Monday to Wednesday 19-21 June – Cannock Chase

Where’s Bertie? He’s spending two nights at Tackeroo Campsite on Cannock Chase, where it costs £20 per night, unless you manage to get one of the 5-per-day ‘early bird’ pitches, which we did on Tuesday, so our stay came to £35.

Weather: Monday – sunny and warm; Tuesday – heavy rain until about 1030, giving way to drizzle then finally coming sunny in the late afternoon; Wednesday – Sunny intervals and warm.

Monday

We’re having a little holiday, in a location so close to home that it’s not just ‘day trip’ territory, but ‘We’ll just nip there for a 10k run’ territory, staying at the campsite opposite the car park we usually use, and through which our usual circuit around the Chase runs.

So close to home are we that even with a need to nip to a supermarket en-route, we left home at gone noon and arrived two minutes after the earliest arrival time of 1300. Leaving home we had a brief discussion as to route, and opted to go the way we would usually travel, even though it involves a short narrow section of road – no problem unless you meet a lorry or bus coming the other way. With weight limits on surrounding roads, it’s not often these days that lorries use that road and I reasoned that with the bus service only running one per hour, the chances of meeting a bus were, oooh, around 99% certain.

We duly met the bus at the narrowest bit of road.

With some water put into Bertie’s tank (something we would have done before leaving home, except that if we were going to pay £20 just to park somewhere for a  night, then I was jolly well going to use their water supply), it only took us a few moments to choose where to plonk Bertie. There are no marked pitches, and capacity for around 70 units. With seven units there on Monday and five on Tuesday, there was no need to consider best use of space; instead we just chose to put Bertie in the biggest patch of sunshine we could see.

Bertie in a nice big clearing, allowing the sun to reach his solar panel

Not much to report from the rest of the day. Our activity only extended to a late afternoon circuit via the Visitor Centre.

Tuesday

Today was the reason for taking a holiday so close to home. Last week we travelled to the Lakes for Mick to do a couple of long runs, but due to the high temperatures/lack of water, we postponed for a week. This week, rather than driving all the way back to the Lakes, we went for the logistically easy option of Cannock Chase: even if the temperature had been just as hot as last week, Mick could run circuits of whatever size seemed appropriate for the frequency of water refills he wanted. Clearly, we could have driven over just for the day, as we have uncountable times before, but by staying over we could call it a holiday and have an extra half an hour in bed whilst still achieving an early start.

I’d planned to join Mick for his first lap, but when I heard the rain drumming down, postponing my run seemed like a much better idea, so it was just Mick who headed out at 0715.

I then planned to join Mick for his second lap, but the rain was still drumming down when he popped by for second breakfast, so I postponed again. It’s not entirely that I’m a fair-weather runner, more the thought of how much wet stuff we would have lying around if we both got soaked.

By the time Mick was an hour through his next lap, my feet were itchy and the rain had slowed to a drizzle, so I headed out to intercept him. I only stayed with him for a couple of kilometres, cutting back to Bertie when we reached the Visitor Centre so that I could have his next set of food and drink waiting for him.

As he headed out for his final lap, I followed a minute later, but in a different direction. Figuring that our paces wouldn’t be well-matched, I opted for a different (and shorter) route. The drizzle finally stopped just as I was on my way back to Bertie. By the time Mick got back the sun was coming out.

Rain has nearly, but not quite, stopped

That's not Bertie, but some of Bertie is visible in the distance. There really is a lot of room on this site when there are only four vehicles there (as was the case when I took this snap)

It had been a successful day, with Mick covering just over 51km. Understandably, after showers, we’ve sat around for the rest of the day.

Wednesday

A gloriously sunny day and a ‘please vacate your pitch by 11am’ request, so we were up and out again by 0730, Mick for a gentle 2 hours, me for a little longer.

We set out together, but soon lost each other

I managed to take a wrong turn somewhere along the way, which is quite impressive considering how many times I’ve done this route and where I went awry (had it been in the area to the north of Penkridge Bank, I could have used the excuse that the paths currently look completely different from what we’re used to due to the bracken, but I was on the forest tracks on the south side, which look exactly as they always do), but other than adding in a bit of extra ascent, it made no difference to my objectives.

Sunshine!

Water's low 

Back at Bertie, it would have been nice to spend the rest of the day lazing around in the pleasant forest setting, but we weren’t at liberty to do that*, so everything got packed away and back home we came.  

We clearly mistimed our journey, as this time we met the once-per-hour bus a couple of hundred metres before the narrow bit of road.

A surprisingly good time was had, not so much with our circuits of the Chase (which we do quite regularly anyway and are always lovely), but staying over on site. So, whilst the campsite is undoubtedly well overpriced for what it is (facilities = tap (not for exclusive use of paying campsite guests), chemical disposal point and bin; and it’s not at all private with walkers, runners, mountain bikers and horse riders coming through at all times), we would go back, provided we could get an ‘early bird’ pitch.

(*I’m beginning to think that the NHS has invested in a ‘they’ve gone away for a week’ sensor, as it’s becoming uncanny how many times lately we’ve gone away, intending the trip to last a week, only to receive a phone call from appointments that requires us to return home. For this trip we’d packed for a week, albeit without a plan as to where we were going after Cannock Chase.)