Hi all,
Well there's nothing like a post Christmas camp to blow away the cobwebs and that's precisely what a few mates and I did during that strange period between Christmas and the new year when many of us forget what day it is!
The plan was to spend two nights in some woodland, consume large quantities of alcohol, test out some Christmas pressies and do some camp fire cooking with the dutch ovens.
First of all, many thanks go to the folks at the Bushcraft Magazine as they manage this delightful little woodland in the heart of Kent and, having crossed their palm with silver, were kind enough to allow us to camp there. It really was a lovely spot, which had some nice facilities including a communal space under the cover of a large parachute with a fireplace set out in it’s centre and some nice clean loo’s. It’s fair to say that this was more of a ‘glamping’ trip than wild camping and given that we were able to park the cars fairly close to camp, it meant that we could also bring some luxuries such as our dutch ovens, kettle, espresso maker and of course a cheese board (it was Christmas)!!
The woodland is on a bit of a slope and thus favours the hammock dweller and happily that’s exactly what we were all intending to do. Here’s a photo of my set-up comprising of a snugpak 3m-3m tarp and my Woodsman hammock by UK Hammocks. I’ve used this hammock quite a lot now during the past ten months and have to say that I’m really happy with it. The hammock is long and wide so plenty of room to enable a flat diagonal lay. It has shown no signs of wear and really is very easy to set-up using the tree huggers and whoopie slings. It lacks any kind of bug netting, but that didn’t seem to bother me during the summer months, I think I was only bitten a couple of times and I like the fact that I’m not enclosed in a bug net when I clamber into it.
You’ll see in the photo that my tarp was hunkered down and enclosing the hammock more so than would otherwise be necessary. This was because of the weather and the fact that we had to deal with some fairly high winds (20-40mph) that were blowing down south from Storm Frank (not sure how I feel about having to name each and every bit of bad weather that we get nowadays!). A truckers hitch ensured that I could set a nice tight ridgeline and the guy lines were double pegged, checked and re-checked to ensure that the tarp remained taught. Happily it held up very well.
Two Christmas pressies that I got to test out was my first underblanket (from DD Hammocks) and a new sleeping bag (from Alpkit). I was really impressed with both items. Collectively, the two items are not only lighter but also pack down slightly smaller than my cheap old 3 season bag alone and thus saved loads of room in my rucksack. The underblanket was amazing and so much more comfortable than my old foam mat which was ok but would often slip from underneath me. And the sleeping bag was a revelation. It’s a synthetic bag with a comfort limit of -1 and was packed down so small and seemed so lightweight that you wondered whether it would keep you warm, but it worked very well for me. Many thanks to my amazing wife and brothers for getting me these pressies! I look forward to putting them to good use in future camps.
New toys aside, the main event of this trip for me was the cooking. I love using the dutch oven, it’s a big old beast to take camping but is simplicity in itself. For the first night I kept it simple and cooked up a pie simply by keeping the pot on the edge of the fire with some hot coals sitting on the lid. The photo reveals a somewhat charred pie at the end but rest assured that it was cooked nicely inside and tasted great.
The second night’s dinner was an altogether different affair. We was meant to cook up a full Christmas roast but I failed to bring the turkey. This was partly because in the run up to this camp I had eaten far more turkey than one should ever dream of and partly because I didn’t realise I was the only person bringing turkey – my humblest apologies go to my camp mates! I shall endeavour to make amends when the dutch ovens come out at our next ‘big’ camp.
In it’s place we ended up preparing a festive(ish) stew comprising of squirrel, beef, lamb, just about every veg you could think of including the obligatory fart bombs (Brussel sprouts!) and a liquor made from chicken stock and quite a large amount of port. We left this to cook slowly on the edge of the fire for approximately four hours and served it with roast potatoes (prepared in another dutchy) and pigs in blankets. The stew was amazing, and after eating that I was glad to have left the turkey at home. Indeed the stew was so nice that barely any washing up was needed due to the fact that we’d eaten everything and mopped the pot clean with our bread rolls!
And as it was Christmas it seemed rude not to enjoy some cheese and biscuits for desert where I found that my axe was great at splitting a block of cheese! How’s that for bushcraft!!!
So to sum up, great camp, great company, great food. Looking forward to the next camping trip where I expect kit will be confined to just the rucksack and more bushcrafty skills will be put in to practice!
