This is another video from my vault – my trip to Brownsea Island in 2021 to spend a weekend in a tree tent. Again, common to these old ones, it’s not the video I wanted to make. I vividly remember sitting down to talk to the camera, finding it difficult but doing it but the evidence suggests that most of the time I just sat and made agonised faces at it and there’s virtually nothing. I’m going tree camping again this year, because it’s fun, and I’m going to make a better video, a proper vlog, but for now, have a little tour of my own semi-private island.
For a little context, Brownsea is a small island maybe four miles long by a mile and a half wide, with a handful of residents living around the jetty, a castle owned by the John Lewis group where their people can stay, a couple of holiday cottages and this campsite. For years, it’s been open only to Scouts and Guides but in 2020, they planned to open it to the public and put up their tree tents. Obviously, that didn’t happen but as of 2021, it all reopened and I was finally able to go off for my trip. It was too early for the Scouts and Guides to have returned and day visitors to the island were restricted to “go on this ferry, come back on that one” so the literal 1-3 campers overnight (I did two trips within a month, both of two nights – the number of campers ranged from just me up to three people) had the island completely to themselves from about 3pm to about 10am – I suspect it’s not going to be like that this year but it’ll still be glorious.
On with the video!