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I got a new sleeping bag last winter. Cost a fortune, snug and soft and toasty warm and rated down to well below zero, so I was hoping for a good cold snap in order to give it a sound test.

Well, I’d got that alright. There was ice all over the bonnet of my pick-up when I awoke, and being a parsimonious type I’d neglected to keep the heater on overnight which meant the thermometer inside the demountable was hovering around freezing. So I was both smug and snug since the sleeping bag proved as warm and cosy as its appearance and the advertising guff had promised.

As I pushed open the door and clambered stiff-limbed out onto the Cornish coastline above which I was parked, a clean groundswell rolled into the beach and the first orange rays of the sun were glinting off the wave tops and reflecting rainbows in the spray of each breaking wave. Beautiful.

But there was a problem. I was here to surf. It was mid-winter so it was obviously gonna be cold, but I hadn’t expected it to be quite this cold (even though it had provided me with the chance to give my sleeping bag a good workout). Maybe if I got the kettle on (and the heater, at full whack), and cooked up a nice thick porridge, things would have warmed up a little by the time I ventured out again.

And so they had, by at least half a degree. The ice that freckled the beach showed signs of melting, and half a dozen dudes more hardy than I had braved the cold and were out catching the small but well shaped waves that were rolling into Widemouth Bay. I was by now a little keener to join them, but despite the rocketing temperatures, there was still a slight hurdle to be overcome.

I’d left my wetsuit hanging outside overnight, inside out, to dry out from surfing the day before, and it now sported a visually appealing but physically intimidating layer of ice. I won’t try and describe the unique discomfiture of donning an ice cold wetsuit, suffice to say that it could quite easily be used as a highly successful form of torture – bark into the ear of any foreign spy the words “Tell us the secrets of your country’s nuclear programme or you will be forced to squeeze into that frozen wetsuit” and the facts would come tumbling out instantly.

With no nuclear arms programme to divulge I restricted my own utterances to muffled shrieks, squeals and the occasional oath as the neoprene slid gradually over my legs, nether regions (eek!), torso and arms and, like all good wetsuits should, quickly warmed me up. I still felt cold as I entered the water, but I nevertheless enjoyed an hour of floundering around in the surf and with the December sun gradually rising higher in the sky it was shaping up to be a fine day.

My solar shower on the roof of the demountable hadn’t really absorbed any heat by the time I emerged from the water, but it didn’t take long to get the kettle back on and I soon had my interior and that of the van as warm as Mr. Warm from Warmville. Leaning back, steaming cuppa in hand and watching the surf roll into the bay through the van door I reflected on the unique joys of a winter campervan trip. With so few people around it’s easy to drive what is a reasonably large, slow-moving vehicle along the narrow roads of North Cornwall without worrying about bringing the region’s traffic to a grinding halt, and pulling up at car parks above my beach of choice was equally easy – as well as often being free. Of course, there are relatively few campsites in which to pull over for the night anyway, but I was pretty self sufficient and for a couple of days had no problem managing without a hook up, enjoying the freedom to park hassle-free pretty much wherever I wanted, what with traffic wardens etc. clearly have been put into cold storage for the next few months.

My journey had begun in South Devon. Following a trip to see my girlfriend in Torquay I’d decided to head across Dartmoor towards Bude in order to catch what all the surf forecasts were predicting would be a top-notch swell. Leaving early afternoon on a midweek day I slowly headed north on the A382 across the eastern slopes of Dartmoor National Park, the low angle of the sun lending a warm russet glow to the hills and valleys despite the season, then turned sharp left along the park’s northern boundary to roll up along downalong the dales and valleys before pulling into Bude with the sun quite low on the horizon.

Just time for a quick surf in good sized, powerful waves that had travelled a thousand miles or more across the Atlantic, then a cold jog up the beach to peel off the wetsuit and get the board back on the roof before darkness fell – and it wasn’t even 5 pm yet. Well, I wasn’t going to spend the next 15 hours until daybreak in the van, so a quick evening snifter in Bude seemed in order before searching for somewhere to pull up for the night.

I had a drive up and down the coast but eventually ended up back in the car park above the beach at Bude – I know you’re not supposed to stay here overnight, but it was like the land of the living dead at this time of year so I hardly expected to be moved on for casing a nuisance.

