For my birthday last year I received a voucher for a weekend long Woodland Ways Bushcraft course. I've just landed home from a weekend down in Derbyshire attending the course so I thought i'd share a few words/pics which will hopefully interest a few of you.
Before getting in to the pics etc I'd just like to say that I had a fantastic weekend. The instructors were great, very knowledgable and always on hand to answer any questions etc. You could really see that they're passionate about what they do and this really helped make the weekend as good as it was.
The course I attended ran from Fri eve to mid day Sun, the web site describes the course as 'An ideal starting course for the beginner and for those who wish to try their hand at something different. It is also relevant for those who have an outline understanding of the concept and techniques of Bushcraft & Survival but wish to practice their techniques' and i'd say this is a spot on description.
Wanting to miss the Friday rush hour traffic I arrived down there early andhad a rather ropey sandwich in a nearby pub before heading to the woodland venue.
After some quick introductions etc we took a short wander up to the woods. The fire was already going and the kettle boiling so we all had a brew whilst sat listening to the introductions etc, these included being given a Bahco and a Mora and the necessary info to go with them as well and what to expect from the weekend. After this we were all given a tarp and some instructions re how/where to set them up and off we went to set up for the night.
My bed for the first night:
After we'd set up our tarps it was time to prepare some tea, Pigeon was on the menu for the first night. One of our instructors took us through how to prep them etc, I have to admit I sat this and the Rabbit prep session out, it was really interesting to see it done but it's just really not my thing... I know!
Anyway... with that all done it was back to the fire and on went our tea...
It's the first time I've eaten pigeon and I have to admit it wasn't too bad, I think the other stuff in there with it (esp the ginger) helped a lot but the flavour was pretty good. After this we were left to it for the evening so we all sat around the fire chatting and getting to know each other a little before retiring for the evening.
I slept pretty well the first night, I think the four days in the Lakes beforehand probably helped (trip report to follow!) as I was pretty tired but the tarp kept me dry and I was was plenty warm in my ME bag.
I wasn't the first to rise on the Saturday so by the time I made it to the parachute the fire was already going once more and the kettle rather conveniently just boiled
After some breakfast we were given a bit of a talk about shelter building before being set free in the woods to make our own to use that night if we wanted. After taking a while to find the right spot and the three main supports I cracked on and this is what I came up with:
After the shelters were up it was on to lunch, Trout to be exact.
Again we were taken through how to prep them etc and these were cooked over the fire, very tasty they were too.
After lunch we had a bit of a bimble through the woods and a foraging related talk/show/tell.
This was followed by a great after noon session all about fire, starting with the very basics and going through the many different methods of how to get one going before being allowed a good play with everything ourselves.
After this it was on to our evening meal, rabbit. I've not eaten rabbit before and have to admit I wasn't a big fan. The meat seemed a little tough and wasn't particularly flavoursome for me, but again it was great to see how to prepare and cook them from scratch.
On the Saturday night we had a good long talk re sharps, inc the different types, styles, grinds, as well as a look through plenty of different knives the instructors had brought with them. I'm conscious this write up is starting to get a bit long winded so i'll try keep it short from here on in...
I had another good nights sleep, this time in my shelter but woke early, the rain had stopped so I decided to get up straight away and head over to themain camp. Being first up I got the fire going again and the kettleon and I even got to see a little bit of a sunrise
Damper bread for breakfast which was very nice.
This was followed by a really good session re trapping. Martin took this one and you could clearly see it was something he loved and had great experience/practice of.
This pretty much concluded the weekend. The weather was crap all weekend but I managed to stay pretty much dry, in a way I think the rain kind of added to the weekend... or is that just one of those things people say when they've been somewhere and it's rained the whole time?!
I've probably missed quite a lot out but all in all it was a cracking weekend and i'd highly recommend Woodland Ways to anyone, the instructors were great and made time for everyone on the course. They do all kinds of courses for all different abilities and you can just tell the instructors love what they do. We had Martin and Matt as our instructors, I think Matt is on a kind of apprentice type scheme with Woodland Ways but you'd never know he wasn't one of their full time instructors.
I guess I should probably leave it a that as this is already far longer than I intended it to be, plus I need to get some sleep as I'm heading out for a couple more nights under the Trailstar tomorrow. Apologies if this has ended up a bit pic/word heavy, I'm still going through the photo's and to be honest could have added plenty more!
