Pablo’s Woodlife

Continuation from Saturdays entry

… I had tracked the deer and spotted 5 of them on the outskirts of the wood. I originally identified them as Fallow but sitting under the poncho in the rain, I wasn’t so sure. The distance between us was about 50 meters, it was raining hard and even though one of them stood staring at me for a good two minutes, I was not convinced she was a Fallow deer. More likely a Roe. The easiest way of identifying between the two is to have a look at their rumps. Unfortunately, the deer I was looking at was side on. The Fallow has a striped effect rump (white and black rump with a black tail), while the Roe has a white rump (as shown in photo courtesy of museums.ncl.ac.uk). The Roe is smaller and is in fact the smallest of Britain’s native deer. They have become scarce in some areas of Britain. It seems nobody knows exactly why, but I believe they are becoming more widespread again. Certainly in this area of the country, they are quite abundant (except of course in these particular woods).

The more I mused, the colder I got. I had rearranged the poncho to stop the rain pouring through the hood (yes… a good idea to tie up the hood!) and I had angled the poncho to let the rain run off to my right. I had already had a good drenching because I had forgotten to do these simple tasks. It was not particularly cold, but I realised that a combination of damp clothes (what I was wearing had done a pretty good job so far), the lack of activity and the wind-chill was all having an effect of making me cold through to the core (or seemed that way). It was time to act and that didn’t mean walking to the van which was about a minutes walk away.

I gathered a few damp pieces of wood and tried to make a couple of feather sticks. I used my new Companion II knife for the first time and was pleased to say that it performed well. I, however didn’t and the feather sticks were not a great success. I pulled out the tinder from my shoulder bag and after making a small platform of wood and shavings, I lit the tinder with the fire steel. This wasn’t very successful either, and it was a good 5 minutes before the tinder caught. By this time, the shavings and feather sticks were damp again and it was extremely difficult to keep the fire going. The wind had also veered without me realising it at the time and was making matters worse by blowing strongly on the exposed part of the fire. On reflection, I should have a) kept more out of the wind by selecting a more sheltered spot and b) kept the tinder and kindling in a drier state.

All was not lost and at least I did get a small fire going. The fuel was very damp though and it soon petered out. It was certainly not enough to get warm and I considered that if I would have had to stay out longer, I would have needed to prepare the wood much better. Even though I was pleased with the knife, I certainly missed the axe for doing these wood chopping duties.

As it was, I had had enough. I had been out for 4 hours and I was getting colder and colder and wetter and wetter. My gloves were soaking and it was all I could do to take down the poncho and pull on my day sack. As with the axe, I certainly missed the tarp. Even the remnants of the flask of tea weren’t enough to warm me up. I retreated to the van and gratefully drove the short journey home.

An hour later, with feet still thawing even after a hot shower, I thought about the highs and lows of the day. I was delighted I had found the deer, but I wasn’t too pleased about the way I went about trying to ‘survive’. I had made a couple of fundamental mistakes setting up the poncho, the location of my site (nearly facing the wind and on top of a rise), and the lack of preparation for the fuel for the fire. I had nevertheless, actually got a fire alight even for a short time. I probably wouldn’t have been able to do that this time last year. I hadn’t panicked when things went wrong nor become frustrated and given up. Some of these things I might have done in the past. Still lots to learn though.

Courtesy of the American Bushman, at the end of last year I received a NRA survival kit and Bark River PSK sample. Over these few months I’ve been looking closely at the contents and have already done a review of the BlastMatch. I will do a more detailed review of the PSK later, but now is the time to look at the kit all together.

First of all, I consider survival kits as an absolute necessity if you spend anytime in the outdoors. A survival kit must at the very least contain something to make a fire, start a shelter and attract attention. Any subsequent content will then depend on the area and conditions e.g. in dry areas or conditions you would need to gather water. After this, I believe it’s all a matter of personal choice. Do you take twine or a basic first aid kit. Do you make room for fish hooks, or wire for a snare? How big should the kit be? Rucksack size? Pocket size? Vehicle size? Perhaps now you can understand how difficult this can be.

