Base Camp Journal - Brighton (2022)
Our stay in Brighton just happened to coincide with a heatwave that, it was reported in the Corporate Media, would bring record-breaking temperatures in the region. When I was much younger, this kind of weather was typical throughout July and August, and it seems a rarity in comparison these days.
I didn’t expect the temperature to be a lot more than 30 degrees centigrade in Brighton, but we came prepared anyway, bringing plenty of water and the Chillmax Air unit we bought at Asda last year for about £30. It’s cheap and flimsy, little more than a loud fan that blows over a water tray, but it still did an excellent job in the Base Camp. I do strongly recommend investing in something like it as essential kit for any caravan without air conditioning.
Brighton caravan site was just as nice and clean as it was before, and, covering a vast open space surrounded by dense greenery and peripheral sections, it’s a good retreat for anyone living and working in the city. It has a few ‘nature trails’ and wildlife here and there. The staff are very friendly, always stopping to chat as they did the rounds, checking the pitches. As with most CMC sites, the facilities and grounds are very clean.
Deciding to make most of the weather, we brought our small tent (the one we tried setting up at Perranporth last month) to the beach, along with a few creature comforts, and stayed there for a good few hours. The beach was quite busy, but thankfully not as crowded as we expected.
During the nights, we sat outside the Base Camp until the early hours, enjoying the generous supply of gin and tonic we brought with us, and with Radio 6 playing on the Roberts Revival. I counted three foxes stalking the site from around 22:30. They seemed to have a routine of following the main path around the site multiple times, stopping to investigate whichever caravans and motorhomes attracted their interest. Sometimes they came within a few metres of us. They aren’t tame, but, being town foxes, they’re used to being around humans.
We also saw the International Space Station, which I track using Heavens Above, passing overhead several times. It was the brightest object in the sky.
Food and Drink
We have yet to find a decent takeaway in Brighton, but alternatives aren’t limited. A Co-Op and Lidl, just down the street opposite the stadium fields, sell enough things for a decent barbeque. Eating out is also an option at several places within walking distance of there.
The Camelford Arms claimed to be serving an ‘award-winning’ Sunday lunch. Robby heard rumours that it did, and we would have regretted not giving that a try. It turned out that pub did indeed serve the best Sunday lunch we’d ever come across in a pub - there was so much meat, and the vegetables, the celeriac, for example, were unlike anything served elsewhere.
Daddy Long Legs is a sort of ‘artisan’ bar, but it’s not annoyingly pretentious. The interior is tasteful and comfortable, it has its own style, and the garden is very green. It was pricey, though, and the menu limited, but the food and cocktails are unique.
During our final evening in Brighton, we made the effort to visit Prezzo, at the Marina, again. The staff at Prezzo have been so good to us, and we’re always impressed by what they serve.
Volks Electric Railway
Back in October, when we were last in Brighton, the Volks Electric Railway, which ran along the seafront, from the pier almost to the Marina, was disused, and apparently had been for some years. It was built well over a century ago.
A group were then raising funds to get it back into service, and had managed to get it into a workable condition within just a few months, with the original carriages, it appears. Having a ride on that made Robby’s day.
Devil’s Dyke
Roughly a 30 minute drive from Brighton is a place called ‘Devil’s Dyke’, which, apparently, is the largest chalk valley in Britain, for what that’s worth.
From near the summit, next to the car park, one gets an impressive view, extending as far as the eye can see.
Since it was mid-day, and too hot to do much exploring, we instead relaxed for a while in the small woodland, comforted by the shade and warm breeze.
‘It’s too nice and pretty up here to be called the Devil’s something.’, Robby remarked.
Birds, snakes, or insects, were conspicuously absent. Apart from trees and vegetation, it was devoid of life, as far as I could tell. I’d imagine the environment is too harsh up there in the winter, being completely exposed like a mountain peak.
A Giant Concrete Heat Capacitor
Something we experienced during the heatwave was a form of ‘climate change’, and it it’s not caused by ‘carbon emissions’ but rather by modernisation. I’m guessing this was the real cause of the excessively high temperatures being reported in places that week.
Concrete and tarmac are very good capacitors for heat. They get extremely warm during a hot, sunny day, and they continue to radiate well into the night. In a city dense with buildings, there’s also considerably less airflow to carry that heat away. That’s pretty much why the worst of the heatwave was experienced in London, Manchester and Cardiff, while it remained relatively mild in my home town and in the less cosmopolitan areas of Wales.
That brings me to the Undercliff Walk in Brighton: The concrete multi-storey car park next to the Marina is almost level with the cliff, and both are connected by a long concrete overpass. Essentially that area is a giant concrete and tarmac basin, brutalist in design, and it acted as a heat capacitor. Even at midnight, the temperature was at least five degrees warmer than at the fields near the caravan site.