Your lowest point...
- Thread starter rommy
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Come along to the amazing Summer Moot (21st July - 2nd August), a festival of bushcrafting and camping in a beautiful woodland PLEASE CLICK HERE for more information.
For those of you that know it, Ardingly show ground (famous for the south of england show) used a couple of years ago for a West Sussex Cub Camp. So far so good.
3 in the morning wakened from sleep by a mixture of whimpering, thrashing rain on the tipi, howling kids and howling wind...you getting the picture...poked my head out the door to find several rather sodden cubs in pyjamas pleading to come into the tipi...was about to ask why when I noticed the camp was somewhat depleted of standing tents...the lightweight poly tents that we had decided to replace shortly, had upped and left of their own volition...Spent the rest of the night chasing overgrown kites around and creating a semblance of shelter...when I finally sat down as the grey sun was rising, I thought to myself, what the b****y H*** am I doing this for...
Pleased to say that my pathetic stance was soon vanished when the kids started to regale their stories of surviving the tempest, and saying it was the most exciting night they had ever spent. No injuries, no crying, no going back...
Of course I look back and laugh...now...
3 in the morning wakened from sleep by a mixture of whimpering, thrashing rain on the tipi, howling kids and howling wind...you getting the picture...poked my head out the door to find several rather sodden cubs in pyjamas pleading to come into the tipi...was about to ask why when I noticed the camp was somewhat depleted of standing tents...the lightweight poly tents that we had decided to replace shortly, had upped and left of their own volition...Spent the rest of the night chasing overgrown kites around and creating a semblance of shelter...when I finally sat down as the grey sun was rising, I thought to myself, what the b****y H*** am I doing this for...
Pleased to say that my pathetic stance was soon vanished when the kids started to regale their stories of surviving the tempest, and saying it was the most exciting night they had ever spent. No injuries, no crying, no going back...
Of course I look back and laugh...now...
Being on a loch in scotland in a small canoe in a storm (3ft plus waves, may not be much but I was ... myself) with the canoe full of water almost to tipping point. me and my mate both wet to the bone and no immediate spot to land. if we had gone into the water I don't know if we would have made it to shore.
that was a low point. We sang strange and rude songs, very loudly, which helped.
that was a low point. We sang strange and rude songs, very loudly, which helped.
i think for me it would be the third day of our Kinder scout run. we hit win hill late friday night and made really good time getting up to somewhere we could camp. next morning bright and early we got eaten by some midges whilst packing up and had a cracking day up kinder and followed the edge past fairbrook naze. we had to refil at springs, which meant chlorine tabs.
little known to me, my stomach dispises chlorine tabs and i was sick to my stomach as we head down william clough and into the outskirts of haybrook. very sleepless night and pestered by more midges on the campsite.
final day we walked into New mills to get the train back to manchester and home, i was tired, sick and exausted. col even offered to carry my stupidly kitchen sinked 66l pack at times but i carried on regardless.
i felt truely awfull and even some ant-acid at a paper shop didn't really take effect for quite some time.
once in manchester a hot gammon steak and chips helped tho
we saw some amazing sights and it was an epic 3 days, and i'd do it all again in a heartbeat, although this time i'd take a drinksafe and plenty of midge repellant!
little known to me, my stomach dispises chlorine tabs and i was sick to my stomach as we head down william clough and into the outskirts of haybrook. very sleepless night and pestered by more midges on the campsite.
final day we walked into New mills to get the train back to manchester and home, i was tired, sick and exausted. col even offered to carry my stupidly kitchen sinked 66l pack at times but i carried on regardless.
i felt truely awfull and even some ant-acid at a paper shop didn't really take effect for quite some time.
once in manchester a hot gammon steak and chips helped tho
we saw some amazing sights and it was an epic 3 days, and i'd do it all again in a heartbeat, although this time i'd take a drinksafe and plenty of midge repellant!
More camping than bushcraft but ....
Camped in Newqay's chaviest campsite having gone to bed around 3am we were attacked by a flock of 50+ seagulls at 5am for over an hour. They raided the bins, pecked at everything and made an amazing amount of noise. I actually punched one who landed on my tent and wouldn't leave.
Had to do a 6 hour drive the next morning - not fun!
Camped in Newqay's chaviest campsite having gone to bed around 3am we were attacked by a flock of 50+ seagulls at 5am for over an hour. They raided the bins, pecked at everything and made an amazing amount of noise. I actually punched one who landed on my tent and wouldn't leave.
Had to do a 6 hour drive the next morning - not fun!
I lost my tobacco oncethen I found it
but I'd run out of rizlas
.
been there... walked 2 miles to do some shore fishing in the middle of no-where, i'll have a fag me thinks... last rizla. DOH!
