Pablo’s Woodlife

I’ve been interested in woods and woodland ever since I was a kid. We all played about in the woods (if we were lucky enough to be near woods) but I usually stayed longer than the other kids, climbing trees, scooping the ponds and watching the wildlife.

I liked being on my own as well – being an only child I was used to that. But it was the silence of the wood that I really enjoyed.

The usual distractions of the teens took this enthusiasm away until I joined the army, where I was back in the woods, but usually going where people told me to go and doing what people told me to do. When I left the army, I managed to find two areas to live where my fascination with wildlife resumed. I took up bird watching which extended to identifying wildflowers and other flora and fauna. At the same time I became interested in the survival aspect and started to learn about wilderness survival. At this time people frowned on “loony’s wandering around the woods in camo gear” (not that I ever wore camo gear) but the stigma was set (the great British public!!). My job took me out of the area and once again, I discontinued my interest.

Only recently was this revived once again. I can thank Ray Mears for that, as well as the usual’s like David Attenborough. The term for wilderness survival is now bushcraft. With that comes a number of philosophies which suit me down to the ground. I will probably explore these philosophies in later entries. Other things have also changed since my last serious excursions into the woods. Digital cameras instead of 35mm, GPS instead of compasses, £220 bushcraft knives instead of sheath knives, and blogs instead of journals!

My other interests include archery (field and target), music (composition and live playing) and computers (as a user and not a techie). I keep to a minimum level of fitness with an indoor bike and rowing machine.

This journal will allow me to log my interest in nature, wildlife and bushcraft. It will record any observations and philosophies that I come across. The journal is here to share for anyone wishing to view it. But primarily, it’s a journal of a person who has rediscovered an enthusiasm for something which has never really been lost, merely subdued. It will be used as an “as and when” journal in conjunction with my “hard copy” journal. Entries will be posted when time allows. I’ll try and do something every other week at least.

28th December met with some heavy snow around our area. I took the opportunity to walk off some heavy meals and to do some tracking. I’ve forgotten more than I remembered about tracking so this was an easy start. I followed fresh fox tracks through the woods and eventually spotted him skirting around the south side of the wood. The usual signs of rabbits were also there but not much else.

The wind was coming form the North and made the temperature added with the wind chill very cold. Contemplating this, I decided not to practice any bushcraft skills. I suspect I might be a fine weather bushcrafter, but I did enjoy the walk.

The new year is quite significant insofar as it’s also the start of the new birdwatching year when sightings start again and lists are scrubbed. I’m not a twitcher or “list-ticker” fanatic, but I do like to keep records of what I see during the year. The first two day of January brought the usual sightings of the common garden birds, but I also saw red legged partridges and pheasants in the local field. I also spotted some common gulls resting on the tarmac.

The holidays have brought some contemplation about the spring and how I can really start to put into practice some bushcraft techniques. I’m accumulating the kit I need slowly but surely, although I really don’t want to be loaded with unnecessary kit. Shelter in the form of a tarp and hammock will be the next piece of kit to buy and consideration to some kind of cooking essentials. In the meantime, I still have to try the old hexy stove that I still have.

At this point I’d like to welcome any members of Bushcraft UK who might happen across this journal as I will create a post on BCUK inviting members here. Since I stumbled on the Bushcraft UK community, I’ve been astounded to find large numbers of like minded people. Already their knowledge and advice and willingness to share it has overwhelmed me. Welcome good friends.

Last night I followed up my tracking (see “There be Badgers” post) by trying to watch the sett. I went out about an hour before dusk and waited until about an hour after dark fell. The result…as the picture shows, absolutely nothing! To be fair, I was probably too far away initially. The wind was in my face, so that seemed okay. I couldn’t see any of the sett when darkness fell though. This prompted me to move location nearer the sett and that might have been my undoing. I did see a white nose come out of the sett, but by then I was probably too close and the badger might well have smelt or even seen me. It quickly disappeared again under ground. I was disappointed that they didn’t come out at dusk so that I could get at least a decent sighting.

At least the excursion gave me the chance to test out my goretex bivvi bag. It’s an ex-brit army one and good quality. It certainly kept me dry both from the damp ground and the fine drizzle. On this occasion, this is the only thing I carried with me apart from my small shoulder bag containing water, nuts, hat and gloves.

Tactics change next time? I’ll have to think about that one.

A huge drop in temperature, terrible downpours and a bad back has resulted in a Bushcraft grounding.

The back is not serious (just a strain) but the weather looks like it’s here to stay until Saturday 30th May. Two “lows” coming in from the Atlantic. I’m certainly not an “all weather” bushcrafter, and would prefer to stay dry and comfortable by choice; but I’m finding that the enforced grounding is making me miserable! I want to get out. I don’t care if it’s raining! I wouldn’t have been like this 6 months ago, preferring to stay lazy and warm.

I’m going to have to work on an indoor bushcraft project (watch out walls…I feel some hammock mountings on the way). Again, this will be quite difficult as I promised myself to complete all bushcraft projects “in the field”. I keep telling myself that we need the rain with hose pipe bans around the south of England and a new water enforcement order in Sussex. (Typical British irony that is).

Never mind. I’ve consoled myself by ordering a Trangia. This is the civilian 27 version this time. Whether it will replace or complement the Swedish Army one remains to be seen. Let’s hope the weekend is good enough to try it out.

I’ve added some information links on the right which may assist someone researching bushcraft subjects. It is quite UK specific, so if you’re from elsewhere, I do apologise, but some sites may be useful anyway. If you have any information sites to share, I’d be grateful to receive them.

We’re back from an urban weekend. How was it? Hot…stiflingly hot, noisy and smelly. It was great to see parents and old friends, but I was amazed at how my home town had grown to become a cosmopolitan city. Apart from the woods, I love water and especially the sea and the history associated with it in this city. This seemed to be the saving grace of the trip; to visit the coast, revisit the old ships and listen to the sounds of the sea. It wasn’t long before this sound was spoilt by human intervention in some form or other.

I thought on whether I could ever leave the countryside. I must admit that I’m spoilt where I am. I have access to woods and I love the solitude it affords. Yes there are better places depending on whether you prefer to hike, climb or canoe. I sometimes miss being able to do this locally especially access to water but I would never give up where I live to reside in a city.

I started to get frustrated and miserable. I started to get a headache, and it was all I could do to see the final night through. Same again next year? Well, duty must call, but I might just wait until the weather’s bad!

Now where’s my rucksack.

It was nice to get back to the woods this weekend, especially as the temperature has soared to 31 degrees C. The woods were cool and it was great being back. It seemed as though it was even too hot for the crows, who were eerily quiet. These aren’t exactly what I would call pretty woods. They are not managed, there’s no rivers or streams but…there are no people. Apart from the tracks made by a vehicle that very occasionally go through the centre of the woods, it’s what I imagine truly wild woods to be. The woods floor is now covered with nettles which are chest high. The tracks are impossible to follow, and it’s only because I know the area that I can find my way through the west side. I did my usual walk from west to east, but even if there were any mammals, the chance of seeing them would be slim because of the height of the foliage. The swamp in east wood has completely dried up.

I wanted to do two things on this excursion. The first was to configure the tarp to a bivvi. I know I would rarely have a need for this, as I would either use my hammock or I would just kip down in a bivvi bag. If I went anywhere where there were no trees at all, I would probably take a tent anyway. But just in case, I thought I would see how it went. My second objective was to try out the civilian trangia in the field. I had only tried it out in the back yard.

I found a nice area of the wood on the south side of East wood. It was quite near the edge of the wood and there was enough grass to make a ground bivvi camp. The sunshine through the canopy mottled the floor, making the whole area nice and cool. Looking closer at the site made me think that it was also suitable for a hammock as well. So I named the site (well numbered it) No 5.

First mission then. I had brought an expandable bivvi pole with me to give me a start and also some tent pegs. I initially (and stupidly) put the bivvi pole on the front of the tarp. This made the whole thing too unsteady to fix out the guy ropes. I rectified this by moving the pole further out to the front. I finally straightened out the bivvi by pegging out the tarp and making it reasonably taught. I don’t think it would have help up to any great wind, but it would have kept off a bit of water had there been a shower.

