Hi guys!
Thought I would share my little expedition with you that me and a friend had last Weds / Thurs night. Got quite a few photos so I'll put them all up and you can have a peruse if you so wish!
Still learning a lot, so if you think of anything worth letting me know when looking at the photos, please feel free to speak up / criticise!
So anyway, we set off from Nottingham up the M1 towards the Peak District about 7:30pm on Weds, and by the time we had endured the 50mph speed limit (bad times) we arrived at our destination and parked up at about 8:45pm. Light was fading fast, so we hot footed it the 3 miles or so to our pre-planned spot and set up.
My hammock and tarp:
My friend in his:
We decided not to bother getting a fire going, as we were both ready to sleep as it was about 10:30pm ish so we retired quite quickly!
We got up the next day and got a fire going, had some breakfast, packed down our stuff, and hit the trail again.
We walked about 4 miles and found another sweet spot in a forest / wood which was all Pine trees.
It was nice to have a lot of time / light to be able to set everything up nice and neat, and try and improve the general efficiency of my tarp / hammock rig.
My setup below:
My friends set up, who is still getting the hang of the tarp / hammock combo:
As I remember good ol' Ray Mears talking about the fact that the ground can smoulder for days after a fire, when he's in a Pine forest or similar in Scotland, I was keen to make sure that didn't happen, so we dug quite a deep hole for our fire, through a foot of pine needles, down to the clay-ish soil and then put some rocks in to absorb the heat. Not sure whether this was a good plan or not, but seemed sensible enough!
A few more photos of our little piece of heaven...
My weapons of choice:
Fire preparation:
Food on the go... Some nice beef stir fry...
You'll never starve if you come out with me on an adventure!
Smoky campsite...
We retired to our hammocks and had a brilliant sleep, only to be woken up in the morning by sheep invading our camp! They were nudging me in my hammock and making me swing, which woke me up! Couldn't believe it! Didn't get the camera out in time, but here's a few snaps from in the hammock...
Goooood morning!
I got up and had a little wander around and took a few more snaps:
What is this plant?
Sound asleep:
Fire going again, warming up water for a wash, cous cous and some pine needle tea...
Breakfast of cous cous, salad leaves, tomato, tuna, bread and hoummous...
Packed down the camp after lounging around a bit and sorting out bits and bobs:
We fetched a fair amount of water to douse the fire with, and made sure all the rocks were cool. The rocks were placed around the area, and one which was still quite hot went in the stream. We filled the hole with water, mulshed it up, and put all the soil / pine needles back in again. Nothing was even remotely warm, so no risk of fires starting up again!
A short distance from our camp, we came across this travesty:
Couldn't believe my eyes!
Anyway, a short while later, it looked like this:
It was a bit of a mission, and I got a nasty broken glass cut, but it was worth it!
We then set off through the woods on our trek back to civilisation, with a 40 tonne rubbish bag, which wasn't fun, and found this shortly after the last place:
Some people are idiots!
We rejoined a major path after about 3 miles of struggling with the massive bag of rubbish, and ambled along the last mile or so back to the car...
A sight for sore eyes, and sore arms!
We set of homewards, and when we got back, deposited the bag at the local tip in Stapleford.
Good deed done for the week!
Really enjoyed the little adventure, and can't wait to get out again soon!
Apologies for the massive amount of pictures... I never remember the camera normally, and so I got a little snap happy!
Thanks for looking, Robin.
Thought I would share my little expedition with you that me and a friend had last Weds / Thurs night. Got quite a few photos so I'll put them all up and you can have a peruse if you so wish!
Still learning a lot, so if you think of anything worth letting me know when looking at the photos, please feel free to speak up / criticise!
So anyway, we set off from Nottingham up the M1 towards the Peak District about 7:30pm on Weds, and by the time we had endured the 50mph speed limit (bad times) we arrived at our destination and parked up at about 8:45pm. Light was fading fast, so we hot footed it the 3 miles or so to our pre-planned spot and set up.
My hammock and tarp:
My friend in his:
We decided not to bother getting a fire going, as we were both ready to sleep as it was about 10:30pm ish so we retired quite quickly!
We got up the next day and got a fire going, had some breakfast, packed down our stuff, and hit the trail again.
We walked about 4 miles and found another sweet spot in a forest / wood which was all Pine trees.
It was nice to have a lot of time / light to be able to set everything up nice and neat, and try and improve the general efficiency of my tarp / hammock rig.
My setup below:
My friends set up, who is still getting the hang of the tarp / hammock combo:
As I remember good ol' Ray Mears talking about the fact that the ground can smoulder for days after a fire, when he's in a Pine forest or similar in Scotland, I was keen to make sure that didn't happen, so we dug quite a deep hole for our fire, through a foot of pine needles, down to the clay-ish soil and then put some rocks in to absorb the heat. Not sure whether this was a good plan or not, but seemed sensible enough!
A few more photos of our little piece of heaven...
My weapons of choice:
Fire preparation:
Food on the go... Some nice beef stir fry...
You'll never starve if you come out with me on an adventure!
Smoky campsite...
We retired to our hammocks and had a brilliant sleep, only to be woken up in the morning by sheep invading our camp! They were nudging me in my hammock and making me swing, which woke me up! Couldn't believe it! Didn't get the camera out in time, but here's a few snaps from in the hammock...
Goooood morning!
I got up and had a little wander around and took a few more snaps:
What is this plant?
Sound asleep:
Fire going again, warming up water for a wash, cous cous and some pine needle tea...
Breakfast of cous cous, salad leaves, tomato, tuna, bread and hoummous...
Packed down the camp after lounging around a bit and sorting out bits and bobs:
We fetched a fair amount of water to douse the fire with, and made sure all the rocks were cool. The rocks were placed around the area, and one which was still quite hot went in the stream. We filled the hole with water, mulshed it up, and put all the soil / pine needles back in again. Nothing was even remotely warm, so no risk of fires starting up again!
A short distance from our camp, we came across this travesty:
Couldn't believe my eyes!
Anyway, a short while later, it looked like this:
It was a bit of a mission, and I got a nasty broken glass cut, but it was worth it!
We then set off through the woods on our trek back to civilisation, with a 40 tonne rubbish bag, which wasn't fun, and found this shortly after the last place:
Some people are idiots!
We rejoined a major path after about 3 miles of struggling with the massive bag of rubbish, and ambled along the last mile or so back to the car...
A sight for sore eyes, and sore arms!
We set of homewards, and when we got back, deposited the bag at the local tip in Stapleford.
Good deed done for the week!
Really enjoyed the little adventure, and can't wait to get out again soon!
Apologies for the massive amount of pictures... I never remember the camera normally, and so I got a little snap happy!
Thanks for looking, Robin.
