Here in Coventry, there was Mr Tuesday, who lived for many years in Wainbody Woods South, it is now called Mr Tuesday's wood.
To the OP..why not just buy a van..and boondock? you are mobile.......you can get out of the way.....park up, immobilize van........toddle off for a day or 16.....
If you get bored after a few weeks camping. Will the same not happen, after months in isolation?
Good luck what ever you do.
Two week solo trip overland, no-resupply (no hunting-trapping-fishing or foraging), bowsaw, big axe plus sharpening gear and say 30ft of heavy duty rope...
Anybody here care to give a ballpark figure for the pack weight and how far they could carry it every day. It may help pull a dream into sharper reality.
Well starting with just your water at 3ltr per day there is 42 kilo (even at 2ltr per day min recommended liquid intake you are talking 28 kilo) it's already heavier than any rucksack i'd wanna carry for a long time, your large axe is easy 2-3 kilo, bowsaw another 1-2 kilo, sleeping kit 2 kilo min (sleeping bag, bivvi and mat), I can't imagine the weight of tinned food for 2 weeks i wouldn't even wanna carry that back from the supermarket, you're gonna want a lot of food and water as building a wood structure is no kind of light labour and carrying all your kit is no easy chore either so we are talking easy 3-4000 kcals per day needed minimum, if it's cold even more.
When out living wild for 2-3 weeks i take around 5-7 kilo of dried food and 1 kilo of that is dried meats like biltong/salted pork or regular beef jerky, this is when i know i am gonna be able to get my hands on plenty of fish and the hope of the odd small game like rabbits, if these aren't a sure thing and i am living on just the food i take then it is easy 10 kilo of dried foods and 3 kilo of that is dried meats (the rest is pasta, rice, muesli, couscous, freeze dried vegetables, stock cubes, fruit jerky, nuts and raisins and other dried fruits) and that is just for 2-3 weeks swanning around a couple of Scottish lochs mid summer taking it easy, i don't carry any water except my most recently filtered litre and my rucksack still easy ends up around 20 kilo as i am not carrying an axe or bowsaw.
For 2 weeks you're gonna want changes of clothing??
Cooking kit?
Possibles??
Personally i'd easy go through a kilo of teabags in 2 weeks A kilo of muesli and a kilo min of dried milk to go with both.
Rucksack is gonna be about 2 kilo
However much bogroll for 2 weeks + your toilet kit and washkit??
Knife and medkit?
Am i missing anything? Anyone adding this up?
Suppose you could lighten the load with a titanium spork i'm making jokes here but seriously what you are suggesting is no easy feat even to people with a good base of skillsets suitable for the task
Food 12 kg Dry food for 14 days based on Paul Kirtley's excellent blog post here [I'd double the amount of tea and coffe as well ]
Axe 3 kg
Bowsaw 1 kg being generous ... blade only construct frame for it onsite
Sleep System 2 kg do-able but would require an expensive down bag (my synthetic winter bag plus Gortex bivvy is just under 3kg but only good down to -5C)
Tarp/BASHA 1 kg as you need some cover till a more permanant shelter is ready, can double as hammock
Backpack 3 kg Vulcan III big enough for all the gear.
At this point you're carrying 22kg or just short of 50lbs and will have to learn how to walk all over again.
Then there's this lot...
Knife + multitool
Flashlight + spare batteries
Cordage/Rope
Spare clothing - it's always heavier than you think
Cooking pot(s) + drinking mug
Backup stove (gas/meths/hexi) + Fuel for a couple of days. Optional but often a real lifesaver.
Water bottle(s) 3-4 litres to be carried unless following a stream
Hygiene kit - Crotch rot kills so wash your balls or scratch them off it's your choice.
First aid kit - carrying this much gear you will get blisters
Fire Stating Kit
camera gear - plus charger if it's a digital camera
When out and about, even in very remote areas, I often see evidence of semi-permanent shelters - they REALLY stick out. So if I'm staying for a while, I adapt/make a hidden shelter, dugout, cave, or tree-house concealed in eg a holly tree - thick foliage & evergreen.
The member countries of the European Union have differing systems regarding residency, some like Germany are happy for any European citizen to live there for any period of time (presuming they are law abiding and support themselves). Others will require you to seek a residency permit if you plan to remain more than three months, that often entails proving that you can support yourself.
If you attempt to set up camp in a remote area the locals (and there are always locals) won't be happy and will alert the police or rangers. If you look like a homeless person, are in possession of axes and knives and are constructing a shelter on state or private land you will be arrested.
UK prisons aren't much fun but the Prisons further east and north are not places you want to stay.
The legal systems in many of these countries will require you to remain in prison until they can put you in front of a judge, if you are lucky that might be only a few weeks.
Do you speak any other European languages?
As an alternative to your somewhat fanciful notion of carving out a little bit of wilderness for yourself I would suggest seeking out some of the more remote 'off the grid' communities that can be found in Europe, most would be happy to have someone with building skills to lend a hand and quite a few are spread over larger areas so finding and building a quiet space for yourself wouldn't be impossible.
Good luck.
Bringing enough stuff into the woods to build even a small house would attract attention, unless you have a friend with a helicopter who can airlift it all in in one go.
