Out In The Open

You've heard the phrase 'camper than a row of tents', right?

Well the place where Stu and I (plus three small dogs) decided to pitch our canvas a fortnight ago, it wasn't just the tents that were camp - the whole place was. A camp campsite if you will.

I'm talking about a wonderful place called Out In The Open, located just outside the small town of Porkellis in western Cornwall (between Helston and Falmouth). The former farm-turned-campsite is run by two fantastic women, Cath and Dee, who opened it primarily for the solar eclipse back in 1999. It proved so popular they now run it now as a campsite for gay people - one of the first to ever be opened in the UK I should imagine.

The journey from Cardiff to Cornwall took four hours plus, so I was a little frazzled by the time we drove up an extremely narrow and bumpy track (literally the width of the car) to access the site. Once there, we were welcomed by Cath who, taking a break from cleaning the toilets, gave us a thorough tour of the site and its amenities.

Cath and Dee keep the place spotlessly clean and they operate the most impressive recycling system for used items. The camping field is large and, as numbers of people at a time are limited, there is plentiful space between pitches. There is even a separate field kept free for the dogs to roam in - which our little trio did to their hearts content. And the girls have also utilised the existing farm structures there; for example an old barn is now been a meeting area for campers during the evening, with tables, chairs, electrical points and coloured lights... however, it does have a strict 11pm kicking out time! As we found out...

The campsite proved perfect for us - not only in terms of peace and quiet, (and, of course, a place where we could just be ourselves as gay people) but also gave us easy access to places of interest in Cornwall. We visited the wonderful Trebah Gardens with it's huge gunnera plants and impressive ranges of bamboos, the truly amazing Cornish Seal Sanctuary near Gweek (Stu's favourite place), the beautiful little harbour town of Mousehole (promouned Mouse-zul, or something like that) and a visit to Tate St Ives (my favourite place!) where there was an exhibition of the work of American artist Alex Katz. Oh, and on our last night we treated ourselves to a fish and chip dinner at Rick Stein's place in Falmouth. Oooh, get us!

However, one of the best things about staying at Out In The Open was the wonderful people we encountered there. We met two lovely couples - Angela and Natalie, Gary and Paul - who we spent an evening chatting to and drinking with in the barn, a couple of northern lasses who were staying in the tipi and a collective of campers who had set up their various tents around a large gazebo with rainbow lighting inside it. And a mirrorball, of course.

One of the more eccentric aspects of the site was the rather large number of Barbie and Ken/Action Man dolls that populated communal areas. It was a lovely touch and the source of much amusement for many. By this I mean every morning when we went to the shower block we were usually met by the five action men in the sink areas in increasingly imaginative intimate positions. Quite extraordinary. And inspiring.

Anyway... here is a link to the site's, er, site. Pics to follow.