Hushwing
30-05-2012, 01:03 PM
This is no true bushcraft adventure but has got each of us back into camping so...
Intro - the bit you can skip if you want...
It was our wedding anniversary this weekend past and thought as a nice surprise we would head to one of our favourite seal spotting beaches on the west coast, near Ormisary, on the way to Kilberry. As we have a thing for camper vans but don't actually own one I spoke to a mate for a loan of his split screen VW but after having a test drive we realised that it doesn't have three seatbelts (aye we had to bring the lad along as well - the complete package an' aw that). Great, finally had an excuse to initiate the first family camping! Though my good lady had camped as a girl she hadn't been too inclined recently (ulcerative colitis and lack of toilet facilities can be difficult to manage). But she surprised me by being up for the task - woo hoo. This was also the first camp with open fire I have done since becoming a Ranger (17years ago) because I see so many other people trashing the area that by the time I've dealt with it I'm not inclined to do it myself.
This isn't true wildwoods stuff but...
We parked up beside the final camping spot on a rocky/gritty beach and walked all of 3 metres to pitch the tent. The other two learnt that if a wind is blowing we all need to pitch in (excuse the pun) but we got settled fairly quickly and the lad ran around mad climbing through the rocks and collecting firewood. I have been trying to get him using tools safely and getting to know the basics of fire making so he was dead keen to go camping and try it out. We piled up the sand, made a basin of it to place our fire in, etc (shown at the end to remove our charcoal and to cover up the fire site sand).
Anyway the main story is about the relaxing time we had on our pure-last-minute-let's-go-trip and the views as we watched the sun eventually disappear - it was light enough to see well after 12 midnight (with due respect to our Norwegian bushcraft friend). I continued to go on to watch the moon set and shared the tent with said family and some bad midgie squatters. At 4 am I was properly awake but enjoyed watching the day gather strength (into one of the hottest yet) and had the £2.97 converted stainles steel container billy can boiling up a brew for when everyone got up.
But I had time to 'play' with different arrangements of the fire to do different tasks - gained a bit more knowledge of what wood and it's condition has on the fire output etc. Oh we dug a proper toilet (which bizarrely the lad was keen to try out!) and we cleared up our fairly tidy site and other rubbish we found. The site was left immaculate, even resorting to sweeping out our footprints on the beach so it looked unused!! anyway the pics do the main talking:
4677
The site looking towards the Paps of Jura
467846794680
Happy campers; Fire works; Olympic torch on a budget
cont.
Intro - the bit you can skip if you want...
It was our wedding anniversary this weekend past and thought as a nice surprise we would head to one of our favourite seal spotting beaches on the west coast, near Ormisary, on the way to Kilberry. As we have a thing for camper vans but don't actually own one I spoke to a mate for a loan of his split screen VW but after having a test drive we realised that it doesn't have three seatbelts (aye we had to bring the lad along as well - the complete package an' aw that). Great, finally had an excuse to initiate the first family camping! Though my good lady had camped as a girl she hadn't been too inclined recently (ulcerative colitis and lack of toilet facilities can be difficult to manage). But she surprised me by being up for the task - woo hoo. This was also the first camp with open fire I have done since becoming a Ranger (17years ago) because I see so many other people trashing the area that by the time I've dealt with it I'm not inclined to do it myself.
This isn't true wildwoods stuff but...
We parked up beside the final camping spot on a rocky/gritty beach and walked all of 3 metres to pitch the tent. The other two learnt that if a wind is blowing we all need to pitch in (excuse the pun) but we got settled fairly quickly and the lad ran around mad climbing through the rocks and collecting firewood. I have been trying to get him using tools safely and getting to know the basics of fire making so he was dead keen to go camping and try it out. We piled up the sand, made a basin of it to place our fire in, etc (shown at the end to remove our charcoal and to cover up the fire site sand).
Anyway the main story is about the relaxing time we had on our pure-last-minute-let's-go-trip and the views as we watched the sun eventually disappear - it was light enough to see well after 12 midnight (with due respect to our Norwegian bushcraft friend). I continued to go on to watch the moon set and shared the tent with said family and some bad midgie squatters. At 4 am I was properly awake but enjoyed watching the day gather strength (into one of the hottest yet) and had the £2.97 converted stainles steel container billy can boiling up a brew for when everyone got up.
But I had time to 'play' with different arrangements of the fire to do different tasks - gained a bit more knowledge of what wood and it's condition has on the fire output etc. Oh we dug a proper toilet (which bizarrely the lad was keen to try out!) and we cleared up our fairly tidy site and other rubbish we found. The site was left immaculate, even resorting to sweeping out our footprints on the beach so it looked unused!! anyway the pics do the main talking:
4677
The site looking towards the Paps of Jura
467846794680
Happy campers; Fire works; Olympic torch on a budget
cont.