So let’s have a look at the NRA kit starting at the container. This is what’s described as an OtterBox which is quite expensive in itself. The box is 6in x 3.5 in. and I would describe this as rucksack size, being slightly too large for regularly carrying in a pocket. This is probably the first minus point for me. I would prefer a basic survival container to be pocket size to fit in a belt pouch or jacket pocket. No chance of it being unavailable in an emergency situation. ‘Otter’ equals ‘water animal’ equals ‘waterproof’. Time for some extreme testing.

I left the container and contents buried in a muddy pond last week and extracted it today. I also buried my bare hands in the same pond for a painful 5 minutes to simulate a possible survival scenario of a dunking whilst crossing a river. I was pleased to notice that the box floated which would be a distinct advantage if faced with the afore mentioned scenario. The two front opening clasps were easy to open even with numb hands. The contents were 100% dry. What a great start. Would it stand up to a bit of rough handling though? A tentative kick around produced no adverse effect. I lobbed the whole thing at a tree, not with a huge amount of force it has to be said and…ooops! The whole container burst open and spread the contents around the muddy ground. On inspection I immediately found the problem. The hinge protrudes at the rear obviously to ensure a waterproof seal around the box and being made of plastic it’s particularly vulnerable (pic). The lob might have been the equivalent to dropping the container about 10-15 feet on to a hard surface. It was probably unlucky to have landed directly on the hinge, but nevertheless, not too impressive if the survival kit container can’t survive.

Still with numb fingers, I tried out the WetFire tinder and what looked like a mini hexamine block. I soaked the WetFire tinder and applied the BlastMatch spark after preparing a minimum amount of kindling with the PSK. One push down on the BlastMatch and..bingo! The tinder caught first time. I fed the Hexamine on to it followed by the kindling. Objective achieved.

I was certainly impressed with the WetFire, no doubt about that. There was only one downfall though. If you don’t get it right first time, there’s not much of a second chance. The WetFire and Hexamine doesn’t last that long. On a whim I lit a sachet of Greenheat fuel gel and it lasted almost 4 times as long, which was enough to get the dampest of kindling going. As with the WetFire, the Green heat also ignites easily with a firesteel. The Greenheat also has the benefit of being not so bulky. The conclusion I drew here was, yes, the WetFire was effective, but there might be easier and more efficient alternatives.

I’ve already looked at the BlastMatch, but I should reiterate that this is an excellent piece of kit. The main advantage is that it can be used one handed (great if you have a hand or arm injury). It does have a design fault but the main draw back is it’s size. To be incuded in a pocket/rucksack sized survival kit is, to say the least, a bit of an overkill. This thing is heavy, and takes up a third of the Otterbox (RIP). I would prefer to replace it with the Scout sized firesteel that American Bushman also kindly supplied.

The other contents of the kit are a JetSream whistle and a signalling mirror. The JetScream is brilliant. Extremely loud and and high pitched enough to be heard over a howling wind. I must say that I haven’t tried it’s range, therefore I cannot give a particularly informed opinion. I can say that it certainly works when it’s muddy and wet (doesn’t taste so good though!) Again, the signaling mirror hasn’t been tested at all. The principle of a sighting hole is sound, but the proof will be in how long it lasts. I’ve had a BCB mirror hanging outside of my house for 15 years, and it’s only just getting tarnished. I would like to see something else on the NRA supplied mirror. The BCB mirror has a thermometer and a chart of wind-chill factors included.

In conclusion then: the fire making equipment is excellent if not a bit of an overkill and there might be more space saving and efficient alternatives. The container, although completely waterproof, turned out not robust enough to do the job. The whole thing for me just wasn’t portable or small enough. I must say though, if I had been carrying the kit in an emergency situation, barring all but the most extreme conditions, the kit, despite the comments above, would have saved my life. I’ll try to post a review of the PSK very soon.

I’d like to thank American Bushman for including me on this project. Bri, please send me the bill for the OtterBox. I mean it!

Thanks for the visit.

Pablo

On Friday I once again met up with Scrivy and old mate JP as we offered to help out Les and Brett from Wildcrafts run a course for some youngsters in the depths of an Essex wood.

