Deep in the Heart of Essex…

It was another cracking weekend, deep in the heart of Essex where you wouldn’t expect much Bushy activity; but there was.

Again, I joined up with Wildcrafts Bushcraft and Survival School to help out teaching some young bushcrafters. Les and Brett took the lads and lasses through some fundamental bushcraft skills like shelter building, knife safety and sharpening,  fire-lighting, rabbit skinning and cooking. I take them for a bit of night movement including dark adaption techniques.

On the last morning the group is split and Les takes them for a wild plant walk and I introduce them to tracking, finishing with a man-hunt type scenario which they seem to enjoy.

 

 

The other benefit of this particular location is that we are fortunate enough to be able to set up a second, more luxurious camp for us er… older bushcrafters who are a little too old to partake in the debris shelters and bivouacs (above) and prefer the luxury of hammocks and camp beds. The rat packs are also swopped out for wonderful stews and, on this occasion, a fantastic curry cooked by the increasingly famous bush-chef, Scrivy.

Scrivy (here in disguise) also subsidised the young person’s meagre rabbit rations with a green-stick barbequed muntjac…

Of course there was more than a little liquid refreshment to wash the whole lot down and a good craic ensued around the well built fire.

Being mushroom season, there was plenty of ‘shrooms to identify and pick if appropriate…

… and it was a pleasure to see Alan create his first ember and fire by bow drill.

I brought down a parachute I just bought and we spent a while setting it up by re-applying the cut paracord around the edges to tie the ‘chute down. A ridge line was hung between two trees but in retrospect, we realised that the ridge line was too low. This was due to the ‘chute being absolutely huge and the rope stretching because it was new. We ended up rolling the edge up to the first seam and ‘buttoning’ up the edges and tying off with a small stick, then tying the edges down.

The end result was quite a smart looking  group shelter with plenty of room. We anxiously waited the promised rain on Saturday to test it out, but, fortunately or unfortunately (depending on how you look at it) the rain skirted around us.

It was great to see old mates again; Steve, Scrivy, and Al (here looking like extras from ‘Snatch’) Simon, Les, Brett, Becky and Alan and the Bush Stig (!) More than this, it was great to introduce another 20 or so youngsters to the world of Bushcraft and Tracking.