The LEJOG Awards

In the last few days of our LEJOG jaunt* we amused ourselves for a couple of evenings playing ‘best XXX’ and ‘worst XXX’.

The result was the LEJOG Awards. Our votes were as follows:

Best campsite
(taking into account value for money, location and facilities):
Me: Cheddar Bridge (£7 for two per night, excellent facilities, well kept and with a river right by the pitch)
Mick: Hadrian’s Wall C&CC (close to best facilities of any campsite, good location, cheap breakfast, good layout; lost out for me due to the poor state of the grass (or lack thereof))

Best value campsite
Central Caravans, Watten (£5 for two, including use of the washing machine and kettle)

Worst Campsite
(value for money doesn’t come into this category; this is purely those that we disliked):
Tanpits Cider Farm just outside Taunton (cheapest campsite we stayed on, but horribly unclean facilities amongst other complaints);
tied with:
Tyne Willows Caravan Park in Alston (expensive, dreadful facilities and entered via a scrapyard, to name a few complaints).

Worst Value Campsite
Border Forest Caravan Park, Byrness (£14 and not even any soap or hand drying facilities – and it was the midgiest experience of the whole trip!);
tied with
Tyne Willows, Alston (£10, with hideously bad facilities)

Best Wildcamp
The other side of the river from Culra Lodge. Magical place to wake up. See the second photo here.

Worst Wildcamp
None was bad, but on a comparative basis, the one by Broomy Law had nothing to recommend it and the one after Cauldstane Slap was blighted by midges.

Best Bothy Night
Loch Choire (okay, it really was an unfair category as we only had one Bothy Night, but it was good enough to warrant an award)

Best View
Coming upon Loch Ericht. See first photo here.

Best non-camping accommodation
Warren’s Farm, Yeoford

(A handful of others deserved commendations too - like Weavers at Trevescan, Hafren House in Welshpool, Kinrara at Whaley Bridge and Allanfauld Farm at Kilsyth)

Best Value non-camping accommodation:
Warren’s Farm, Yeoford
(Highly commended: Allanfauld Farm, Kilsyth)

Worst non-camping accommodation
The White Lion at Weston
(a very shoddy, very dated room, at an above-budget price, took an age to track down a member of staff to check us in and it was the only place that agreed to an early breakfast and then served us only cereal and toast).

Worst value non-camping accommodation
Oykel Bridge Hotel (in close contest with Langdon Beck YHA)

Best Meal
Cross Keys, Kippen. Really, if you’re in the area, go and try it (highly commended: Kinlochewe Hotel and G&A, Melrose)

Worst Meal
The extreme error of smooth oatcakes and peanut butter for three lunches during a string of wild-camps. It makes me shudder just to think of it.

Best Day
Can’t choose. Almost all were good and with all of the different ingredients that made up a good day we couldn’t say that any one good day was better than another.

Worst Day
(a few days had a bad point or two, but this is the one that really stood out in our minds – plus it was the day on which I lost my compass, which of the few things I lost on the way was the most expensive to replace)

Maelor Way.

(*Can you believe it was over a month ago already? Where does the time go?)