It wasn’t too long before the fire was going, the hammocks were rigged (a nice open configuration to take into account the good weather) and we had opened a bottle of beer for a pre-course social.

The next day Les and JP showed the youngsters how to handle and sharpen knives and make some shelters.

It always amazes me the amount of effort and energy it takes to build a natural shelter. This must obviously be taken into account when you’re in a survival situation. When all is said and done, there may be alternative ways to build a shelter. Perhaps making a lean-to with a fire in the open front may be more cost effective in terms of energy. Personally, I’ll stick to a tarp.

Talking of energy, Scrivy kindly made me this brilliant flint axe. What a fantastic job and it will take pride of place in my study. Thanks mate.

The shelter building and fire making soon gave way to water filtering and food prep. Les has certainly got things right in terms of teaching the basic skills in order of priority. The youngsters’ rabbit prep was helped a long by the provision of a muntjac cooked “spit-roast” style on our side of the camp and provided the full complement of about 20 people with enough meat to go round with some to spare.

That evening I did a small talk and an exercise on night vision and light discipline in camp. It’s amazing how many people insist on wearing the head torch complete with bright white light on their heads instead of around their necks, thereby shining it into peoples’ eyes and obliterating any night vision they might have had.

I concentrated on using other senses in the woods not only at night but for use during the day as well. Instead of a picture of that, I’ll show you a huge Dryad’s Saddle fungus JP found and identified. The fungus is edible and the coin is a 2p piece (about 1 inch diameter.)

The next day the group was split into two groups. While Les took one half on a wild plant walk, I ran a man hunt scenario with a bit of tracking involved which seemed to go down well. Despite the dry ground and lack of substantial clues, both teams found the escaped prisoner before the helicopter came to airlift him away. Well, I like to pretend if no-one else does!

All in all it was a great weekend as usual. It was great to see the youngsters enjoying themselves in an open but controlled environment. I think there might have been a couple of adult converts as well.

Thanks for the visit.

Pablo.

I’m going to change my name! If I heard, “Pablo do this – Pablo do that” once, I heard it a hundred times in the last four days. (Pablo, aren’t those parachutes up yet?) Add a bit of sleep and food deprivation, a sprinkle of tracking assessments, a few survival-type tasks and a one hour written exam, and you’ll get an idea why I’m a little tired.

While the Shadowhawk Foundation course was running (I took two sessions on the course) I was being put through my paces on the advanced tracker phase. The idea was to put me under pressure and test not only my tracking skills but my bushcraft and survival skills and my ability to track under pressure.

I’m not going to go into huge detail about the advanced phase, but I have to say it was one of the hardest things mentally and physically I’ve undertaken since I left the Army. It taught me a number of things. Firstly, that my bushcraft skills aren’t too bad, but could be improved. Secondly, I still have the mental capacity to undertake hardships despite being fifty years old (and probably more used to the soft life) and thirdly, my tracking skills still need to be developed.

I’m glad I took some time to research for the exam. This also wasn’t easy and it covered many tracking areas from geomorphology, snake movement, bird claw identification, to a host of other wildlife and man tracking principles and theories.

Bushcraft and survival tasks included shelter building and making a spoon. Easy enough you might say, but it had to be completed in the space of only a few hours which included carrying out a recce for a single roe buck track and cooking the only food provided in the last 24 hours. An egg. (Sorry, no cooking pots or pans around here!)

The previous night demanded that only a sleeping bag wrapped up in a plastic bag was taken plus one additional item. I chose my Leatherman. Well, if it’s good enough for Survivorman…! Luckily the rain held off. A poncho would have been the obvious choice had the weather been wet. As it was, I didn’t even use the tool. A handy log stopped me from rolling down the steep slope (the location was not my choice and I was disoriented before being led to the area) and some fir boughs did the trick of keeping the wind at bay. I would have been better off with a choccy bar! The soft pine needles provided a nice soft mattress.

I was accompanied during part of this journey by a companion, Mike, who thought he had come to assist in running the Foundation course! I’d just like to say to Mike a huge thanks for helping me out and keeping my spirits up. Despite the conditions we had some great moments and a great laugh.