Camping as a kid, walking 15 miles from home to camp on the side of a loch with a mate, only to unroll 'sludge' where the tent had been packed wet some months before (probably me)... only to be closely followed by the mother of all rainstorms and a 15 mile walk back home soaking. the roads where 2" deep in water for most of the journey, rain coming sideways and despite our best efforts to thumb a lift, through the door around 5am. 24 hrs of bliss
well... maybe not.i try to look back and laugh, and then i remeber the whole walk. kids, eh!
TBL.
Never had a bad one in the wilds. But this summer in Dorset I used some choice language to invite eight 20 somethings out to discuss why they had ruined my sleep for three consecutive nights.
They shut up then. Don't know why, like an idiot I was on my own.
They shut up then. Don't know why, like an idiot I was on my own.
overland hike (2 day hike for scouts(i was 11))
cr**** boil in a bag food and pot noodles.
got to camp fine, set up camp fine(in suitable tent) ate diner fine although it tasted disgutsing. then looked at the packaging of the beef stew i have 1 1/2 years out of date.
7 trips to the hedge to puke in the night (abviously bucketing down) hypothermia in the morning
looking back now it isnt soo bad but, while i was lying there in the makeshif hoispital (i wasnt the only one with hypothermia) i thought it was hell.
cr**** boil in a bag food and pot noodles.
got to camp fine, set up camp fine(in suitable tent) ate diner fine although it tasted disgutsing. then looked at the packaging of the beef stew i have 1 1/2 years out of date.
7 trips to the hedge to puke in the night (abviously bucketing down) hypothermia in the morning
looking back now it isnt soo bad but, while i was lying there in the makeshif hoispital (i wasnt the only one with hypothermia) i thought it was hell.
My first solo backpacking trip. The first night after just a few kms I started thinking 'what the heck am I doing here?' I almost turned back several times. I brought too much stuff and quickly got tired. I had a one man tent I had never tried and felt like a nylon coffin. It rained. I woke up at 2am to a big bull moose staring at me from 10 feet away.
I toughed it out but came back a day early.
I was also hooked. I crave the peace and solitude. I love bringing my kids, dogs and SWMBO and that is awesome as well, but once in a while I do nip out on my own-actually heading out to Algonquin park here in Ontario for a couple of days solo next week.
FarPoint
-All those who wander are not lost-
I toughed it out but came back a day early.
I was also hooked. I crave the peace and solitude. I love bringing my kids, dogs and SWMBO and that is awesome as well, but once in a while I do nip out on my own-actually heading out to Algonquin park here in Ontario for a couple of days solo next week.
FarPoint
-All those who wander are not lost-
Dreadhead
Bushcrafter through and through
I had a fairly serious operation removing a cyst on the tailbone area, around 2 inches of flesh carved out and 6 crude stitches holding my erse together. A week later i decided id had enough of lying in bed and went out with 2 others. I stopped taking the meds and started drinking and it all went downhill. I couldnt move, bend, barely walk, or carry anything. Twas a night of lying down cold with a hole in my back and no food, knowing i had tae finish the next day with a 2 hour trip in an off road. As soon as i got back i reckon i lay in bed for another week before getting back out tae try and bend my back again without feeling stitches popping
First day out in the Derbyshire hills with a group of about a dozen school fiends doing Duke of Edinburgh's. I think I was about fourteen. I took a huge pile of gear, way too much. I'm still the same really. Anyway I couldn't keep up with the rest of the group and gradually fell so far behind that I lost sight of them completely. I was miles from anywhere (well, just a few but it seemed a lot to me at the time) and completely alone for probably the first time in my life. That was as low as I think I've ever been, not so much for being alone but for being abandoned by my friends.
Anyway I had a map and a compass so I cracked on to the camp site where we were supposed to be heading. Just a field, with the permission of the farmer. When I got there I was still on my own, so I started to set up camp, morosely wondering why my friends had all left me. Imagine my smug delight when they turned up about an hour later. They'd got lost.
Anyway I had a map and a compass so I cracked on to the camp site where we were supposed to be heading. Just a field, with the permission of the farmer. When I got there I was still on my own, so I started to set up camp, morosely wondering why my friends had all left me. Imagine my smug delight when they turned up about an hour later. They'd got lost.
Early 1980's was persuaded by a couple of mates to do the Stella bike rally in northern Italy (Bardoneccia in the Alps, if my memory serves me right). They said it was organised by the Stella brewery, and every participant got two crates of Stella on arrival - so of course I agreed to do it and meet them at the camp-site there. Motored down from Manchester, across France, made it over the alps on one cylinder (a coil on Moto-guzzi had broken). Arrived at the camp-site - no mates, no Stella crates. Pitched tent in snow, found mates in bar in town. Turns out the rally was named after the Stella Alpina, a mountain flower...........
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