Alan, the owner dropped in to welcome us. He was very helpful and informed us that the public camp and pick cherries. (This is the “good for something part) He indicated that the cherry picking season for the public had just closed but kindly said that we could go and pick a couple of punnets of cherries before departing the next day. We have only eaten cherries from a packet (red, sweet and dripping in syrup) so this was new to us. We were going to experience the real thing. Apparently the “red cherries” in a packet are the yellow cherries which they process, sweeten and dye red and green.

We were a bit apprehensive when a group of about 20 men decided to have a bachelors party and spend the night at the campsite so we parked as far away from them as possible. Fortunately they were well behaved and did not make too much of a noise, in fact, the music that they were playing – and much later on singing at the top of their voices in not quite the right key… was music from our (distant) youth so was actually rather enjoyable. Maybe the fact that the temperature dropped to below 10oC helped keep the noise down.