Escaping Without Disappearing: Wild Camping on the Blorenge

You don't always need a full weekend away. Sometimes one night on a hill is enough to come home feeling like you've been on a proper adventure

Wild camping on Blorenge

By 8:15 on Sunday morning I had returned home. My wife was getting on with the morning routine and my two year old daughter Molly had no idea I'd slept on top of a hill in the Brecon Beacons. I'm becoming a bit of a master at escaping overnight and getting back before anyone has properly noticed I've been gone. 

Longer trips are brilliant, but they come with a price. Someone has to keep everything ticking over at home. Even when there aren't any complaints, there's always a bit of guilt attached to disappearing for a whole weekend. This didn't feel like that at all.

I left home in Ledbury, Herefordshire at 6:30 on Saturday evening. An hour later I was parking at the Foxhunter car park on a hill called Blorenge above Abergavenny. I'd later discover that it is one of the only words that rhymes with orange. I regrettably missed the opportunity to eat an orange on the Blorenge. 

Foxhunter is named after the famous show jumping horse whose pelt is buried on the hill. Parking here is free and there are no signs prohibiting overnight stays. A few minutes from the car park you can also find the remains of old Second World War bunkers if you wander away from the main path. I was barely minutes into my little adventure and it had already been more interesting than some of the long hikes I'd done before. 

Foxhunter Car Park, Blorenge

Hidden WW2 building, near the car park

A wild pony on Blorenge

I walked over to the trig point, gave it a pat and carried on until the hill dropped away towards Abergavenny. The views opened up across Sugar Loaf, Skirrid and the town below. I stopped by the empty Mountain Rescue radio hut, cracked open a lager and waited for the evening to quieten down. Well. It was already quiet but I didn't want to set up a tent a couple of hours before sunset and risk a warden coming by and asking me to pack up and leave.

Tapping the Blorenge trig point

A view of Skirrid from Blorenge

The radio repeater station on Blorenge

I like to arrive late, leave early and keep well out of sight when I'm wild camping. By about 8:30pm I was fairly sure everyone had gone home. Halfway through pitching the tent I spotted two people up near the trig point walking towards me. 

Too late now. 

It turned out to be a couple I'd spoken to in the car park. They were spending the night up there as well, just in a campervan rather than a tent. They seemed quite surprised that I was planning to camp in such heavy winds. 

The mountain forecast had promised 10mph overnight. It seemed like a far from accurate prediction. My tent is pretty decent and handled it well, but it spent plenty of the night shaking while the gusts rolled across the hill.

Wild camping on Blorenge, overlooking Sugar Loaf

A good camping spot

I sat outside until I got cold, climbed into the tent for a while, then headed back out once it was properly dark. Looking down on Abergavenny from over 500 metres up while the town lights flickered below was incredible. 

Dusk views of the bright lights of Abergavenny 

I set an alarm for 4:30am hoping for a decent sunrise. When I unzipped the tent, I appeared to be inside a cloud. I could barely see 20 metres.

Normally I'd hang around, make coffee and cook breakfast. Planning and prepping your meals is part of the fun of backpacking. This time I'd packed as lightly as possible and aimed to leave as early as possible. I'd eaten before I arrived on the Blorenge and the plan was to grab breakfast in Abergavenny on the way back, rather than dithering with a stove and eating porridge while sat in sheep poo.

While packing the tent away I realised I'd been joined by a small group of wild ponies. They had wandered over in the mist and were quietly grazing around the campsite.

Not the glorious sunrise I was hoping for

Wild ponies near my camping spot on Blorenge

A misty morning

I took a different route back to the car, looping around the north side of the hill towards Keeper's Pond. As I dropped lower the mist began to lift. The car park was already filling with campervans and walkers. I definitely hadn't been the only person escaping to the Blorenge for the night. I'd checked the car parking situation beforehand and this seemed like a relatively popular spot for free campervan parking with a view. I wandered to the car, chucked my backpack in the boot and was on my way. 

Walking round the norther paths of Blorenge

Beautiful, quiet morning walking

Keepers Pond car park

Breakfast came first with a view up to where I had camped. The large coffee wouldn't disguise the fact that I looked a bit of a mess, but it certainly helped me feel more alert. After staying up late for the night-time views over the town below, and with the early sunrise, I'd had just over 5 hours sleep. Not ideal, but I can get by on that. 

A breakfast view of my camping spot on the Blorenge 

After finishing my breakfast, I completed my drive drive back to Ledbury. By 8:15 I was home and my daughter Molly was none-the-wiser about where I had been. Within a few minutes of walking through the door, I was drawing daft pictures with her and getting on with Sunday as a normal dad. It was as though I'd never left. Except I had and it had been pretty epic. 

I'd had an evening watching all the lights come on over Abergavenny and then slept on a 561m hilltop. I woke to wild ponies around the tent and then went on a long walk in the clouds before most people had even boiled the kettle for their first coffee of the day. A short adventure that cost me almost nothing in family time, but gave me some experiences I will never forget. 

A final and important thing to note is that when I have packed away my tent after I've been wild camping, I absolutely always take a photo proving that I have left nothing but a flat patch of grass behind. I'm not an influencer with millions of followers, but if you have stumbled across this post because you like the idea of wild camping, I think it's only right that I tell you the importance of Leave No Trace. There is nature all around us when we go outdoors. That is what makes it so special. Leaving behind anything that might harm it, and make the place look worse for other visitors is not proper wild camping. Doing that is letting us all down. Please camp responsibly and respect the countryside. Thanks for reading. 

Leave No Trace