What do you get when you mix torrential rain with a summer weight tent? Well a yurt actually!!

We set  out for our little family summer holiday at the start of last week and in the absence of a passport for my youngest we kept it simple and headed for South Wales for some camping. Unfortunately the weather took a turn for the worst as we headed away but couldnt be helped!

Our campsite was towards the Cardigan bay area and the nearest big town would have to be Cardigan about 20 minutes away so we were really out in the country.

We stayed at a campsite called Wellstone cottages – https://www.wellstonecottages.co.uk/  and found out on arrival that not only did they have tent pitches but also cottages and yurts as well as farm animals like Alpacas (left), a games room and even a hot tub (although didnt get to use that). We found the hosts incredibly friendly and really helpful giving us places to go in the local area.

Once we got to the camping field myself and my son Sean set to work getting our two two man tents setup. At the moment there are lots of wasps around as I’m sure you know and this made life a little tricky as Sean gets quite scared about getting stung so when he was holding something for me he’d suddenly run away screaming “wasp,wasp” so made the process a bit longer than it would normally be!!

He had however been excited about going proper camping, especially the roasting of marshmallows for a long while and where there were fire pits setup on the site already it made this task pretty straightforward. So once the tents were setup, I went into caveman mode and got the fire for our marshmallows plus the barbeque going to cook dinner on.

We had two good nights of camping after that and visited Cardigan which is a beautiful little walled town with a castle and an amazing pizzeria next to the river with open fires under a big tent/shelter to sit under when the weather is misbehaving. 

After that we went to Mwnt which is a small bay with a hill on either side and also dolphins (apparently that area has the largest population of bottlenosed dolphins in europe!). We went to the top of the hill but didnt see any dolphins and after that decided to go down to the beach.

 The little bay there was gorgeous and reminded me of the best places Cornwall has to offer, the water was freezing but I braved the sea and even persuaded Sean to come with me whilst his little brother Ari and mum played in the sand. There were lots of people bodyboarding so for next year that is going to be the basis of at least one trip for us!

The next day we went to Tenby to have a look around which was fine apart from the fact that  it rained so we couldnt get to the beach so we just went around the shops and played in the amusement arcade for Sean and headed back. Thats when disaster struck.

On arriving back a big pool of water had formed in the corners of both our summer weight tents. Both of our sleeping bags got wet and Andreas air mattress had got wet quite a bit in the corners. It became apparent we couldnt camp, especially with a 8 month old baby so I hastily started to pack up in the rain.

Whilst that happened the campsite owners came down to see how things were going, they noticed our peril and offered us a yurt which people had no showed for as it was gone 8pm. We were just going to go and find a hotel so jumped at the chance to do something different and still have a semi camping/mongolian experience!

The yurt was like a traditional Mongolian yurt and was furnished traditionally inside. It had lovely fleecy pillows a domed window /skylight in the roof as well as a toasty woodburner inside which doubled up as a clothes and sleeping bag drier!! We had a wonderful night sleeping to the tapping of the rain on the glass dome and feeling so warm at one point we had to open the door to let in some fresh air whilst looking out at the tent campers who probably werent feeling quite so lucky!!!

The next day was heading home to Southampton we stopped at the wonderful Wookey hole on the way home for a night and went down into the caves and did mini golf to keep the little-un entertained and stayed at the hotel there as well which gave Sean free and pretty much exclusive access to the Wookey hole soft play area in the evening as well which he loved!

So all in all a great holiday with some great things and new experiences for the kids!