Well guys, the weather held just long enough today for the boys and i to make a short day trip to the woods, these woods are different from those where we camped last week, the woods themselves are ancient woodland and are on the north face of the south downs, the pictures really do not portray the steepness of these hills, they certainly make you puff a bit walking up them, still it's all down hill on the way home 
I'll let the pictures tell the story again:
Walking up the hill, we had to walk up the field boundary as the path (to the left between the nettles and tree line) was totally overgrown.
View of the stubble field, our destination are the woods in the background
View to the NE, the stubble field we had just walked up is behind the line of trees
view to the NW
Going down the otherside of the hill to the area of woodland we wanted to go to, this photo does show the steepness of the hillside, it looks like we are just about to walk over a cliff edge.
It was mentioned in another thread that i never appear in the photo's i post, so here you go, my ugly mug pointing towards our destination
at last we got to the woods and found a nice area to sit down in for a while
Youngest set about making a small fire from cramp ball fungus, as you know this fungus burns just like charcoal and the fire is almost smokeless.
having got the fire going it was time for a brew
we went on a quick scout around the area to see what we could find, found a few animal trails, i suspect they were deer, but could find no tracks to confirm this, we did however find some high level browse that leads me to belive it was deer to top it off we also found this badger skull
I knew there were badgers in the area and have seen sign from them in the past, however this is the first time i have found the remains of one.
having found the skull we decided to leave it where it was out of respect to the animal and headed back to the bags and set about getting a bit of lunch, after of course sanitizing our hands with alcohol gel.
With lunch over, the boys messed around for an hour or so before tiredness got the better of them and having had enough for the day, we decided to head back home, view back to where we had been, we were in the woods behind the sixth straw bale from the right
The old barn on the farm, this has been here for possibly hundreds of years, but has fallen very much into disrepair these days.
still heading back home
On the way back we found an abundance of crab apples, tried one and is was incredibly bitter leading me to believe it was a true crab apple and not one that had been cross pollinated with a domestic apple, of course some of these are now here at home
we also found most of the Hawthorn's are absolutely laden with fruit this year, needless to say some of these made it home with us as well
we also popped into one of the adjacent fields to our route that's full of maize at the moment, found plenty of sign that Deer are definately in the area at the moment
Pretty good day all in all, thankfully the eldest lad doesn't go back to school until Thursday, so we have time for at least one more trip out
I'll let the pictures tell the story again:
Walking up the hill, we had to walk up the field boundary as the path (to the left between the nettles and tree line) was totally overgrown.
View of the stubble field, our destination are the woods in the background
View to the NE, the stubble field we had just walked up is behind the line of trees
view to the NW
Going down the otherside of the hill to the area of woodland we wanted to go to, this photo does show the steepness of the hillside, it looks like we are just about to walk over a cliff edge.
It was mentioned in another thread that i never appear in the photo's i post, so here you go, my ugly mug pointing towards our destination
at last we got to the woods and found a nice area to sit down in for a while
Youngest set about making a small fire from cramp ball fungus, as you know this fungus burns just like charcoal and the fire is almost smokeless.
having got the fire going it was time for a brew
we went on a quick scout around the area to see what we could find, found a few animal trails, i suspect they were deer, but could find no tracks to confirm this, we did however find some high level browse that leads me to belive it was deer to top it off we also found this badger skull
I knew there were badgers in the area and have seen sign from them in the past, however this is the first time i have found the remains of one.
having found the skull we decided to leave it where it was out of respect to the animal and headed back to the bags and set about getting a bit of lunch, after of course sanitizing our hands with alcohol gel.
With lunch over, the boys messed around for an hour or so before tiredness got the better of them and having had enough for the day, we decided to head back home, view back to where we had been, we were in the woods behind the sixth straw bale from the right
The old barn on the farm, this has been here for possibly hundreds of years, but has fallen very much into disrepair these days.
still heading back home
On the way back we found an abundance of crab apples, tried one and is was incredibly bitter leading me to believe it was a true crab apple and not one that had been cross pollinated with a domestic apple, of course some of these are now here at home
we also found most of the Hawthorn's are absolutely laden with fruit this year, needless to say some of these made it home with us as well
we also popped into one of the adjacent fields to our route that's full of maize at the moment, found plenty of sign that Deer are definately in the area at the moment
Pretty good day all in all, thankfully the eldest lad doesn't go back to school until Thursday, so we have time for at least one more trip out
