Friday 9 May 2008

Still no Time to Myself

I haven't abandoned the blog - work can be crazy at times, and this year is one of those times!!!

Monday 14 January 2008

Its been a while!

After a long, busy couple of months, with barely any bushcraft activity, I've finally got around to getting out again. Nothing exciting, just a quick walk through the woods. I've lived on Hall Walk from Polruan to Fowey for 6 months now, and never walked the full walk. I had the day off today, so I grabbed my camera and decided to do the full circuit, including the two ferry rides from Fowey.

Immediately as I stepped out of the front door, A buzzard took off from the hedge and flapped its way clumsily through the trees - I was way too slow with the camera though!

On the way back, I watched four cormorants drying their wings on a pontoon.

Not the most exciting update, but at least I've managed to find some time to myself!

Tuesday 9 October 2007

My first Bushcraft Adventure!

First of all, apologies for the delay with this report, the internet connection stalled for the last couple of days - welcome to Cornwall!


The weather was perfect as I set off, sunny with a nice cool breeze. I left the village of Pont, following Pont Pill upstream through woodlands. These seemed to have some potential, and being on my doorstep I could test kit out here and while I don't have my car, easy to get to if I don't feel like a long hike.


The walk along the river was pleasant and peaceful. I took my time, adjusted my pack till it was perfect and enjoyed the atmosphere. I passed a plantation of young Blue Colorado Spruces, no doubt being grown for Christmas. The path led up to a lane, which I crossed onto the footpath running past Trevecca Farm. In the fields, I stopped to watch a buzzard circling. Once I had passed the farm, I was out into Lanteglos Highway, and my first real decision of the day. Do I hike down the lane directly to Lower Penpoll, or take a massive diversion along a footpath, cross the fields and then a short walk down the other lane into the village. I didn't want to do too much road walking so I walked across the fields to Trevelyan. I passed through Lower and Middle Penpoll and took the track up towards Tencreek. Halfway along, I turned left on the footpath towards St Veep - another massive diversion which saved me an extended walk through the lanes. St Veep up close was not as picturesque as it seems from a distance, so I hurried though, taking the footpath towards Pennant. I passed through, crossed the road and hiked on across some intensively farmed (and not looking healthy for it) fields. I was pretty disgusted at the state of some of the fields I crossed, no farmer should allow his soil to get into that condition. I have seen soil on charity films in Africa looking more fertile that this chemical wasteland. Rant Over.


My mood improved somewhat when I reached a field with a few cows and a free range pig, almost as large as the cows she shared the field with! I now arrived at my longest section of road hike, down the hill to Manely Woods, my home for the night. The path through the woods skirts along the River Lerryn from where it joins the River Fowey. Passing along, I was watched several parties of canoes and the occasional kayak pass. I have to admit I felt quite jealous! I reached Manely Pill and found it a fast flowing clean looking water supply, just in time to refill my bottle. I scouted through the woods and found a natural depression within earshot of the Pill. It was absolutely perfect size and shape so I decided to set up camp here.



As you may notice, not the greatest setup, I don't know how I didn't realise the right end of the hammock was protruding from under the tarp - lesson 1 learnt, fortunately not the hard way as the weather that night was perfect.

After setting up my home I got the kelly kettle out and got a brew going while I collected wood for the main fire - I had barely got the thing going before it had boiled!



Its easy to see why it gets called a volcano kettle!

After my tea, I collected wood for a fire, spent a good three quarters of an hour getting the thing started - lesson 2, fire should not be taken for granted! When the fire was lit, I was pretty hungry and so got dinner on. Lesson 3 - don't forget the pan handle!



After a good feed, I relaxed for the night. Turning in, I found the hammock surprisingly comfortable, but colder than I anticipated, especially underneath. Lesson 4, learnt! I did sleep well, although I did have to adjust my hammock in the middle of the night due to the rope stretch leaving me lowered onto my bag. Apparently this should not happen after the first time, so I didn't mind at all.

Come the morning, I was pleased to see that my fire was glowing enough to relight easily - I cooked my breakfast; bacon, sausages and beans on toast. This went down very well! After the good nights sleep, I was up for the hike home so I extinguished the fire, scattered the ashes by hand - I packed the partially burnt wood to put on the stove at home. Once I had covered the site back up with leaves, You could hardly tell anyone had set foot there, let alone spend the night with an open fire.