Food time! I had brought makings of a full English breakfast with me. Mushrooms, tomatoes, eggs, bacon and beans. The trangia worked as expected. In fact it was too efficient as the flame got incredibly hot and was burning the beans. I then remembered about the simmer ring. I placed it on the burner and it immediately subdued the flame. I was also pleased that I had swapped out the standard frying pan for a non-stick version. All the utensils I had previously made and I was pleased that they were also effective as cooking utensils. The result was a great breakfast and a pleasing result from the trangia.

As I sat back and relaxed I spotted a tree creeper working it’s way round an oak tree. The cool of the woods again made me feel grateful that I was able to have access to these woods. On the walk back I noticed some Rosebay willowherb stretching its long stems to the sun.

I’ve ordered some more kit! I’m becoming a bit of a kit freak considering I promised myself that I was not going to make Bushcraft an expensive pastime. I’ve tried to utilise the kit I previously used 15 years ago. I’ve also tried to stay with the minimalist Bushcraft ethos, but at the moment I figured out that it’s easier to start with the kit, and then shave down what I don’t use. Also as my skills improve I should be able to shed some kit.

These skills will hopefully be greatly enhanced after I attend the Bushmoot in August. More about that later.

One thing I was missing and needed was a mosquito net. We don’t get great problems with mossies in the east, but they can make life miserable for any camper let alone a wild-camper. I bought the net from Nomad Travel store and this weekend tried various ways to rig it to the tarp and hammock. I wanted to keep the tent-like shape of the netting in case I wanted to sleep on the ground, so I was adverse to cutting the net in any way. I ended up using two small karabiners at each end attached to a small piece of thin paracord by a slippery knot (see…I’m beginning to re-learn knots too!). The Karabiners were then simply clipped to the end hoops of the tarp. Quick and easy. To stop the net slipping down the slope of the hammock, I’ve used two pegs to connect the end of the net to the hammock. With this method I can roll up the net when not in use or even take it off with no effort. It even looks OK. The whole thing now takes about 8 minutes to set up. It’s not a competition, but I feel I can do a little better with more practice.

The second purchase was a Crusader cup and cooker. I’ve previously used a NATO plastic mug (a left over from my army days). Off course this is a waste of time (and space) when you are using an open fire or Trangia. Once I received the mug, I was anxious to see whether the cooker worked with the first choice of fuel, greenheat gel fuel.

I emptied a sachet in the holder and waited…and waited…and…well, you know the rest. It warmed the water enough for coffee, but couldn’t boil it. I was quite disappointed, but realised that it a couple of sachets might be enough to warm through some pre-made soup in an emergency. It’s quite an expensive fuel though and I don’t think I’ll be bothering too much with this. I was interested to see whether it fitted in the Swedish Army Trangia set up. At the moment, this is my preferred cookset despite the extra weight over the civilian Trangia. It fitted perfectly, so now I’m able to use this as an extra cooking vessel on a Trangia as well the Trangia billy and saucepan.

My third purchase was the an Opinel No 8. My only folder so far is a Swiss Army knife, but this isn’t too sharp. I wanted a good dependable sharp folder to keep on my belt with my leather possible’s pouch. Not only will it be for general use, but also to help me out on carving projects which I’m getting quite fond of doing. I don’t think the Opinel needs any introduction, so I won’t bother on this occasion.

I was only out for a couple of hours this weekend. I want to go shopping tomorrow(yes…shopping…me!). More kit? You’ve got it. I need a decent first aid kit and a general snoop about for any accessories that might come in handy for the 5 days away at the Bushmoot.) Did I tell you Mors Kochanski was going?

The next post will be my thoughts on the preparations for the moot. I’ll certainly do this in the next couple of days, so tune in then.

By the way, the flower spotted in bloom this week is common centaury.