The night in the shelter was obviously going to be interrupted by a follow-up night track. Strange people you find in the area at that time of night!

There were a number of tracking assessments. The final tracking assessment was on the last morning. I had looked at small roe deer trail and there were a few prominent tracks which I marked off with lolly sticks ready to describe to Max Maxell.

I was a little unfortunate in that everywhere was so dry. As it turned out those weren’t the tracks required. There was only the faintest of compression shapes on the sandy and gravel substrate and I couldn’t see the tracks of the particular animal Max wanted me to follow. My mind went blank and all I saw was the dusty ground.

It looked like I was going to fail at the last hurdle. Slowly and one-by-one, the tracks revealed themselves, but it was hard work and not my finest hour. However, I stuttered my way up the trail and with a final, “It went that way,” Max shook my hand for an emotional successful end result.

I’m now entitled to wear the small feather pendant. It represents many things but mainly it will remind me of what I have just achieved.

It’s quite amusing that we are always trying to define bushcraft. I’ve always had a simple explanation and it’s been confirmed by this experience. It’s simply building, making or crafting things out of natural materials in order to be comfortable in the outdoors (the bush). It’s as simple as that. In the UK and possibly Europe and the US we can get away with defining it as a hobby or lifestyle or a myriad of other terms because of the availability of alternative and ready made materials to do what is required e.g. a tent.

In north east Namibia, the same could be said of the bushmen – sort of. They can acquire some clothing, rice for food and odd bits of corrugated iron or an empty shell of a Hilux canopy for shelter; but it’s not too far in their past that there was an actual requirement for them to craft tools, make hunting weapons and build shelters in order not just to be comfortable, but to survive. It’s also not too far in their distant past that they haven’t forgotten how to forage and what to forage for.

The priorities for survival in the bush are not that far removed from a temperate climate which may be a strange comment but bear with me (I’ll deal a little bit more with actual survival skills in the final post) As with most places the first thing you will need is protection from the elements. Of course the shelter is not to primarily protect from cold, wet and wind, but to protect one from the sun. However, temperatures can drop to below freezing in the Namibian winter and there can be vicious downpours so it’s equally important to be aware of this. In the shade the temperature can be 10 degrees Celsius (50F) lower than in standing in the full sun. The first task then was to build a shelter.

Under instruction from the Ju/’hoansi we constructed a permanent looking shelter in the shape of a wikiup. The difference with this one was that  holes were dug into the sand up to elbow deep and 8 or so poles were embedded into the holes around the circumference of the shelter giving a good solid foundation to the structure. The sand was excavated with our hands after a digging stick (our first tool made out of a sickle bush branch) had softened up the sand.

The limbs were interwoven with smaller branches and finally the whole structure was covered with dry grass, again woven into the structure (both inside and out). We were instructed to leave some gaps to allow what draught there was to vent the shelter. It was remarkably cool inside.

The construction of a hunting set was next. A lot of time was spent gathering the correct wood for the correct part of the set. The bow was made out of a Raison bush branch and the quiver was made from the root bark of the False umbrella thorn.

The main tool used by the bushmen was the axe or chop-chop. This brilliant tool could be converted into an adze by simply removing the axe head and turning it 90 degrees. It was a great tool and we were allowed to buy them off the bushmen and bring them home. Granfors eat your heart out! A double-edged knife was also used, but my mentor Kgau usually signaled that he wanted to use my EKA Nordic W11.

To make the quiver, we built a fire and placed the root, which had been cut to size, in the hot embers and sand for about 2-3 hours. After thinning out both ends of the quiver, the wood was then battered on its end onto a stone to dislodge the inner wood from the outer bark. The inner was finally separated from the outer bark with a bit of pulling. This enabled the now hollow outer bark to be used as a receptacle for the arrows and the hand drill. Damp antelope skin was tied over the ends of the bark, cut to shape and allowed to dry. Finally, a shoulder strap made out of hide was put on the quiver ends and one end was prised open to create the cap.

The arrows are a three stage affair with the tip part able to come way from the main shaft. We had to file the tips to shape. It is the tip shaft (just behind the tip) that contains the poison. Interestingly, there were no flights to the arrow and you have to get extremely close to hit the target.

