Back in July I went on my first naturist holiday – a week’s camping down in Cornwall. Each year British Naturism organise “Nudefest“, taking over a decent sized campsite (Newperran, near Perranporth) and making it naturist for the week.
I’ve only ever camped for a night or two so was a little apprehensive about it – until it transpired that it would be in the middle of a heatwave. Over the course of the week, we had complete wall-to-wall sunshine from dawn to dusk, every day – just a bit of fog on the last morning. Of course, that meant it was damn hot – so hot that a bottle of wine I had in the tent spontaneously popped it’s cork after a couple of days. Fortunately it was stood upright so there wasn’t any spillage. It was a write-off though.
And yes, that much sun did mean a serious risk of sunburn – you needed protection from about 7:30 in the morning. And no, I didn’t burn – anything!
The best part of the week, apart from the weather, meeting good friends and making new ones, were all of the activities that BN laid on. Most were included in the cost (£120 for a week, including electric hookup, activities and evening entertainment) but a few off-site events were extra, as was the hog-roast. There was something going on at pretty much any time between 10am and 4-5pm every day – sports, talks, lessons in all sorts of stuff. I even held a couple of “get the most from your camera” sessions.
I was also acting as #2 official photographer for the event, helping out Steve the main photographer – I took 2000 photos!
If you look at the list of things I photographed, it’ll give you some idea of what there was:
- Belly dancing
- School sports
- Archery
- Scuba diving
- Art class
- Petanque
- Firewalk
- Volleyball
- Hog roast & barn dance
- Wine tasting
- National Maritime Museum of Cornwall
- 5-a-side football
- Pool party
- Bosvigo garden
- Music recital
- Talent show
And lots more besides – such as a tour of Skinners brewery. All of these were fully naturist, even the off-site events. In fact, with the weather being so good, during the course of the 7 days I only dressed to travel to and from the two off-site events I went to, and at one point managed 100 consecutive hours without having to dress. Awesome!
Of particular note was the firewalk – one BN member, Natasha, basically joined BN to come to Nudefest and to do the firewalk. To say she was disappointed when it was cancelled a few weeks before the event due to lack of numbers would be a bit of an understatement – so she underwrote the cost of it herself, a wonderful gesture.
It was a great evening – the organisers built things up, starting with standing on broken glass, pushing arrows into your neck until they broke and punching through wooden blocks, before moving on to the main bit. Don’t believe anyone who tells you a firewalk isn’t hot – it genuinely is red-hot embers, and a couple of people had the blisters to prove it.
The other event of note was the archery – mainly because I won the competition.
So, here are some photos from what was a great week. One thing you’ll notice is the lack of naked people – I don’t have permission to post photos of the people I photographed as most of it was for the BN archive and internal use, and anyway I don’t really want visitors to this blog to be drawn purely by that. As it is, the most visited posts are the two from the naked bike rides. Anyway, there a few to give you a flavour of what it was like, some suitably cropped.
