Tuesday 20 October 2009

Nuts

I went for a walk again through the woods today, well more than that did quite a bit of filming as well. Still feels weird being in front of a camera and even worse talking to it. Although I talk to trees, trees are a living entity that breathe and grow and die, much like ourselves but talking to something as soleless as a camera takes some doing!

Well the one thing I have noticed this year, especially here in Cornwall is the amount of Sweet Chesnuts that are falling off the trees. And above all the squirells obviously can't collect them fast enough as there are some realy gorgeous ones left for the taking.

So since I hadn't taken any lunch with me, I had a feast on Chestnuts, very nice. But one thing did occur to me. I can't remember there ever being this good a crop of Chestnuts since moving to Cornwall 12 years ago, all I can assume is that we are in for one mightily cold winter.

Whilst those of you that live in colder climates, such as Canada, Sweden etc will laugh at such a small amount of the white stuff, being in the UK when it snows is just utter pandemonium. Not only does the whole structure of civilisation come to an end, but the shops sell out of bread in double quick time! It really if quite funny seeing how people behave as their World comes to an end.

We did have snow last winter, which was fun but it only lasted a few days.

I am keeping my fingers crossed for a real cold snap this year, I will keep you posted.

Monday 19 October 2009

Under a Tarp

Under a tarp

Saturday morning I decided to spend the night out again under the stars. This is called bivouacking, the meaning of which is to sleep outdoors, in a waterproof bag (bivy) instead of a tent. Doing this gives you the utmost feeling of the outdoors. The wind will occasionally blow across your face and you hear the birds and wildlife first hand instead of through the tent walls.

Anyway, I was dropped off in the usual place with a walk of about 1 mile to my camp spot. Now you may say 1 mile isn’t very far, but carrying 30lbs in weight then climbing several thousand feet in the process of getting to the bivy area takes some doing.

One of the first things I came across was, lots of sorrel plants on the wayside. These whilst good to eat, aren’t much good in this case as it’s a local dog haunt, need I explain more! However a little further I came across Hawthorn berries, which make for good eating and are also good for your heart according to recent medical studies. There were also loads of Blackthorn which you can eat but is very sour. Best used after the first frosts and to make sloe gin. The seeds of both plants should not be eaten due to its cyanide content.

The walk up the hill, is very worthwhile because of the views along the way, but on a cold day, this is when you realise that good clothes are a must. You must take care if you sweat then get cold by the sweat drying on you. In bad situations this can lead to hyperthermia, and at the least a chill. So clothes that wick away the sweat are best and several thinner layers serve the purpose very well.

After stopping along the way to the top, to catch my breath and to cool down, I eventually made it. At this point I took the opportunity to remove my rucksack and to relax for a while. This after all was supposed to be fun, but also keeps me fit (ish).

After being disturbed by a couple of harmless drunk teenagers, I made my way down to my camping area. I like to keep my sleeping areas secret as not everyone has the same values as I and I would hate to get there to find the oak tree burnt with glass and beer bottles smashed all over. Why some people choose to do this to our countryside is beyond belief, ‘RESPECT’ they have non for anything or themselves.

It was nice to get back under my oak tree and one of the first things I had to do was put up the tarp. The weather at this point looked decidedly dodgy, and I couldn’t make out whether it would rain, snow or clear up and go foggy!!

One of the reasons I enjoy camping out, is that you have to take a deep breath and slow down, compose yourself and leave all the pent up feeling of rushing about behind you. You do this because if you don’t, you can make mistakes and so will suffer later on in the night if things aren’t tied down well. So do the job right and make it last the night, or for the duration it has to be there without doing any damage to the surrounding area. Isn’t difficult if you put your mind to it!

Next job on the list is unpacking and sorting things into priority. Now this doesn’t sound to important, but when you are out in the wilderness you have to plan ahead and do as much as you can before darkness sets in. There is nothing worse than trying to sort things out, even with a decent head torch. So Bivy bag, sleep mat and sleeping bag all ready, I then set about getting tea ready. This time I had already pre-decided not to have a fire, a contained fire at least that doesn’t leave a fire scar on the ground and uses less fuel.

I put together the Omnifuel stove I had bought with me. This basically meant screwing the gas bottle onto the stove pipe, and setting the pot on for boiling after lighting it. I arranged my sit mat in the usual place next to the stove and set about making my tea. This, tonight was going to be a dehydrated army 24 hour ration portion of a balti style rice dish, which is really very good and quite edible. I tucked in and enjoyed, only to notice I had the first visitor of the evening, a Red admiral butterfly gracing my presence. This was well worth the visit as in mid October I had thought they would be well and truly gone by now. I then noticed a robin redbreast doing his rounds. Totally astounding, two absolutely beautiful creatures had paid me a visit.