The bow string was made from Sanseveria , more commonly known as mother-in-law’s tongue.  The pulp is removed by scraping it away with the sharp edge of the digging stick until the stringy remains can be twisted into cordage in much the same way as we make nettle or willow cordage. The removal of the pulp takes a great deal of effort (believe me) and there is a technique to be mastered (which /Ui  didn’t master at all and got told off for slacking!) Giraffe tendon was also used as cordage particularly to reinforce some of the arrow parts.

While selecting the appropriate materials over the 5 days, we dug and dug and dug. The digging stick was the most useful of tools. Most of the food was found under ground like the bush potato and bush cucumber and the wonderful water root plant. The bushmen (but particularly the women) were highly skilled in spotting the slightest sign of growth above ground. It was then a case of digging to see if the root was good enough to eat. Not surprisingly, there was a lack of berries as I expect most had already been foraged.

Even the poison for the arrows was to be found underground. The cocoons containing the larvae of the Diamphidia beetle are found quite deep underneath the Commiphora bush which hosts the beetle.  Great care was taken when digging the things up. We only found a dried up larvae, but it gave us an idea of what was involved.

The poison on the arrow will slowly poison the quarry and the tracking skills of the hunter will come to the fore to find the dying animal. This may take a few days and I was left wondering why a more efficient hunting system with more powerful bows had not been developed. But, as a tracker, I pleased this hadn’t happened otherwise the tracking skills would have been long lost – much like ours.

The penultimate skill we were shown was trapping. We were shown two traps based on the same type of trigger mechanism. One for scrub hares and rabbits and the other for Guinea fowl (pic). The traps are designed to keep the unfortunate prey alive until the hunter is ready to dispatch it. In this way the quarry will be kept fresh for longer in the heat. Of course, it was well camouflaged after this picture was taken.

After 4 days of foraging, making a shelter, making a hunting set, and making traps we went on to the final task. Whenever the bushmen settled down to work, they built a fire. This is the second survival priority and essential to us for boiling water, an absolute necessity in the Kalahari. The bushmen are so well adapted to the arid climate they need very little water, usually taking it from plants and caches. They will use the fire more for cooking, to provide warmth during the evening, for their rituals and assistance in making their tools.

We foraged for the appropriate wood, which in this case was the Manketti bush (I may need to edit this name) and cut two sticks each, which were soon whittled into a drill and a hearth. Dried grass was prepared and we were off! Fire by friction – the hand-drill way! If you can’t do this in the Kalahari, then you can’t do it anywhere – nevertheless I didn’t find it easy. I noted that for the bushmen (and women – as they make fire as well) it’s a team effort, taking turns in drilling. They shout encouragement  to each other and to the fire: “Ka – ka – ka” (have a listen to the video). They are encouraging the ember by saying, “Come on fire – hurry, hurry”.

Eventually, the fire did come for all of us and with shouts of “Gaja – Gaja!” (great – good – well done) we sat back and grinned and watched these ancient peoples nod their head in approval and pride at their protégées success.

Next post – Tracking

A somewhat delayed final post about the Namibia trip.

I thought the survival part of the exped would be a couple of safety briefings. Of course there were safety briefings, but luckily we had Stani Groeneweg onboard so there was much, much more to learn.

Shelter and Shade – In a climate like Namibia you would have thought that water would be the priority. It is – but you have to purify it like you do over here. You could say that shelter is a good idea; not to keep you from wet and the cold but to keep you from the intense heat of the sun. Shelter and shade is the number one priority. It can be as much as 10 degrees centigrade cooler in the shade than in the sun. My little thermometer went off the scale at 120F when we stuck it in the sand at mid-day.

Fire – Fire will cook your food and purify your water. Temperatures can be driven to below zero in the desert winter making things pretty uncomfortable. Therefore the ability to light a fire is, again, as important as it is over here.

Water – Water and more water. If you’ve got it, drink it and keep drinking. The chart above (click to enlarge) was kindly prepared by Stani (sourced from the RAF) and shows survival times without water at certain temperatures and how much water should be drunk. You can see now why keeping in the shade or a shelter can, in a survival situation, significantly increase your chances.