Ok. Here’s my first go at a kit list for the 5 day Bushmoot in July/August. I thought I’d do a database of all my kit, then select the kit per excursion. As the list goes down you can see the category (Carry, clothes, food etc). I tried to produce the table but the layout in Blogger isn’t good enough to show it properly.

I want to make this Bushmoot comfortable, but I don’t want to turn up laden with kit. I’m going with what I can fit in a 55 litre rucksack plus a 15-20 litre daysack which will be piggy-backed on to the 55. (I’ll show you this mod I’ve worked on later). If it doesn’t fit in one of the two sacks (plus the shoulder bag off course)…it ain’t going!

For sleep systems, I’m actually going to go with the tarp/hammock and I’m taking along the bivvi bag. Cross between tree and ground dwelling.

I think the whole of this Busmoot is going to be a phenomenal learning experience which I just can’t pass up. It will be just like a course and fun at the same time. With the bonus of Mors going, I think this is just going to be an immense experience all round. And all for 50 quid…

Belt
Psbl bag Flek
Rucsac 55
Spare Shirt
Spare Trousers
Buff
Fleece
Underclothes x 2
Socks x 4
Hat boonie
Shorts
W/proof trsrs
W/proof Jckt
Hat fleece
Hat Aussie
KFS Metal
Trangia SA
Crusader/cooker
Day rations
Fresh Fruit
Sandles
Boots light
1 litre Meths Bottle
FAK
Toothbrush
Travel Towel
Toothpaste
Showergel
Foot Powder
Compass
Bivvi Pole
Bivvi Bag
Mosq Net
Tarp
Hammock DD
Sleep Bag
Skin reindr or Foam mat
Knife Clipper
Swiss army knife
Opinel No8
Hand Axe
Folding Saw
KFS Home made
Kuksa
Medicine Pouch
Binos 8x
Cordage thin
Tent pegs
Camera
Batteries torch
Bungees x 4
Batteries cam
Matches
Head torch
3/4 Litre bottle
Water Bladder
Collapsible Waterbowl

At the weekend, I’ll try a full load-out and see if it all does in fact fit in.

Everything is now packed and loaded. A quick visit to the local camping shop to buy a couple of MREs, a cotton sleeping bag liner and oh yeah…a Tilley T3 slipped into my shopping basket! An expensive trip but what the heck!

The pack looks pretty big fully loaded, but it’s actually not that heavy. I wouldn’t like to hike with it though. Not with my standard of fitness anyway. I will obviously assess everything I use and more importantly what I don’t.

So, it’s up at 5:30 am and away at 6:00am for the 4 hour journey.

I’ll leave you with a visitor from last night in my pond, which just happens to be about 3 feet away from my ear when I sleep in the garden. He kept me awake for a while last night, not with the expected croaking sound, but a kind of grunting not dissimilar to a hedgehog.

See you next week when I’ll start a day by day account of 5 days at the Bushmoot.

See you.

We’ve been here since Saturday and so far it’s been a great holiday. The weather hasn’t been as good as UK but that doesn’t matter too much when you’re surrounded by so many different sights, smells and sounds. Not only have we been visiting the usual tourist areas, but I’ve been lucky enough to explore with bushcraft in mind.

We’ve been lucky enough to get a hotel literally on the doorstep of the S’Abufera National Park, a large wetland area of national importance. We walked through yesterday and my camera didn’t stop clicking. It will take months to ID all the wildflowers. The highpoint was a sight of an extremely large bird, which I’m going to tentatively call an eagle of some kind. Other sightings were made of Egrets, Purple Herons, and a host of other wildfowl.

The woodland next to the park is wonderful bushcraft land, mainly conifers. Of course fires are forbidden because of the tinder dry land. Use could be made of the abundant materials laying about the woodland floor.

I’ve just come back from a few hours sea fishing off a small pier. Caught absolutely nothing of course. Never mind, there’s always the restaurant. I don’t think I’ll bother with the Trangia tonight!

Tomorrow’s outing is to visit the mountains, which again aren’t too far away. The highest peak is over 1400 meters. I don’t think I’ll be walking all the way.

I’ll be putting up pics and posting a full report when I get back next week Until then, adios from the Balearics. Pablo.