And I wasn’t. Indeed, sleeping soundly in my new sleeping bag for the first time, I was awoken at sunrise by the sound of car engines as local surfers rolled in to check the surf and decide on whether to surf before work/school or just bunk off for the whole day. Who could blame the truants, I thought - the sun was shining, there wasn’t a breath of wind and a lovely swell was still rolling through – far too much of a distraction to be messing around with work, education and suchlike.

Already having made that bunking off decision myself I enjoyed my breakfast in the warm sunshine then decided to drive a couple of miles down the coast to Widemouth to see how the surf looked there. This decision to leave behind perfectly decent waves in Bude was based on the unwritten rule of surfing that wherever you decide to surf, the waves breaking on the beach just down the coast will always be better. Conversely, wherever you decide to drive to in order to check out the surf it will never be as good as the beach you just came from.

Fifteen minutes later I pulled into the car park at Widemouth, where the first person I bumped into (not literally) was a friend. Quite surprising given that we both live about 200 miles away in Pembrokeshire. Charlie is, in fact, a student at Bristol Uni and was opting out of lectures for the day in favour of a day out in the surf. At one time such irresponsible actions would have allowed me to vent my spleen at the slack-arse ways of student types and their misappropriation of tax payer’s (ie my) money, but since government dictats have lately decreed that the poor buggers must now leave higher education with a debt rivalling that of Haiti I am no longer in a position to do so and must instead feel sorry for them. A difficult transition to make, I can tell you…

Nevertheless Charlie was still able to fit in with the incompetent buffoon/student stereotype, having neglected to bring along his winter wetsuit and consequently paddling out in a thin summer suit and becoming hypothermic within about 15 minutes. Are these people really the movers and shakers of the future?

For myself, warmly ensconced in an appropriately thick winter wetsuit, I thoroughly enjoyed my session at Widemouth. The sun shone, the sea glittered, the surf rolled and all seemed well with the world, even more so because I could see my demountable just a few hundred yards away up the beach and knew that once the cold of the mid-winter Atlantic got to me warmth, tea, cakes and a good book were only a two-minute walk away.

After my surf I brewed up for Charlie and his mate Carlo and we sat in the van warming up and talking surf rubbish for a while before deciding to head back to Bude to make sure that the waves weren’t actually any better than here at Widemouth. They weren’t, so Charlie and Carlo headed back to Bristol. I couldn’t be bothered to paddle out again, especially as it would have meant clambering back into my dripping wet wetsuit, so I took an afternoon stroll along the beach followed by a wander around Bude as the Christmas lights began to twinkle in shops and homes when the sun began its early descent to the horizon.

The last time I’d surfed this coastline the sun was setting around 10 pm, and with the Christmassy atmosphere in the town my short solo surf trip had an almost surreal feel to it. Indeed, one of the problems of winter camping is keeping yourself occupied when darkness amounts to almost two thirds of the day. I, fortunately, have perfected the technique, and it goes like this.

Pull up at campsite of choice (in this instance above Widemouth Bay); fettle with stuff inside the van for an hour or so (in this case one of the lights and a cupboard); get some grub on the go; eat; read for a while over a cup of tea; check watch and hey presto, its 8.30 pm and time to head for the pub… By the time you get back it’ll invariably be close to a ‘normal’ bedtime so you can turn in and enjoy a well-earned eight or nine hours kip. Which brings us right back to the start of the article.

Temperatures by now having become noticeably chillier than when I first arrived on the coast (I was still breaking icy puddles on the roof in order to get my board back in its bag after surfing), and with the swell on its last legs, I wasn’t concerned that this was the last day of my short break. Packing up the van ready to head south again across Dartmoor, I looked forward to the drive through fine Cornish and Devonshire landscapes at a leisurely pace before meeting up with my girlfriend for the long drive home to Pembrokeshire.

As always it was raining by the time we hit my home county (this phenomena occurs to me, I’m sure, on at least eight out of ten return journeys) but I’d had the chance to enjoy winter Britain at its best in my camper over the last few days, so who cared if the surf and weather at home wasn’t up to Cornish standards? It never is, come to think of it…

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