I now felt relaxed and well fed, as I set about drinking my coffee. What would have made the ultimate difference was an open fire, but most places don’t allow fires for obvious reasons, so I sat there and contemplated the World and its many problems. I thought about my oldest brother who I have little to do with due to many problems with his wife. Usually I don’t give it much thought as I knew a long time ago how things would eventually turn out, I wasn’t wrong.

Families, I always think, ‘you can pick your friends but not your family. And if you had the choice would you pick certain members of your family as friends? Not worth dwelling on it too much, but these are the type of thoughts that may come into your head when you are alone, why I think people that set out into the wild like Ed Wardle who set out in Alone in the Wild and started to fail after only two days, due to the fact, how I see it, his unknowing of these inner feelings. Basically there are many people that don’t really know themselves and fall apart at the first sign of being alone when the only place our thoughts can go is inwards. This isn’t a dig at anyone, we are all different and I know the World would be an even lonelier place if we were all the same.

Having finished my tea, I set about on my little project of making a candle holder out of an old bean tin. All you do is cut a hole in the side for the light to spill out from. I made this one with a bramble hanging wire loop, which in the end I didn’t use as there weren’t so many places for me to hand it. Now it was totally dark, apart from my headlamp hung around my neck and the light from the candle. I set my billy can on top of the tin can so that the warmth from the candle would slowly boil some water for me, which it eventualluy did. Just after that though the candle went out due to it not being a particularly good one.

I was now alone in the dark, in a haunted area. I say that not just for dramatic effect but just as it is so. It is used for Witchy goings on and has burial mounds in various places, which in my view adds more to the ambience of the place not to its detriment.

The time was getting on, just before 9pm so with it now getting cold I thought I would turn in. Yes it was an early night, but unless you have a fire, which means drawing attention to where you are, or have company, when the lights go out there is little else to do. So I crept into my sleeping bag to have the almost instantaneous warmth it brings with a good sleeping bag. What a good time just to lie and meditate, so that’s just what I did.

I awoke for the first time to the sound of rustling around me. I then realised I had left the bag my tea had come in folded inside my makeshift candle holder. Rats, I thought. I don’t want that. So reaching out of my bag I moved the bag to hopefully stop the interest. It didn’t! I assumed it was more like a field mouse, due to the fact that it had squeaked a few times and was too high a pitch to be a rat. I noticed the coolness of the air, and the now clear skies we would have a frost. I wasn’t cold at all, one benefit of choosing the correct materials for the job. I went back to sleep, with the rustling now further away. I next awoke at about 5am, to see the skies a cloudy reflective colour and the warmth it bought with it. This didn’t surprise me at all, what with two coasts so close together, the weather can change faster than you can blink sometimes.

After then tossing and turning until dawn around 7.15am, I decided it was a good time to get up. So I got out of bed and made myself some porridge and tea. Why does everything taste so much better when you are outside? I then made a mental note to myself that if I ever became a scientist I would research this to see if people that don’t like being outdoors would enjoy a breakfast like this so much?

Shortly after cleaning my pots out I decided it was time to make a start on my packing. This isn’t something that should be rushed, and there again, I had upturned my bivi bag to allow the underside to dry out a little before packing it away. As I said, plan and think ahead and things will become far easier.

Satisfied I had packed all away I shouldered my pack and set out again back up the hill. This time I would take a stroll through the woods before my pickup some 3 miles away.

As I walked I was already planning my next trip!

Wednesday 7 October 2009

Madness in the rain

Today must be the heaviest rain I have seen in Cornwall for some time. That’s not to say it hasn’t rained, far from it, usually it’s the damp misty type that gets you soaked through albeit very sneakily,

So I decided, after doing some paperwork to venture out and have my dinner. Mad I hear you say! Especially when you find out that I didn’t wear my gore-tex trousers. My top half was taken care of by my Swazi coat. Like the one Mr Mears friends wears on Wildfood, with the zip up front. So to say the least my top half stayed dry, but trousers were soaked. Just a good job they were my ex army lightweights and not jeans, they would have been like a wick all the way up to my shirt.

On the way down to my favourite spot I perchanced upon a cache of Sweet Chestnuts. Now in most parts of the UK this is something you can see a lot of. But since moving to Cornwall about 12 years ago, I haven’t seen such an abundance, and to say they taste nice is an injustice. So in the pouring rain, I was there gathering wild food, making the most of this one time event.

