Wild camping

I've spent much of my adult life going of on trips to the mountains and generally, whilst there, camping. I've camped in rain and snow storms in the Himalayas, on grinding glaciers in Greenland, in wild blizzards in artic Norway, and particularly in the savage, sleet and snow storms of the Scottish mountains in winter. So it came as a surprise to find myself on what had been during the previous sunny evening, a rather pleasant rural campsite in Denmark of all places, wondering through the night if our tent was going to survive to see the morn. It really was a rather impressive storm: driving heavy rain and gusts of wind that whipped large trees backwards and forwards as if they were bushes. The roads were littered with broken branches the next morning. Leaving the campsite in the morning was more of an evacuation, with children bundled into the car, followed by all the ready-packed bags from in the tent. Then wearing full waterproofs I wrestled the tent down and into a bag trying not to let any bit fly away. Then we sat in a car rapidly steaming up as everyone and thing began to dry out, and head south towards Germany looking for better weather.

It wasn't the wildest night I've ever spent in a tent, but it may well have been in the top ten.