I'm going to start with the camping as we spent three nights there.  It's a large field, there were just a few toilets and two showers, although there weren't too many queues, even on the Saturday night when the field was full.  The toilets stopped flushing a couple of times, but were fixed very quickly when we texted the contact number.

The site was fairly quiet, with people not surprisingly having early nights, but be aware that it's on the flight path into Gatwick, and we had quite a few planes coming in early, mainly on the Saturday morning.

If you're doing one of the shorter events and staying the Sunday night, it's well worth going back to see the full iron distance competitors doing their runs - it's quite humbling to see what people can achieve.  Much respect.

You can stay until 1200 midday on the Monday morning, there weren't many people left, but it's worth noting that the toilets were taken away just after 9 - maybe the organisers might like to delay this if people are still there. 

There is a pub (Henry VIII) a short walk away, well worth a visit, but the walk along the road isn't that nice, though not too far.  .

Regarding the race, we'd registered on the Saturday afternoon, so don't know about if there were queues on the Sunday morning.  We had a minor issue with a marshal directing us to the start, rather than transition where I had to leave my shoes for the run, but otherwise things were quite straightforward.  The briefing was good and thorough.  However, emails sent in previous days had suggested that it would be a wetsuit optional swim.  I'd heard nothing else, but no-one used a wetsuit - don't know if they were banned, but it was way too hot for them anyhow.

I think the swim-only waves were due to start before the aquathlon, but in the end we all started together.  This made for a very crowded first lap, particularly where you pass through a narrow stream, but the second was a lot more comfortable.  The water is not very clear, but there wasn't too much weed.  The water was warm, apart from one small stretch in the narrow river part which was quite cool.  There were quite a few canoe marshals on the course which was reassuring.  Incidentally, the black 2XU buoys are very difficult to spot, the orange ones are much better. We definitely needed help out of the water (there's a difficult and slipper step).

There's a short barefood run to transition, from where you get shoes/hat/sunnies, etc on and head onto the run.  It initially looks confusing, but the marshals were very clear.  The run is beautiful, going through parts of the castle grounds and surrounding countryside.  There are a lot of marshals, all fantastic and supportive, and regular feed stations, with food, water and high5 drinks.  Was with tri/multi-distance events, you end up running with people from different waves/distances.  There wasn't much support apart from the marshals on the course, but looping through for the second lap near the castle/start was great. The hills weren't too bad (one short steep one on a gravel path near the start), but the heat meant that a lot of people walked up them.

The finish was nice, arriving on my own I got a lot of support from the crowd and my name read out.  At the end there's a small medal, the colour of the ribbon denotes the event (green for long aquathlon), though the full iron participants deservedly had a much bigger medal.  There were drinks and food at the end but no goody bag.

All in all, it's a lovely (but slightly expensive) event, if you like camping at a race it's perfect as it's fairly close to the start, and the location is gorgeous.