Yesterday’s visit was a special one in several ways. I’ve been mooting the idea of doing an out of season overnight camping trip but having never done one before and there are a few issues giving me some concern. One aspect is cooking and spending a whole evening in the dark. Also I am always reluctant to leave late afternoon after a good day in the woods so I decided to try it out. The weather forecast was rain in the morning, then clearing by midday – wrong! The first part was right but the rain and the cooking in the dark provided a very fulfilling and different aspect to my woodland experiences. Stay tuned.
I arrived just after dawn and sat in my car to watch leaves falling like rain. They are at the stage where many are just hanging on by a thread and the slightest breeze or patter of rain sends them fluttering down in showers of brown, gold and yellow. It was like a weird and beautiful striptease act put on by, errrr – trees! I marvelled at how nature wastes nothing, unlike humans who waste most things! The leaves will be consumed by myriads of recyclers – invertebrates, fungi, bacteria who will enrich the soil ready to feed the trees and the new growth next year.
It was drizzling so I decided to spend the wet morning in my shelter. I had a couple of jobs to do and I fancied making a long handled spoon for my cooking pot. A nice filter coffee kick started the morning and I set-to with a small piece of fresh sycamore. First split it in half then debark it. Rough shaping is done with a sharp axe. Then the hollow is cut with a special curved knife and then the rest done with a straight knife. It didn’t need to be highly finished, just useable and took about an hour. The other half I used to make a small teaspoon sized one.
Well the drizzle turned to heavy rain which lasted until mid afternoon. It’s getting dark by 4pm now, so I started preparing a fire at my usual camp area. Just got it nicely going when it started to rain slightly again. How wrong had they got the forecast? Was it going to get heavier? I didn’t want to risk it as I hadn’t provided any shelter there. Decision time – take the easy route, pack up and go home or try to be resourceful? The first option equals failure and lack of resolve, that’s the opposite of what I am trying to achieve. I quickly rebuilt a temporary fireplace where the old one at the permanent shelter is but I didn’t want to have to start a new fire. Brainwave, move the fire that was already established but how? I have an old metal dustbin that I keep the bird food in. I took the biggest embers and put them in the lid and carried it (coughing and with eyes stinging) around to the new site. A bit of blowing on it and it was away again. A friendly robin came to check me out while all this was going on.
My meal was to be a veggie sausage casserole cooked in the dutch oven. I believe the key to successfully negotiating cooking and moving about the woods in the dark is to be well prepared beforehand and organised in the way you work. Get all the gear you need down to the site before dark. Be aware of where you are putting things down and put things away back in their bags or whatever you brought them in as soon as you have finished with them. A head torch is invaluable leaving both hands free.The cooking process was fairly easy, I’ve done enough before to be quite confident now but doing it in the dark is harder. The results? Yeah not bad and fitted the mood of Guy Fawkes night, bonfires and surroundsound fireworks.
After clearing up, I took a short walk around some of the woodland rides just for the adventure and possible wildlife sighting. A male Tawny owl hooted nearby and a mouse scuttled into the undergrowth. Fungi stood out in the torchlight and I was probably the only human, alone in this dark and beautiful place. Far from feeling afraid I felt nurtured and protected. As I said at the start, it was a unique day. The rain and the darkness pushed me to another level of appreciation of the amazing place I have the privelege to be part of. There was an intimacy somehow that is not so obvious during nice sunny weather. The woodlands somehow seem to enfold you and at the same time make you more alive. Definitely worth doing and definitely repeat at some point.
