and a relaxing evening followed.

Saturday saw us walking the 3 miles into Cambridge, pootling around the shops and spending the voucher that Debs had received from Cafe Rouge for a free bottle of Champagne. Campagne, confit de canard and a large ice cream at lunchtime were very nice, but had to be walked off, albeit we stopped at a couple of pubs on the way back, especially to celebrate yet another glorious Harlequins win against Barf! 8 miles in total meant that we were ready for cheese and biscuits and numerous cups of tea to sober up, before turning in for a good night's sleep.

Sunday I got up early and went for a walk around the local nature reserve and then picked up the Sunday papers, returning for a very relaxing Sunday morning in a warm and cosy bus. So much for the planned bike ride!

From a mad idea of going local for the weekend, the trip worked out remarkably well. It feels like we have been on holiday. We have explored parts of Cambridge we hadn't previously been and it would have cost us £10.80 to travel to Cambridge on the bus (nearly the cost of one night's camping fees). We will probably do that trip again!