After dinner I was feeling much better, and on going outside I found three Belgian lads admiring my car. They asked the usual questions. I was rather cruel and let them ask because I thought it would be good practice for their English. One of them asked if it was waterproof, and my Fig is indeed, as long as the roof isn't folded back.
My second night in Stirling I stayed at the Witches Craig campsite, which is a couple of miles outside town. It seemed totally overpriced to me: fourteen pounds per night for one person, in a little tent with a car! By comparison, the hostel cost £16.50 per night for an eight-bed dorm. The hostel was in the middle of town, and offered a kitchen and a roof and parking. The weather was rainy, and the field in which I pitched my tent was squelchy with a few puddles, ie it was nearly waterlogged. I put my tent on a small rise in the ground between two puddles. It was raining continually by the evening, so I had the fun of erecting my tent in the rain. I got wet, my feet got wet, my trousers got wet. Everything was wet. The two skins of my tent stuck together, and nothing would separate them. This was so not good.
Once I'd got into my sleeping bag inside my tent, however, it was dry and warm like my urban bedroom at home. I was fine, although it rained all night and I was concerned that the puddles would rise and my tent would float downstream like an inflatable boat. In the morning, it was still rainy, although it stopped long enough for me to pack and depart. The mug I'd left outside had collected half an inch of water, but none of it was inside my tent. I discovered on leaving that I was essentially paying the "unit price" which would have applied if I'd arrived with a big estate car, caravan, and family. That was why it seemed so expensive. I was also told (and isn't it remarkable how I wasn't told this when I arrived?) that if I'd parked my car outside and walked into the site, I would have had the backpacker tariff which was a more likely £7.
I can not imagine an easier way to profit than by owning a campsite. You only have to provide some space and a toilet block and you can charge huge amounts of money for people to bring their own holiday-homes here. On the subject of holiday-homes I noticed a coach at the site that pulled a trailer, as big as the coach itself. It contained bunk-beds for the group, and a kitchen, which I found remarkable. Manoevring the coach with that trailer is a silly and probably dangerous task, so I have to say that I think they should be banned. Furthermore, I don't see why this trailer is better than having twenty tents that you store on the roof of the coach. Are these people just too lazy to erect a tent?
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