After our end of season camp out at Dubs In’t Dales, we thought that that would be our camping done for 2013. However, our friends Andy and Gill invited us to a bonfire and fireworks party at their picturesque home, Harwes Farm.

With lots of visitors expected, the bedrooms and sofas were booked up, but with Andy desperate to meet Ruby, we decided that we should bring her out for one more adventure.

We were really pleased that Ruby started first time when we collected her, although she was a little chilly and sluggish, and took a little while to warm up and chug away contentedly. The sound of her flat 4 engine summoned a fellow splitty owner – who had just bought his prize-winning 11 window Devon camper, Sally.

We had a good chat about buses, shows, bootcamps, keys and engines and exchanged numbers so that we can meet up and help each other out. It’s always good to be in touch with local VW owners!

We set off for Harwes Farm in the dark, wind and rain, and navigated the country roads and narrow twisting farm tracks mainly without incident. Ruby was a very popular guest at the party, particularly with 10 year old Emily, who declared Ruby to be “EPIC!” and insisted on helping with parking her up and setting up the bed (sitting in the passenger seat and enthusing wildly about everything is very helpful, especially for morale, when it is dark and raining!)

The party was superb, with food, drink, fireworks, karaoke, and insanely talented musicians. At 1am we toddled out to bed down in Ruby and found that camping on a moorside in the wind is a little bit different to the camping that we’ve experienced so far! Ruby rocked around a bit in the wind, and the bonks, clonks and wobbles made for a largely restless night, particularly for Rooobarb.

We woke this morning to beautiful sun, slightly less wind and breathtaking views across the moors, which Ruby enjoyed.

After a couple of strong cups of coffee, we set off back to bed Ruby down in her garage again – where the owner handily jetwashed the road grime off her (although his jetwash is more powerful than the one at the garage, so Custard in the driving seat ended up a little soggy!)

Is that the last of the camping adventures for 2013? Well, with a New Year’s Eve party at Harwes Farm mentioned last night, it would be rude of us to do Ruby out of another opportunity to be cooed over and admired 😉 Let’s just hope for less wind!