From some of your comments it sounds like counselling or meditation might help. It's not chance that humans live together in groups
It has been suggested to me that my allotment shed may technically fall foul of planning regulations because it is too tall, but it is unlikely that it will ever be discovered even by satellite.
Here in Coventry, there was Mr Tuesday, who lived for many years in Wainbody Woods South, it is now called Mr Tuesday's wood.
Political advancement may smell like following the book. In the real world, these people have elected to
follow a very benign path with a minimalist footprint on the landscape. They are a wholesale embarassment
to the establishment because they demonstrate that it can be done. Not by 10's of thousands, but it can be done.
Relax. Leave them alone. Most times, that seems what they wanted.
I can sneak in there, leave salt, flour, sugar, baking powder, lard and a chocolate treat and be gone faster than Houdini.
They know it was me, I always leave exactly the same things in the same weather- and bear-proof place.
No, I don't need to visit and neither do they.
Yes. We have lots of them. Take a hard look at the BC coast from Knight up past Bute and Toba inlets. Follow the Inside Passage up beyond Prince of Wales Island,
up beyond Haida Gwaii. You won't starve. The real deal is that the landform rises 60 degrees out of the ocean = there is not a flat place to sit.
You can research a few flat-land camps up there but the demand is very high.
Plus, most forestry camps are enormous assemblages of floating log islands, chained together. Schools, house, you name it.
The chainsaw repair people live on barges and they cruise up and down the coast from one camp to another. Weird way to live but they all happy.
Inland where I live, there are spectacular campsites with rushing water mountain creeks. Just show up and do your thing.
23K up the Holmes has flat room for maybe 8-12 families. Beforee the snow flies, of course, the bears, blacks and grizz, are still out.
They will spoil your trip no matter what you think you can do.
So, you do your bushcraft stuff in my back yard. 9' x 12' tent that you can stand in. Electricity. Indoor bathroom. Indoor sleeping in the cold.
I kill as many grouse as possible while we tour the place. Nikon 82mm Prostaff spotting scope to look for goats & sheep.
Roasted breast of Ruffed Grouse with pomegranate and curried pecan stuffing, cinnamon peach glaze.
I don't think you will spit it out.
"...would anybody truly go to the far wilderness, and if they would - would they truly care about some strange guy building a small house?..."
"...I don't care if it's legal or not as long as I could get away with it..."
Perhaps not, but BCUK does care, promoting illegal activity is against the forum rules, I would suggest you read them before you make any more posts.
"...As for promoting illegal activity, I'm not promoting anything..."
Simply by stating that you "don't care if it's legal or not" counts as promoting illegal activity. I'd suggest that you take the time to read the forum rules before posting anything else.
Guidance for members:
Abide by the decisions of the moderators, do not argue or challenge them on the forums. If you disagree with a decision contact them or admin via PM and state clearly and politely your concerns and they will be dealt with. An alternative is to use the report post function with an explanation. Anyone being argumentative, rude or a consistent nuisance will be carded or banned.
Forum subject matter
Some subjects should be avoided on bushcraft uk. Firstly any subject that the moderators say is not appropriate should not be discussed...legal systems...members are expected to follow guidance given by moderators and other members that know the ropes.
Since you are a moderator, from your post I presume that you didn't approve of the post I wrote. Perhaps you can remove the part that violates forum rules and post the rest of it? I spent a while writing it.
As for promoting illegal activity, I'm not promoting anything,. I'm not telling anybody to do anything illegal. It's none of my business what others are doing nor do I have any reason to tell others what to do, nor does anything I wrote sound like I would tell anybody what to do. That's not my intention under pretty much any circumstances, which stretches beyond this forum or online activity.
There was ''Fred '' (real name Josef Stawinoga) the Wolverhampton tramp, i used to see him all the time, he lived for 30 years on the central reservation of the ring road, the council let him live there and actually bought him new tents and supplied him with meals on wheels. He became very well known and quite a celebrity even though he had nothing to do with anybody, he appeared on the programme ''Heir Hunters'' after his death as he never claimed benefits or his pension.
.....A 20x10m cabin is *HUGE*. that is enclosing an area of 200 square meters......
This brings us onto the next question. Are you intending to build a cabin with 20m long walls with timber you've carried yourself?..........on a recent coppicing trip, it took two of us to carry a length of chestnut measuring 1' diameter by about 6' long. Now think about trying to build a cabin and how much timber that will require, how big it will be and how you will move it.....
Normal sized building logs are a bit smaller in diameter than a foot. The usual size is about 8" for commercial ones (a but more imprecise for self built ones)
Normal sized building logs are a bit smaller in diameter than a foot. The usual size is about 8" for commercial ones (a but more imprecise for self built ones)
Oh ****. I've just realised the wood density numbers I used in that post are for seasoned timber. So assume everything is even heavier than that. I don't have the numbers for weight lost to moisture over time anywhere handy, so I can't quite calculate it. Suffice it to say, it's all very heavy.
I think I need a cup of tea, don't let me near the maths again...
J
He was mentioned recently in a program on Radio 4. As were others that live in similar setups.