Wildcrafts Weekend

At the kind invite of Les, I went to Prior's Wood in Essex this weekend. I met my old mate John Scrivy and Les and Bret who are all instructors for Les's Bushcraft and Survival School, Wildcrafts.

There was only one student this weekend, Trevor. The course was a general and gentle introduction to Bushcraft and included knife safety and use, fire lighting, water purification, natural shelter construction, wild food walk amongst others. 

After setting up, Les showed me around the wood, which was a nice open and airy coppice woodland, with a newly constructed fishing lake on the outside of the wood. Judging by the tracks, there was a lot of activity in the woods with fallow and muntjac. There was also a lot of badger activity with a large latrine area. The lake attracted a number of visitors including this Grey heron seen on Sunday.

When Scrivy arrived it wasn't long before the air rifles came out and we were happily pinging .22 pellets at a beer can target.

The abundance of birch and the dry conditions made fire lighting easy and we soon had a fire on the go for a bit of food and the social. Plenty of mead, port, cider, and beer went round. The pic above shows something you don't find too often. In fact we think it's a pretty rare occurrence. It's Crampball growing on birch.

Everyone went to to their bivis and hammocks with a smile although in the morning, the smile might not be so prominent as sore heads would inevitably kick in.

The next day, after a good breakfast, Les took Trevor through some knife safety, knife skill and sharpening and fire lighting...

... while Scrivy and I wandered over to the lake and dragged out some crayfish traps that Les and Brett had placed earlier. It was a terrific haul of crayfish, which would be cooked up for lunch. These are signal crayfish, a very aggressive and invasive species. Once caught it is illegal to put them back. What a shame. They have to be eaten!

After lunch Les, armed with his air rifle, and I went to try and find the Grey squirrel I had bumped into earlier. The squirrel (and his mate) certainly knew what we were about and gave us the runaround high in the tree canopy. Nobody could get a clear sight for a shot so we came back empty handed.

Pretty soon it was time to gather around the fire again. Trevor stayed in his well built debris shelter. We had been joined by Mark, also an old friend. The mead went round and round and some delicious pork chops and lamb steaks were covered in honey, barbequed on green sticks and devoured hungrily. Another great evening and I was kindly welcomed to the Wildcrafts fold.

Orthetrum cancellatum - Black-tailed Skimmer seen on the lake

After breakfast on Sunday we swapped out the airguns for an older form of weapon; the bow and arrow. I tried to set up what I thought was a clever shot with the video camera and Scrivy with equal cleverness nearly killed it with a well-placed shot no less than 8 inches below the camera itself! A lucky escape for the camera.

It wasn't long before it was time to pack up. The weekend seemed to have flown by as there was so much going on. Even though I wasn't a student I watched some of Les's instruction with a professional eye and admired the easy way he imparted his vast knowledge of traditional bushcraft especially knowledge on wild flowers and fungi. I would recommend this short course to anyone wanting to experience a bit of bushcraft for the weekend.

Thanks for a great weekend, guys.

Pablo