I need help finding a place to camp with 2 friends in the midlands

[Caboose]

Hey guys.

I need a hand finding somewhere to camp in the midlands with 2 other of my friends. It'll be our first outing ever so we're quite new to actually doing this. We've done our homework on what to bring etc, but we're a bit stuck on the finding a place to go. We're looking for an area in the midlands and hopefully somewhere that we have permission to:

o Have a small fire
o Where we can cut DEAD standing wood if we're able to find some (we'd never cut live wood)
o Stay for 2 nights (on the weekend) mid-late september
o Is in a forest

I think the biggest problem we're going to have issues with is finding somewhere to have a small camp fire, since the only place we could have one is on privately owned land that will allow us permission for one. If anyone could help us find somewhere that we might be able to get a weekend trip like this going then it'd be greatly appreciated.

Thank you

 

[ged]

Why not pop along to one of the meets? There's a whole section of the forum devoted to them.

 

[luckylee]

hi mate where about are you in the midlands me and my brother go all the time, but we also go to a meet that is aranged here, if you look for the northwood meet or rough close meet you will see what i mean.
i hope that helps bud.
take care.
lee.

 

[Caboose]

I take the meets is reffering to a large group of members meeting up and doing all of this together? We wanted to aim it more towards just being us 3 and the trip revolving more along the lines of us learning the basics and finding out for ourselves.

hi mate where about are you in the midlands me and my brother go all the time, but we also go to a meet that is aranged here, if you look for the northwood meet or rough close meet you will see what i mean.
i hope that helps bud.
take care.
lee.

Well i'm actually based in the south east, and my friends more in yorkshire. So we wanted to meet up both halfway, which is the midlands. The places that you and your brother go, do they allow all the qualities above with the firemaking, and such? Because that sounds like an awesome place if so!

 

[Mesquite]

I take the meets is reffering to a large group of members meeting up and doing all of this together? We wanted to aim it more towards just being us 3 and the trip revolving more along the lines of us learning the basics and finding out for ourselves...

Most meet involve groups of people getting together but there is no requirement to socialise with them. Quite often I've known of people who are at meets but haven't seen them the entire weekend.

So if you and your friends want to tuck yourself off in a corner of the woods and keep yourselve to yourselves no one would think the worse of you.

 

[Elines]

Most meet involve groups of people getting together but there is no requirement to socialise with them. Quite often I've known of people who are at meets but haven't seen them the entire weekend.

So if you and your friends want to tuck yourself off in a corner of the woods and keep yourselve to yourselves no one would think the worse of you.

This is right, and would meet that part of your spec - however the bit about cutting dead wood may be more difficult.

As I understand it, at both Rough Close and Northwood (don't know about Super Sausage) you can only use small stuff for a honey stove/kelly kettle/bush stove etc - both sites are in long term use so all the large stuff would disappear very quickly. The only large fire tends to be a communal one.

Of course on the upside, whilst you can be on your own, if you get seriously stuck, or there is a serious accident, then there are people around to help.

 

[redandshane]

You raise a lot of issues in your OP If you want permission you will need to get it in advance or be very very lucky
The old saying twos company threes a crowd if you are stealth camping in a group you really need to know what you are doing it all gets a bit Robin Hood but that's the way it has to be I would not advise this for a first trip
I think you may be best to go to one of the meets and get first hand experience and also i can say without a shadow of doubt someone will be able to give you some pointers.You will also get some experience of using your kit for real
If you forgot about having a fire and cutting down trees life would be much easier and 90% of the time when outwith areas i know well that's what I do
Worth asking around scout groups and looking for campsites that allow fires or have woodland camping somewhere like this would be ideal http://www.glynymulfarm.co.uk/
Keep looking and perhaps refine your ideas slightly
Having said that there may be somewhere that someone else knows about in your area also have alook on maps for large isolated woodland i use wheres the path for my initial scan of an area http://wtp2.appspot.com/wheresthepath.htm

Hope that's useful

 

[Caboose]

Most meet involve groups of people getting together but there is no requirement to socialise with them. Quite often I've known of people who are at meets but haven't seen them the entire weekend.

So if you and your friends want to tuck yourself off in a corner of the woods and keep yourselve to yourselves no one would think the worse of you.

Hmm.. that is interesting to know. I'll definatly take that into consideration. Thanks!

This is right, and would meet that part of your spec - however the bit about cutting dead wood may be more difficult.

As I understand it, at both Rough Close and Northwood (don't know about Super Sausage) you can only use small stuff for a honey stove/kelly kettle/bush stove etc - both sites are in long term use so all the large stuff would disappear very quickly. The only large fire tends to be a communal one.

Of course on the upside, whilst you can be on your own, if you get seriously stuck, or there is a serious accident, then there are people around to help.