Well there's nothing like a post Christmas camp to blow away the cobwebs and that's precisely what a few mates and I did during that strange period between Christmas and the new year when many of us forget what day it is!
The plan was to spend two nights in some woodland, consume large quantities of alcohol, test out some Christmas pressies and do some camp fire cooking with the dutch ovens.
First of all, many thanks go to the folks at the Bushcraft Magazine as they manage this delightful little woodland in the heart of Kent and, having crossed their palm with silver, were kind enough to allow us to camp there. It really was a lovely spot, which had some nice facilities including a communal space under the cover of a large parachute with a fireplace set out in it’s centre and some nice clean loo’s. It’s fair to say that this was more of a ‘glamping’ trip than wild camping and given that we were able to park the cars fairly close to camp, it meant that we could also bring some luxuries such as our dutch ovens, kettle, espresso maker and of course a cheese board (it was Christmas)!!
The woodland is on a bit of a slope and thus favours the hammock dweller and happily that’s exactly what we were all intending to do. Here’s a photo of my set-up comprising of a snugpak 3m-3m tarp and my Woodsman hammock by UK Hammocks. I’ve used this hammock quite a lot now during the past ten months and have to say that I’m really happy with it. The hammock is long and wide so plenty of room to enable a flat diagonal lay. It has shown no signs of wear and really is very easy to set-up using the tree huggers and whoopie slings. It lacks any kind of bug netting, but that didn’t seem to bother me during the summer months, I think I was only bitten a couple of times and I like the fact that I’m not enclosed in a bug net when I clamber into it.
You’ll see in the photo that my tarp was hunkered down and enclosing the hammock more so than would otherwise be necessary. This was because of the weather and the fact that we had to deal with some fairly high winds (20-40mph) that were blowing down south from Storm Frank (not sure how I feel about having to name each and every bit of bad weather that we get nowadays!). A truckers hitch ensured that I could set a nice tight ridgeline and the guy lines were double pegged, checked and re-checked to ensure that the tarp remained taught. Happily it held up very well.
Two Christmas pressies that I got to test out was my first underblanket (from DD Hammocks) and a new sleeping bag (from Alpkit). I was really impressed with both items. Collectively, the two items are not only lighter but also pack down slightly smaller than my cheap old 3 season bag alone and thus saved loads of room in my rucksack. The underblanket was amazing and so much more comfortable than my old foam mat which was ok but would often slip from underneath me. And the sleeping bag was a revelation. It’s a synthetic bag with a comfort limit of -1 and was packed down so small and seemed so lightweight that you wondered whether it would keep you warm, but it worked very well for me. Many thanks to my amazing wife and brothers for getting me these pressies! I look forward to putting them to good use in future camps.
New toys aside, the main event of this trip for me was the cooking. I love using the dutch oven, it’s a big old beast to take camping but is simplicity in itself. For the first night I kept it simple and cooked up a pie simply by keeping the pot on the edge of the fire with some hot coals sitting on the lid. The photo reveals a somewhat charred pie at the end but rest assured that it was cooked nicely inside and tasted great.
The second night’s dinner was an altogether different affair. We was meant to cook up a full Christmas roast but I failed to bring the turkey. This was partly because in the run up to this camp I had eaten far more turkey than one should ever dream of and partly because I didn’t realise I was the only person bringing turkey – my humblest apologies go to my camp mates! I shall endeavour to make amends when the dutch ovens come out at our next ‘big’ camp.
In it’s place we ended up preparing a festive(ish) stew comprising of squirrel, beef, lamb, just about every veg you could think of including the obligatory fart bombs (Brussel sprouts!) and a liquor made from chicken stock and quite a large amount of port. We left this to cook slowly on the edge of the fire for approximately four hours and served it with roast potatoes (prepared in another dutchy) and pigs in blankets. The stew was amazing, and after eating that I was glad to have left the turkey at home. Indeed the stew was so nice that barely any washing up was needed due to the fact that we’d eaten everything and mopped the pot clean with our bread rolls!
And as it was Christmas it seemed rude not to enjoy some cheese and biscuits for desert where I found that my axe was great at splitting a block of cheese! How’s that for bushcraft!!!
So to sum up, great camp, great company, great food. Looking forward to the next camping trip where I expect kit will be confined to just the rucksack and more bushcrafty skills will be put in to practice!
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