Cheddar Gorge

A few years ago we decided to go a romantic weekend away to Cheddar Gorge for Valentine’s day. Except we were skint. Our way around this was by booking a campsite for two nights. In February.  I’m somewhat of a dreamer, or ignore-all advice and hope my plan works type person and this definitely came into play here.  As you can imagine everyone laughed at the thought of it and advised us otherwise, thus the stubbornness set in. So one bright February morning we set off on the cross-country drive from my uni in Hatfield to Cheddar Gorge. We had a booking with Petruth Paddocks, I had found them via pitchup.com and also booked a campsite in France in the same evening (that is a story for another time).  The campsite was bare and surprisingly empty, and we exclaimed at how nice it must be there in the summertime.

At once we (Evan) set up the tent. We had borrowed his mum’s, as our one had been destroyed on a previous trip. I then decorated the inside, going to great effort to make it look homely with fairy lights and blankets aplenty. We tucked our cool box full of beers and bbq food inside the tent and headed into town. We had a good night drinking in Cheddar’s local pubs our favourite being an old pebble dash pub; The White Hart. The staff were really friendly, as were the locals, and we sat chatting for hours. On our return to the campsite I have memories of being in an orange-lit bar full of cowboys, whilst writing this I asked Ev what am I remembering and he told me that we stopped in an American-style saloon. After not a lot of research I found that we must have been at “The Black Dog Saloon,” whether it really was full of cowboys or not I don’t know, maybe the décor (or the shots) is hazing my memory, either way a very niche place to be in a traditional English town.

Back at the campsite we started a fire and drank merrily around it, becoming aware of our lonesomeness on the site. After some while, another couple pulled up and set themselves up in the now pitch black evening. They didn’t want to engage with us and promptly went into the tent and as much as we saw they didn’t come out again.  A few light raindrops began falling gracefully so we decided to go to sleep in our cosy, clean, dry tent.

Our tent trying to be cosy

Unfortunately, that isn’t where we woke up. After just a few hours I was shaking with cold and had forced Ev to get dressed after fearing he would catch hypothermia and die. The rain was heavy now and viciously attacking our tent. I dozed on and off for a few more hours until I could take it no longer, I was soaked through and freezing. The side of the tent was suctioned to my face and the battery packs for the fairy lights had filled with water. It was relentless. Finally, I pulled on more layers and left the tent running straight to the car. As soon as I shut the rain out, and my fingers had defrosted, I phoned my dad, I don’t know why just a panic habit I guess. He advised leaving the campsite, just as he had advised not going there in the first place.  I waited half an hour or so until I saw Ev running to join me. Promptly we phoned a nearby B and B and asked to come at once, thankfully they obliged. We grabbed the essentials from the tent and made our way, deciding to collect the tent, mattress, blankets, and whatever else the next day. 

Blissfully unaware of the night ahead

Feeling temporarily relieved we began the short drive. Minutes away from our savior B and B we met Pelting Drove Hill. I am not a fan of driving on hills or really driving in general but hills have always caused accelerated stress. At the sheer sight of this monstrous mountain, I rammed my foot onto the accelerator, unknown to that our dual gearbox 107 wouldn’t like that. I watched the gear rapidly change on the screen in front of me increasing and decreasing from 1-3 continuously. I won't lie, I screamed (a lot), the hill was steep and the car wasn’t moving well at all. I remember the car rolling backward, Ev yelling “it's just a road” and then a constant beeping from the car. I must have released my foot a little as just before a real disaster occurred, we sprang to life and reached the summit, thankful to be alive and grateful to our little red car for not giving up.  Traumatised, cold, and wet, we entered Ebborways B and B. We were so appreciative of their hospitality that we pulled all the sausages, bacon, and whatever else we had bought, from our rain-filled cool box and passed them to the owners as some kind of thank you gift, it felt really necessary at the time but on reflection, it's a bit weird.

We were shown to our room, quickly showered, and dived straight into bed. To this day, that bed is the comfiest bed I have ever slept in, hands down. Warm, toasty, clean, all the opposites to what that morning had already brought, causing us to fall into a wonderful slumber. It wasn’t until after our nap that I realised how pink everything in our room was, I felt contented in our giant pink marshmallow. Alas, our stomachs were not, so we forced ourselves out of the heavenly bed and back into the rain in search of a pub.

We were not disappointed; a short walk took us to “The QueenVictoria Inn”. I ordered a baileys hot chocolate to keep out any cold and a steak pie with chips. I was not disappointed, as someone who is a bit fussy with food, especially meat, this was absolutely perfect.  Obviously, we had been traumatised, frozen, and starved (slight exaggerations (maybe)) but the food was spectacular. Over 4 years have passed and not many meals have come close to this one. So a day that started badly has had 2 unmatched outcomes, not bad going.  We drank in the pub for most of the evening, chatting to locals who – when we explained our horror- agreed on the fear of the hill, I found this more reassuring than, “it’s just a road!”  Soon enough the bed called us home and once again was I absorbed into the marshmallow. 

It took a lot to get out of it again the next morning, but it was Valentine's day and the smell of breakfast was too tempting and so worth it.  Whether they used our soggy sausages or not, it was wonderful.

 We drove into the town shortly after eating, and saying a hard farewell to the bed, to explore the Gorge.  Unfortunately, half of the attractions were closed so we hopped on a bus tour a saw what we could, the Gorge was breath-taking and seemed never-ending. We roamed around and walked through some caves which were fun, and obviously bought some cheese which came in very handy with some crackers for lunches the next week as I had spent all of my money on the B and B. We enjoyed seeing the sights as the sun shone for our afternoon strolling. Finally, we decided it was time to return to the campsite and collect our belongings. We hoped intently that it was still there as explaining a lack of tent would have been hard. It was there, but not quite where we had left it. It had blown into the ditch with our blankets and whatever else was still inside, so that was a fun retrieval. The rain came back as we dismantled it and yet again my fingers were numb.

Lesson learnt: don’t camp in England in February.

Thankfully our Cheddar Gorge ticket is valid for 10 years, so if we fancy a return trip we can see all the sights we missed at no extra cost. Genius.

A Valentine’s day to remember.