Hmm.. well this definately is an idea. Even if we're limited to small woodstoves, this does sound a step in the direction we want. Also its a good point you've brought up that if an accident happens then there is that help. I can handle small cuts/burns after talking to some paramedics about what to do, but its nice to know theres backup also which touch wood I hope it never gets too!

Just out of interest. When are Rough Close, Northwood & Super Sausage holding their meets? Or are they pretty much open allot of the time?

You raise a lot of issues in your OP If you want permission you will need to get it in advance or be very very lucky
The old saying twos company threes a crowd if you are stealth camping in a group you really need to know what you are doing it all gets a bit Robin Hood but that's the way it has to be I would not advise this for a first trip
I think you may be best to go to one of the meets and get first hand experience and also i can say without a shadow of doubt someone will be able to give you some pointers.You will also get some experience of using your kit for real
If you forgot about having a fire and cutting down trees life would be much easier and 90% of the time when outwith areas i know well that's what I do
Worth asking around scout groups and looking for campsites that allow fires or have woodland camping somewhere like this would be ideal http://www.glynymulfarm.co.uk/
Keep looking and perhaps refine your ideas slightly
Having said that there may be somewhere that someone else knows about in your area also have alook on maps for large isolated woodland i use wheres the path for my initial scan of an area http://wtp2.appspot.com/wheresthepath.htm

Hope that's useful

Thanks for the responce. I know the fire & wood thing is definately making things harder to find somewhere to go, but idealy we would like to find a place. Just out of curiosity, if we didn't want to do fires & chopping wood, what kinda places would you suggest? Just incase we find it difficult to find somewhere at this short notice, it might be an idea to know other places that we could camp for the weekend with gas stoves (hopefully they're fine right?)
Thats kinda funny, me and my friends saw that glyn farm but wanted to camp somewhere a bit closer to home. Its a shame its not more central to us all! I bet a tonne of us bushcraft uk'ers would go there as it sounds like heaven! Hopefully i'll go there someday.

as for the stealth camping, I'm a little concerned to do so, and my friends share that opinion. We don't want to be woken up one night with some land owner pointing a shotgun at our face and telling us to "get off the land" haha.

 

[rik_uk3]

Hmm.. that is interesting to know. I'll definatly take that into consideration. Thanks!



Hmm.. well this definately is an idea. Even if we're limited to small woodstoves, this does sound a step in the direction we want. Also its a good point you've brought up that if an accident happens then there is that help. I can handle small cuts/burns after talking to some paramedics about what to do, but its nice to know theres backup also which touch wood I hope it never gets too!

Just out of interest. When are Rough Close, Northwood & Super Sausage holding their meets? Or are they pretty much open allot of the time?



Thanks for the responce. I know the fire & wood thing is definately making things harder to find somewhere to go, but idealy we would like to find a place. Just out of curiosity, if we didn't want to do fires & chopping wood, what kinda places would you suggest? Just incase we find it difficult to find somewhere at this short notice, it might be an idea to know other places that we could camp for the weekend with gas stoves (hopefully they're fine right?)
Thats kinda funny, me and my friends saw that glyn farm but wanted to camp somewhere a bit closer to home. Its a shame its not more central to us all! I bet a tonne of us bushcraft uk'ers would go there as it sounds like heaven! Hopefully i'll go there someday.

as for the stealth camping, I'm a little concerned to do so, and my friends share that opinion. We don't want to be woken up one night with some land owner pointing a shotgun at our face and telling us to "get off the land" haha.

They have been, no wood left now.

Take a look at these sites which allow fires
http://www.campfiresburning.org/sites.php

http://www.ukcampsite.co.uk/articles/view.asp?id=4

http://www.thehappycampers.co.uk/campsites/campfires/

Enjoy your trip, have fun and keep safe.

 

[Mesquite]

Just out of interest. When are Rough Close, Northwood & Super Sausage holding their meets? Or are they pretty much open allot of the time?

Here's the calendar of meets for the rest of the year.

Here's the thread for the September meet at Rough Close

I'm not sure when the next SS meet is as there's one currently on this weekend

 

[Caboose]

They have been, no wood left now.

Take a look at these sites which allow fires
http://www.campfiresburning.org/sites.php

http://www.ukcampsite.co.uk/articles/view.asp?id=4

http://www.thehappycampers.co.uk/campsites/campfires/

Enjoy your trip, have fun and keep safe.

Thank you for the links. I'll be sure to check them out!

What do you mean about the glyn farm place though? Hopefully something horrible didn't happen down there right? =(

Here's the calendar of meets for the rest of the year.

Here's the thread for the September meet at Rough Close

I'm not sure when the next SS meet is as there's one currently on this weekend

Thanks for the links! I'll have to check these out also to see my options!