I retraced my steps on the hike back home to St Veep, then instead of following the track to Middle Penpoll, I went straight on along the footpath to avoid a long steep uphill hike along the road out of Lower Penpoll. I followed the footpath to the road, which I followed to Willsland. Along the road I saw a Comma Butterfly! At Willsland I followed a track up the hill to Trevelyan, then continued to retrace my route home.

All in all, a great weekend!

Saturday 6 October 2007

I'm off!

Just checked the weather, everything looks good:

See you on my return ;)

Friday 5 October 2007

Packed and Ready to Go (Almost!)

I have packed most of my kit now and taken a few snaps so I can talk about what I'm taking and why. Also I will mention why I chose a particular brand or item. I will start with my bag.






I have the Karrimor 75 Sabre with side pockets. I like big bags. I am not nor will I ever be a light weight hiker. I like being able to take heavy long lasting rugged equipment with me, also bulky items. This bag is well made, has all the space I will ever need, is well laid out and will last me a lifetime.




Next I shall talk about my sleeping and shelter arrangements. I have bought a DD travel hammock. I love the idea of sleeping in a hammock, I feel it offers much more flexibility and comfort compared with a bivi, and I have never liked tents. I am really looking forward to spending the night in this. I have an aussi hootchie. This was the first item I bought, before I had found the bushcraft UK website and done my research properly. I did not realise how much smaller it was compared to the other products on the market. I will have to chalk this one up to experience however. My sleeping bag is an ancient bag known as a Moon Bag. I believe it has shiny foil insulation inside. I am a cold person, I deal much better with cold than warmth and most times I use this bag, I end up sleeping on top of it as I am sweltering. Ideally I would like a lightweight blanket and underblanket, but there is nothing on the market at the moment and I have missed out on the bushcraft UK group buys for these items :(




My cooking gear consists of two zebra cooking pots. My old pots were a similar shape and design and these are the only quality pots I could get hold of. I also have the small 1L Kelly Kettle, I used to own one before and I have the adapter to turn it into a hobo stove too, so I can still cook where open fires are not allowed. I use the military style mug and water bottle mainly for their durability and the versitility of the mug. The mug fitting on the bottle is a great space saving design too. I have the lid and the handle for the mug to further its usefulness I do have the crusader cooker which slots under the mug too, but it is unnecessary where I can take the Kelly kettle. Finally I use a Katadyn Exstream water filter bottle, it is one which adds iodine to the water automatically. Ideally I would have a millbank bag to extend the life of the filter but with the current postal situation in the UK, I don't believe it will reach me tomorrow morning.




My food. This photo does not include the pack lunches I will make tomorrow morning or the fresh produce I will buy on the way (fruit and meat). The top left container in the photo is where I will store my meat for the journey, the top right container has a sauce I made for my rice. I will need to fry up my meat, add the sauce warm through and add to my rice. The middle left container has beans in it for Sunday's breakfast. The three liquid containers have olive oil for frying meat, red wine vinegar for deglazing my meat pan to add those lovely flavours to the sauce and the final bottle has milk for my coffee. I also have my own pepper mix and a salt and seaweed mix (NaCl and MSG in one flavour enhancing shot!) The final bag in the middle row contains green jasmine tea. The bottom left package is my bread for toast for breakfast on Sunday morning. Next I have three oat bars for snacks, a bag of rice and quinoa mixed to accompany the meat and sauce and finally a mix of coffee and sugar. The meat I will buy will be mincemeat for dinner, sausages and bacon for breakfast. I will also buy apples, banana's and what other vegetables are in season to accompany my meal.




