I’ve always liked Les Davidson from Wildcrafts. Apart from being a nice bloke, skilled bushcrafter and all round good egg, he has now been given the keys to Hatfield Forest. Not that the latter would ever influence my choice of friends…(!)
Hatfield forest is 1,000 acres of ancient forest owned by the National Trust. Les now has permission to run courses on the land and, of course, I was there to assist. In fact, wild horses wouldn’t have kept me away!
I spent most of Saturday walking and recce’ing around the part of the forest where we were camped, seeking out tracks and signs of the myriad of creatures that inhabit the forest, trying to build up a picture of where they feed, walk and sleep. I quickly found two badger sets and evidence of three types of deer.
We had to adapt our base camp technique slightly by building the fires on raised earth and wood platforms to be doubly sure to not leave a fire scar.
Even though we were on the quieter side of the forest, being a beautiful, sunny and warm weekend, we had a number of passers-by looking intently at the set up. After assuring those who dared come closer that this was sanctioned by the National Trust they started to warm to our ethos of not just providing survival skills but to teach an awareness of nature.
The guys on the course seemed to enjoy all the aspects of the course, but I think they were surprised that the hands-on approach to survival shelter building wasn’t as easy as it looks on the telly.
But they did very well and reported a comfortably night in their shelters, except for the barking of the ever inquisitive Muntjac deer.
Of course the highlight for me was simply having the privilege to stay in the forest, feel its ambience, walk along the wide rides, and watch the bountiful wildlife. Hopefully, I’ll have many more opportunities to write about this wonderful place.
Thanks for the visit.
Welcome.
This is the home of Woodlife. You will find links to Pablos Woodlife (blog) the Woodlife Social Network (forum) and Woodlife Trails (courses) all on this page.
Looks like its a winner mate
Pablo, can you post some pics of ancient trees in the forest? I run it through wiki and it looks like really interesting piece of woodland. What do you mean by “keys” from the forest? It´s written that the forest is open for public…
Yes but camp discipline will be essential. Not sure if the number of guests might be limited.
Spot on mate, guests will be very strictly limited,the NT feel that the guest camps may be a bit much at the moment – we’ll still be running the guest camps at Mike’s wood though.
A cracking weekend though and the implications of what we’ve achieved are still sinking in
Brett
Yes, I’ll certainly do that next time. There were some very interesting trees. Access can be gained by the public but vehicular access to the centre of the forest is limited to the public to certain times. The keys means Les can have access at any time.
stunning, what an achievment. v much looking forward to the possibillity of joining you all there as it is such a beautiful place, with such a wonderful aura. i have always felt very at home there. nice one Pabs mate and a big WELLDONE to all those good eggs at ‘WILDCRAFTS’.