Woodland Wild Camp

I've started taking my boys wild camping. The trick, I reckon, with kids is to keep them interested. Luckily messing about in streams, fishing and camp fires keeps me interested too. Again luckily living where I do there's plenty places to do all that kind of stuff. Saturday was hot here, very hot. We set off to the North York Moors at 6pm. Stopping on the way to forage for chips and scraps bushcraft style. Then we headed for a local fishing spot and our luck was in. There were loads of tiny trout just wanting to be caught and catch them we did. All catch and release.

We stayed until the midges drove us away and headed up the hill into the woods to set up camp before it got dark. There's a lovely spot in the middle of the woods with an old ruined stone hut with the fireplace in. It's just the right size to stretch the big yellow tarp over leaving enough gap to let the smoke out.

We found two fallen silver birch, they must have been down over two years as they were bone dry giving a lovely hot smokeless fire.

We got the fire going and unpacked and then I realised I hadn't bought my sleeping mat. I would say sleeping on about a foot deep pile of dry leaves is as comfortable as a neo air but there are considerably more creepy crawlies.

A good nights sleep was had by all until about 5.30am when the midges attacked. We got the fire started and chucked some damp leaves on for a bit of smoke and had a midge free hour and then a couple more hours fishing until it started chucking it down.

The boys really enjoyed it and so did I. I'm in the process of getting some kit together for them so we can expand our trips to the lakes and walk a little further. I'll do a post about the kit I'm putting together when it's put together.