Upon achieving my goal and actually managing to get to my area, the clouds set about and opened up into the deluge from hell. Or more correctly, rain that would have put the fires of hell out. I decided to try my hand first of all, by not putting up the cover, which today was simply one of my poncho’s. Small and light, but very versatile, and possibly one of the most useful bits of kit you can carry, barring a knife. So with rain running everywhere, soaking all the kits I had, proving to me why you should always start with your tarp, or alternative cover, I set about lighting my Crusader cooker for my dinner and cup of coffee. This actually went quite well but did spit more than usual due to the rain hitting the now heated metal.

You may ask, why I did this when I have all the kit available to stay dry! My answer is purely and simply for the experience. Mad sounding I know, but I consider the way our lives are now to be extremely pampered and just sometimes you need a wake up call, and this is the easier option than wishing for something interesting to happen in your life. Something I will never do!!

As my water was now on the heat, I thought it would be interesting to see if I could light a fire. I hasten to add, I always have permission to do this and so should you too, in the UK at least. My only tinder was some tinder card I had left in my bag, which does work wet but not as good as dry. I will say ideally you should prepare for this and carry dry tinder in some form or other. This is collected on dry days and kept dry for when you need it. Or picked up early in the day, and stored next to the warmth of your body to help dry it out for use later on. I didn’t have that convenience as the whole trip would only take me 3 hours or so, and the tinder I do keep is for emergencies only.

I set about splitting an old thin pine log, one I knew to be dry on the inside with the hatchet I was carrying, a Husqvarna ‘ Gransfors wildlife’ equivalent type. A lot cheaper and from the same factory. The splitting process wasn’t easy as all there was available was another log to rest against. Oh what fun! I did however manage to split enough to make a start on the fire. Keeping the now dry inner wood dry, isn’t an easy job, all you can do is crouch over what you have split and slowly drip the contents of all the water running down over your coat, into the not yet lit fire. I then set about making a few feather sticks, where you shave bits of the stick into a curly mass. These are used to persuade the small flames, or even sparks from a firesteel etc. ‘if you have sufficient cover,’ tee hee, into taking the wood into its warm encompassing embrace. By now the wood was starting to look more like I had picked it out of the mud which in turn had been sitting around in the rain for the last few days.

Upon roughing up the tinder card to accept a spark from my firesteel, I noticed the pounding rain was starting to make its way further through the cover of the trees. Very nearly at this point I nearly gave up, and got my poncho out. I then thought, no damn it, prove it can be done. This is what makes the difference in real survival situations ‘don’t give up’, not that this was, I was just getting wet. I put the poncho down and carried on with the progress of lighting the fire. First few sparks, didn’t take at all, not surprising really on how damp it was. I roughed the surface up some more and tried again, whilst all the time trying my very best to keep everything covered up and dry’ish.

At last the spark took and I added the small flame to the fire pile I had created. Tender flames licking about the wood, spitting now and again at the water trying to extinguish its life. Once the fire had taken hold, and it started to build a semblance of warmth, I then decided, enough is enough, I would now make my cover. At this point, the water I set to boil before, started giving off the signs it was ready. Blast I thought, ‘it never rains but it...’. I stopped myself there. Typical sense of humour, now I felt completely insane.

I took hold of myself and took the poncho out of the stuff sack. I decided then and there the simplest way would be to use the eyelets at the edges, to hook a few small branches through there just to have enough time in the dry to get some paracord out of my bag which was now starting to fill up with water. Yes I had put the lid down on it, but in my haste to get out of the smoke of the fire as it started, I had knocked it and it had opened slightly. So after closing it properly now, I took out one length of cord and tied it around the corners of each branch just to stop it landing in a heap when I was enjoying my dinner, which I now needed.

At last success. I sat down on the log, legs soaked through but now able to lower the hood on my jacket. I set about making my coffee and the noodles meal I had bough with me and added a few more stick to the fire, nice warmth. The fire now was really enjoyable and even started to dry my trousers a little, shown by the steam rising off them. Sitting there, I once again realised what we have, and how we all take it for granted. Just one slip of fate could create cataclysmic events across the globe and set us back half a millennia.

After clearing the area for signs of me being there, I thought to myself maybe all the people that have called me insane have a point. The only other people I saw out today were a couple from the local College doing something with their students, who I hasten to add were all sitting in their van.

I always think life is what you make it, even if it means doing something unusual.

Being even half prepared is always better than being unprepared.