For warm clothes, I have a gortex coat, a wool hat and a shemaghs. The shemagh can be used as a scarf, a bandana, a face wrap, a sling or a towel - and probably a few other things too!
My washbag contains a comb, some lip balm, a travel mirror, instructions for my filter water bottle, tooth picks, waterproof matches, soap, colloidal silver, tooth brush and paste, a dentistry mirror and a pit rok deoderant. My first aid kit and my sterile kit have been modified to reflect my abilities and the dangerous tools I am taking. I will also be carring a spark flint (mounted on a magnesium block for emergancy tinder).
The tools I will be taking with me are: A Gransfors Bruks Small Forest Axe as my main wood cutting/shaping tool, a laplander folding saw as a labour saving device for making large cuts, two knives, the smaller Colombia lock knife on my person (which for safety I will not use instead of my fixed blade except in an emergancy) with my flint so if I lose my bag I can still create sparks and a larger fixed mora frost knife for fine shaping and carving of wood that I am not skilled enough to do with my axe. The laplander saw was chosen for its reasonable price and high quality, the axe for its perfect general purpose weight and balance as well as build quality and the knife for its good blade and great price. I will also be taking a crook knife for carving.
The final photo shows my petyl xp headtorch, chosen for its battery life, exceptional light quality, ability to easily hook it to the waist and tough high quality build. The gloves are cowhide gloves which I find generally useful to have outdoors with me.
A few items I have not mentioned are my camera (a sony DSC-F828) , phone for emergancies, OS map and compass, GPS for emergancies (once I came across a hyperthermic couple out on the Black Mountains - the ability to give the rescue services their precise location very quickly probably saved their life- I wouldn't want to try to make that kind of call no matter how good my map reading skills in such difficult to navigate surroundings - they had no detectable heartbeat when we discovered them and due to the speed of their rescue they both made a good recovery.) I will also be taking some cash for fresh food and emergancies.
So, wish me luck, all thats left to do is to make four rounds of sandwiches for Saturday and Sunday lunchtimes, buy the fruit and meat and actually set off! The route is planned, the campsite has been scouted and I am ready and looking forward to it!

Thursday 4 October 2007

Welcome to Sheng-ji's Bushcraft Blog

Welcome to my blog. This is intended as a journal of my bushcraft experiences. Whether you have found your way here accidently or deliberately, I hope you will find somthing of value on these pages.

Who am I?
Sheng-ji is not my real name, it was a nickname given to me by an old partner of mine - in her language it is a phrase used to describe the growth of a strong and vigourous young tree. She had to leave the country but the name stuck. My real name? Those who should know already do ;)

Why Bushcraft?
I had a variety of Outdoors type hobbies and pursuits when I was young and growing up. I never thought of these activities being remotely linked to one another - one was often a means for another: camping was a means to have multi-day hikes, carving was merely to create a new piece of kit and hiking was to get me to interesting places to take photographs. Then, one day I went to University in Southampton. The culture shock of moving from a rural farming community in Cornwall's Forgotten Corner to the bustling multi-ethnic community of urban Southampton was quite intense for me. Needless to say the combination of new found convieniance and urban pursuits, combined with a complete lack of money and friends who had no interest of knowledge of the countryside led to me abandoning these interests in favour of clubbing, fast food and coursework! Slowly and surely, however, my rural side crept back in. I had a tiny courtyard garden, but I wanted it full of trees so I discovered a talent for bonsai. I missed my hiking but I hooked up with a group of mountain bikers who went for rides round the local woods. Eventually I combined my love of the Outdoors with my city lifestyle.

Ray Mears
A day came when one of my friends mentioned this guy on TV - "Sheng" he said, "You'll love him, its all outdoors stuff". I settle down in front of the box the following week and watch an episode. I watched as this guy told you all about how to survive in some extreme desert with detatched interest, decided it was nice that he didn't mention the SAS once and promptly forgot all about it until sometime last year. This time I switched over to find him talking about the virtues of birch sap. He appeared to be in an english woodland, not teaching you how to survive with just an axe and a piece of rope, he was teaching people like me, who enjoy heading out to the woods, interesting, fun and unextreme things to do. This I liked. I heard the term bushcraft for the first time and decided it was time to head out camping once more.

Cornwall
What with one thing and another, that first camping trip hasn't really happened yet - I found out my father had thrown out my old tent, my canoe had been abused by my younger brother and lay with Davy Jones and my axe had been used to chop firewood for the past decade and was blunt rusty and rotten through! However we have just recently purchased a house in a reasurringly rural part of Cornwall, I have moved down early for a job while the house sale goes through and have been putting together my kit again.

The Weekend
I am planning a trip this weekend to a patch of woodlands I have identified as being suitable for my needs. I am going to hike out there, only a short one, to give me plenty of time to enjoy the camping experience. Then on Sunday, I intend to hike back, hopefully having had a great night, learnt a lot about my new kit (details tomorrow when I have packed it) and most importantly of all, been reaquainted with my old friend, the Outdoors.