I've just got back from a wet weekend with the Scouts at Hardcastle Crags.
For a change, I decided to sleep in a tent, but as the weather was forcast to be very wet, I set up my tarp first and placed my tent under it...
Did I say the forcast was wet? We arrived in the dry, and managed to get all the tents up...then the heavens opened. It rained so hard that i seriously considered changing the program at one point!
Looking at the scouts tents - they had an Andywink tarp as a group area to socialise and cook under...
On the Saturday, after a very wet night, the clouds cleared and we took a stroll to Gibson's Mill, A NT property that has been set up to run "off grid". We had arranged a tour in advance and spent a good two hours or so looking around with our guides...
http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/mai...rags/w-hardcastlecrags-gibsonmill_project.htm
As part of the eco friendly approach, they produce their own charcoal and sell it to pay for the upkeep of the estate. The Scouts were surprised that charcoal is made in much the same way as char cloth
...
Due to H&S red tape, the staff at the Mill split their firewood using a manual splitter, not an axe like us lot...a couple of Scouts had a go before they realised they had been conned into splitting someone elses firewood...
As always, food played a large part of the weekend
We took a leg of lamb and decided to bone it before cooking, so over to our resident chef and her colleague from work (a leader from another group)...
After boning, covered in dried mixed peppers and mushrooms...
...and rolled prior to cooking in red wine and ramsons collected on the way back from the Mill...
While the lamb was cooking, our busy chefs whipped up an apple crumble with cinnamon, which we cooked as we ate our main course. Apples prior to crumble being added...
After two hours cooking, we checked the lamb and veggies to find...
So we sliced it...
and ate it
After letting the main course settle, we set to and had the crumble with custard...
Just before bed on Saturday, the heavens opened again, and the rain got heavier and heavier. It was so bad that sleeping in the tent was like sleeping in a drum.
So after a very disturbed night, the only thing to look forward to as the clouds cleared again was breakfast!
We decided to have a mountain man breakfast cooked in the Dutch Oven. We used 10 sausages, 10 rashers of bacon, 4 or 5 potatoes, a mountain of sliced mushrooms and a few tomatoes and browned them off...
...then added 10 whisked eggs, stirred, covered and put a few coals on top of the Dutch Oven until we had this...(did I say food featured heavily this weekend?)
The wet weather brought out the amphibians too. we had to relocate a frog that took up shelter under one of our tents, a newt that tried to walk across our camp and a toad...
So all that remains now is to finish washing up the gear and repack for next weekend when I'm running a backwoods cooking stand on a county taster day!
Simon
For a change, I decided to sleep in a tent, but as the weather was forcast to be very wet, I set up my tarp first and placed my tent under it...
Did I say the forcast was wet? We arrived in the dry, and managed to get all the tents up...then the heavens opened. It rained so hard that i seriously considered changing the program at one point!
Looking at the scouts tents - they had an Andywink tarp as a group area to socialise and cook under...
On the Saturday, after a very wet night, the clouds cleared and we took a stroll to Gibson's Mill, A NT property that has been set up to run "off grid". We had arranged a tour in advance and spent a good two hours or so looking around with our guides...
http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/mai...rags/w-hardcastlecrags-gibsonmill_project.htm
As part of the eco friendly approach, they produce their own charcoal and sell it to pay for the upkeep of the estate. The Scouts were surprised that charcoal is made in much the same way as char cloth
...
Due to H&S red tape, the staff at the Mill split their firewood using a manual splitter, not an axe like us lot...a couple of Scouts had a go before they realised they had been conned into splitting someone elses firewood
...
As always, food played a large part of the weekend
We took a leg of lamb and decided to bone it before cooking, so over to our resident chef and her colleague from work (a leader from another group)...
After boning, covered in dried mixed peppers and mushrooms...
...and rolled prior to cooking in red wine and ramsons collected on the way back from the Mill...
While the lamb was cooking, our busy chefs whipped up an apple crumble with cinnamon, which we cooked as we ate our main course. Apples prior to crumble being added...
After two hours cooking, we checked the lamb and veggies to find...
So we sliced it...
and ate it
After letting the main course settle, we set to and had the crumble with custard...
Just before bed on Saturday, the heavens opened again, and the rain got heavier and heavier. It was so bad that sleeping in the tent was like sleeping in a drum
.So after a very disturbed night, the only thing to look forward to as the clouds cleared again was breakfast!
We decided to have a mountain man breakfast cooked in the Dutch Oven. We used 10 sausages, 10 rashers of bacon, 4 or 5 potatoes, a mountain of sliced mushrooms and a few tomatoes and browned them off...
...then added 10 whisked eggs, stirred, covered and put a few coals on top of the Dutch Oven until we had this...(did I say food featured heavily this weekend?
)
The wet weather brought out the amphibians too. we had to relocate a frog that took up shelter under one of our tents, a newt that tried to walk across our camp and a toad...
So all that remains now is to finish washing up the gear and repack for next weekend when I'm running a backwoods cooking stand on a county taster day!
Simon
Last edited:
