Base Camp Journal: Return to Tenby
Tenby is Robby's favourite destination, and he's determined to spend a few days there at least once a year. Of course, we booked a pitch at Meadow Farm again. As far as we know, it's the only site within a short walk of the town, and it overlooks the coast. Like pretty much all the coastal sites we visited, it's on high ground and exposed to the worst of bad weather. Thankfully it was okay the last week.
Meadow Farm looks very much the same as it did last May, but there have been some improvements. The road leading to the entrance had been surfaced, making it a lot easier to walk there and back. The site has new (and very clean) bathroom and shower facilities. The MCB on the power supply doesn't trip when we use the kettle. Drainage was added to prevent the pitches becoming waterlogged - the ground was perfect for setting up the awning.
The site was also a lot busier than the last time we stayed, and is evidently popular among people with tents and small camper vans.
A Couple of Base Camp Accessories
Someone on the Swift Basecamp Owners FaceBook group asked about the Cadac kit. We occasionally use the Cadac Safari Chef 2, and it does work perfectly well. It's very compact, but still capable of functioning as a decent-sized barbequeue. The standard Cadac Safari Chef is designed to run off something like a Coleman Performance C500 cannister, but we bought an aftermarket attachment to connect it to the main gas supply.
Robby decided to add a Roberts Revival Petit, which is a miniature version of my iStream, to his collection of orange things. Having excellent sound quality, battery life, DAB reception and the ability to stream anything from a smartphone over Bluetooth, make it an ideal media centre for a Base Camp.
The Town
Aside from spending a few hours in Saundersfoot, we mainly wandered around the town, and it was a much nicer experience this year. The pubs were closed for most of 2021 - there are plenty of things to see when the weather is good anyway. We returned briefly in October, and about the only place one could relax with a pint then was The Five Arches Tavern, which remains my favourite pub there because of its very sociable atmosphere. The Hope and Anchor is probably the best place to have a meal, and The Lifeboat Tavern is a good place to stop in the daytime.
Much to my disappointment, we didn't encounter Bill Nighy. I have a thing for Bill, and have sometimes fantasised about bundling him into the back of a Nissan Cube, or other suchlike vehicle, so we could spend time together and go nice places.
We also had a look inside the Tenby Lifeboat Station for the first time. It's essentially a hangar for a pretty large boat.
Apparently the RNLI are quite active around Tenby. Just the night before, we saw them in action. The alarm went off in The Hope and Anchor, as Robby and I were leaving. Less than five minutes later, as we were taking a short cut through the harbour, the rescue team had already assembled and were being deployed. They headed out to Saundersfoot, or thereabouts.
It transpired, we learned the next day, that someone in a fishing boat was having engine trouble.