Interestingly, we found that the body does get used to the heat and subsequently over a period of time, it will adapt. We started off drinking 4-5litres a day and at the end we were drinking just 3 litres. The Ju/’hoansi drink very little water, so well are they adapted but they will drink as much as we do if they get the chance.

I suppose this is a version of super-hydrating that I first came across at Shadowhawk. It certainly worked in Africa. Before starting an activity and you know you’re not going to drink for a while, you slug down a litre’s worth or as much as you can… and then a bit more. Not very pleasant but the super-hydrating will actually last you quite a while (depending of course on temperature and the type of activity you’re undertaking.)

The most useful bit of kit on the trip was the Camelbak water bladder… by far.

Food – There was a surprising abundance of food if you are prepared to dig. The “Bush potato” is a good source of carbohydrate and normally there would be quite a few berries about. I wouldn’t attempt to eat anything unless I knew what I was picking. The same as over here.

I spoke about tracking and trapping in previous posts so I won’t dwell on that here. But there is a much wild foods in Namibia as over here (with the exception of mushrooms.) There is also an abundance of small game to trap like the Scrub hare and the ever present Guinea fowl.

Navigation – We had a serious issue in bushmanland where the environment was virtually the same wherever you looked. Natural features were not obvious apart from the odd burnt tree and perhaps an unusually shaped shrub, therefore there was nothing to get a bearing on or from. Navigation became quite important and we tested ourselves in a couple of exercises.

One exercise was to walk out on a bearing for a set distance (you had to negotiate the bushes and shrubs by going to the left of one then to the right of one to keep on your bearing)  then you add (or subtract) 120 degrees and walk the same distance then turn another 120 degrees and walk the same set distance again. The result should be that you end up where you started, being the apex of an equilateral triangle. Ha! Some hope! To my dismay I was way off but I learnt a lesson. More navigation practice is required. I also borrowed a GPS Etrex for the trip and I was pleased I had this as a backup on more than one occasion. This is one bit of kit for Santa’s list.

Emergency signaling – So if you do get lost, what then? Stani had brought some signaling mirrors with him and at Hobatere and we tried them out. We had an old Brit army military mirror from the 80’s, a new BCB Brit army mirror, a NRA mirror (the American Bushman sent me that one a few years ago), and a glass mirror. Stani used the mirrors from the top of a Kopje 500 meters away and the results were quite surprising. I won’t tell what they were yet because I filmed the test and I’ll put this up later. In the meantime, you will have to guess which one came out tops. (Guesses in a comment below would be interesting.)

By the way, lighting a fire as a means of signaling is totally useless in that environment unless you add plenty of rubber to make it nice and black. The white smoke just blended in with the landscape.

Bites and sting danger - Of course, survival also means avoiding the bity, stingy things in the bush. It wasn’t so bad that you had to watch where you put your feet all the time, but it was a good idea to watch where you put your hands, like shoving them into a bush or leaning against trees. I noticed the bushmen kept well away from vegetation when they sat down in the shade of a tree.

Especially important was having some  footwear on at night. Our UV lights picked out a number of scorpions sitting outside their holes just waiting to ambush an insect … or us! As soon as the UV light was taken away, they blended superbly into the sand.

I quickly learnt that putting on gloves to work in the bush was a sensible idea as I quickly collected a number of splinters and thorn cuts. An African version of Cat’s claw thorn is evil stuff and will entangle you if you’re not too careful. I was glad of the thicker cotton Rogue shirts, even though they might have seemed too heavy for the climate.

We only saw a couple of snakes, one wasn’t poisonous at all, and there was no sighting of the dreaded puff-adder. I noticed the bushmen mostly went bare foot, which was a tribute to their hard soles – especially in the heat. I’ll stick to surplus boots thanks.

Kit – I’ve put up a quick video showing what I carried on my person and in the day sack. It may help you if you ever go into this environment.

The Big Five – I suppose a fitting finale to end this series of “Pablo’s Great Adventures In Africa” is to provide the same survival advice as we received when coming up against one of the Big Five…

… Whatever you do, don’t run!