Woodland Adventure...

     

We set off from home on our way to the Woodland camp, with the car packed with rucksacks, sleeping bags, water bottles and lots of other paraphernalia.  After driving down a long, pot holey track we eventually pulled the car off onto the grass at the side of the track, gathered some essentials and descended down into woodland.

                                 

We arrived in the camp area where there was a large tepee, a couple of other wooden shelters and a camp fire area.  There was a large canopy above the camp fire area and this was circled with some large logs draped with some thick fur reindeer skins.  We introduced ourselves to Claire and Richard and were asked to take a seat and offered a mug of tea.  The hot water for the tea came from a cast iron pot hanging from a large cast iron tripod sprawled over the fire.  The tea tasted of the smoke from the fire and was very refreshing. After a while we were joined by two Scottish brothers who were there just for the day.

Our first lesson was ‘Friction fire lighting’.  Firstly Richard demonstrated how different type of tinder worked to varying degrees of success and ease of use followed by how to correctly sharpen your knife.  We were then shown how to make a feather stick for use in the next stage of making a fire.  Richard then showed us the tricky business of creating an ember with which to start a fire by using the friction method. 

Now it was our turn. 

We gathered together a bow, a flat piece of ivy wood for the base, a piece of hazel stick, a top piece of wood to hold while the stick spins.  This was helped with the aid of a limpet shell. 

This is how it is done.

• First you have to gather your tinder together and bundle it up. 

                            

• Next take the knife and make a feather stick.
• Place this with the tinder ready to start.
• With the knife, sharpen one end of the hazel stick to a rough point.
• Sharpen the other end but then blunt it off.    
• Make notch at the side of the flat piece of wood, this helps the stick stay in place.
• Twist the stick in the cord of the bow.
• Place the stick blunt end down into the notch on the piece of flat wood.
• Put your foot on the flat piece of wood to keep it in place.
• Place the top piece of wood with the limpet shell on the top of the stick.
• Hold everything in place and begin to move the bow back and forth.
• Once the wood starts to smoke and burn stop and make a notch into the centre of the burnt hole just made.
• Place the notch on a leaf to catch the ash.
• Use the knife to strip off the burnt end of the stick and repeat the process of spinning the stick.
• Continue the stick spinning until you get a good amount of black ash which contains a small ember.
• Very carefully remove this ember with the knife and gently place it into the tinder.
• Then gently blow on the tinder until eventually you get a flame.
• Place the burning tinder on the floor.
• Put the feather stick on top of this and keep gently blowing until the feather stick catches fire.
• Hey presto! FIRE!

I was able to get smoke and ash straight away, before the others, so Richard was very impressed.  Unfortunately I just didn’t have the strength to keep the stick spinning long enough to get an ember.

Dyl struggled as well.

But with a combined effort we did eventually created FIRE.

                                 

Later in the day we were shown how to build a shelter in the woodland.  As only myself and Dyl where staying the night in the shelter the two Scottish boys joined with us to build just one shelter between us all.  It was still very hard work. 

This is how we did it:

• First we built a bit of a tripod with one very long large branch and two shorter branches which would eventually be the entrance. 
• We then laid varying lengths of sticks along the length of the shelter to create the basic frame.
• Most of the branches and sticks had already been cut to length and were scattered about the woodland.  There is no way we could have had the strength to chop the wood as well.
• We then had to go out foraging for bracken and ferns to cover the shelter in a thick layer to keep out wind and rain.
• Once this was done which did take quite a while we then covered this with a 10cm thick layer of pine needles scooped up with our hands from the floor of the woodland.

                               

I think it took us a good couple of hours to do this but the finished result was very impressive and Richard, our bush craft master could find no fault.

Once completed, we returned to the camp and bid our farewells to the Scottish guys.  It was now dark so we sat round the camp fire on the reindeer skins with the fire for warmth, good conversation and a hearty bowl of corned beef stew in our bellies.

Dyl was in charge of our camp in the woods and had earlier built a camp fire (unlit) outside our shelter ready for the night.  Richard then took an ember from the main camp fire and with Dyls they went and got the fire started outside our shelter.

                               

While we were up at the shelter in the woods we also hung some hammock shelters from the trees to use if the shelter was no good.  But myself and Dyl were determined to use the shelter we had made.

When I went up to the shelter we had a roaring fire going outside.  We laid out our mats and sleeping bags and crawled into the shelter.  It was really cosy.  A bit tight for the two of us, but ok.  With the fire and the cosy shelter I was nearly asleep when Dylan decided to go and sleep in his hammock.  I was going to stay in the shelter as I was so warm and cosy abut Dyl persuaded me to use the hammock.  Had a bit of trouble getting in but eventually made it and went to sleep.

Harris Hawk

In the morning when the sun came up it was amazing being in the forest.  Dyl jumped out of his hammock and began playing with the fire from the night before and amazingly managed to get it started again so while we waited for the others to get up we sat by our open fire.  It was lovely.

After a breakfast of bacon sandwiches we helped Richard with the training of his new Harris Hawk. Richard had just got the new Harris hawk which he was starting to train.  We each had a go at holding a dead chick in a gloved hand and the hawk would then swoop down and land on our arm where it would lovingly rip the baby chicks head off.  Lovely!

                

We then went back to the camp fire area where Richard went through some other fire starting techniques such as using sparks and a combination of fungus and other tinder.  Dyl of course loved this. 

We where also shown how to make cordage, using a number of different materials, such as nettle and elm bark.  The elm bark was just like leather and the nettle was amazingly strong.

We then got the knives out again and whittled ourselves a snare.  I am apparently am a natural carver of wood.  I must take after my Grandfather who was a Patten maker for the Ford motor company.

                                 

By lunch time the exhaustion from the previous day was taking over myself and Dyl so we said good bye and thank you then made our way home for a soothing hot bath and a rest.

We had the most amazing adventure.