Hope this has been of some interest!
Matt
A few more:
Before getting in to the pics etc I'd just like to say that I had a fantastic weekend. The instructors were great, very knowledgable and always on hand to answer any questions etc. You could really see that they're passionate about what they do and this really helped make the weekend as good as it was.
The course I attended ran from Fri eve to mid day Sun, the web site describes the course as 'An ideal starting course for the beginner and for those who wish to try their hand at something different. It is also relevant for those who have an outline understanding of the concept and techniques of Bushcraft & Survival but wish to practice their techniques' and i'd say this is a spot on description.
Wanting to miss the Friday rush hour traffic I arrived down there early andhad a rather ropey sandwich in a nearby pub before heading to the woodland venue.
After some quick introductions etc we took a short wander up to the woods. The fire was already going and the kettle boiling so we all had a brew whilst sat listening to the introductions etc, these included being given a Bahco and a Mora and the necessary info to go with them as well and what to expect from the weekend. After this we were all given a tarp and some instructions re how/where to set them up and off we went to set up for the night.
My bed for the first night:
After we'd set up our tarps it was time to prepare some tea, Pigeon was on the menu for the first night. One of our instructors took us through how to prep them etc, I have to admit I sat this and the Rabbit prep session out, it was really interesting to see it done but it's just really not my thing... I know!
Anyway... with that all done it was back to the fire and on went our tea...
It's the first time I've eaten pigeon and I have to admit it wasn't too bad, I think the other stuff in there with it (esp the ginger) helped a lot but the flavour was pretty good. After this we were left to it for the evening so we all sat around the fire chatting and getting to know each other a little before retiring for the evening.
I slept pretty well the first night, I think the four days in the Lakes beforehand probably helped (trip report to follow!) as I was pretty tired but the tarp kept me dry and I was was plenty warm in my ME bag.
I wasn't the first to rise on the Saturday so by the time I made it to the parachute the fire was already going once more and the kettle rather conveniently just boiled
After some breakfast we were given a bit of a talk about shelter building before being set free in the woods to make our own to use that night if we wanted. After taking a while to find the right spot and the three main supports I cracked on and this is what I came up with:
After the shelters were up it was on to lunch, Trout to be exact.
Again we were taken through how to prep them etc and these were cooked over the fire, very tasty they were too.
After lunch we had a bit of a bimble through the woods and a foraging related talk/show/tell.
This was followed by a great after noon session all about fire, starting with the very basics and going through the many different methods of how to get one going before being allowed a good play with everything ourselves.
After this it was on to our evening meal, rabbit. I've not eaten rabbit before and have to admit I wasn't a big fan. The meat seemed a little tough and wasn't particularly flavoursome for me, but again it was great to see how to prepare and cook them from scratch.
On the Saturday night we had a good long talk re sharps, inc the different types, styles, grinds, as well as a look through plenty of different knives the instructors had brought with them. I'm conscious this write up is starting to get a bit long winded so i'll try keep it short from here on in...
I had another good nights sleep, this time in my shelter but woke early, the rain had stopped so I decided to get up straight away and head over to themain camp. Being first up I got the fire going again and the kettleon and I even got to see a little bit of a sunrise
Damper bread for breakfast which was very nice.
This was followed by a really good session re trapping. Martin took this one and you could clearly see it was something he loved and had great experience/practice of.
This pretty much concluded the weekend. The weather was crap all weekend but I managed to stay pretty much dry, in a way I think the rain kind of added to the weekend... or is that just one of those things people say when they've been somewhere and it's rained the whole time?!
I've probably missed quite a lot out but all in all it was a cracking weekend and i'd highly recommend Woodland Ways to anyone, the instructors were great and made time for everyone on the course. They do all kinds of courses for all different abilities and you can just tell the instructors love what they do. We had Martin and Matt as our instructors, I think Matt is on a kind of apprentice type scheme with Woodland Ways but you'd never know he wasn't one of their full time instructors.
I guess I should probably leave it a that as this is already far longer than I intended it to be, plus I need to get some sleep as I'm heading out for a couple more nights under the Trailstar tomorrow. Apologies if this has ended up a bit pic/word heavy, I'm still going through the photo's and to be honest could have added plenty more!
Hope this has been of some interest!
Matt
A few more:
