Apologies for the lack of a summer camp blog. The site had no mobile signal and there were no hotspots locally. Â Hopefully you kept an eye on our Storify page that we’ve just updated again. Instagram pics uploaded occasionally when the wind changed and our phones got a bit of connection, here it is if you missed it (photos and videos to follow during the week):
Tag: bushcraft
The Scouts have teamed up with Haynes to create this hands-on manual for enjoying the great outdoors.
The book is chock full of step-by-step guides to an array of scoutcraft skills like trekking, navigating, camping, firelighting and cooking and and there are hundreds of colour photographs in there too. Â You’ll find:
- A brief history of the great outdoors and an introduction to scouting.
- The world around you: geography, environment, weather and wildlife.
- Camping: tents, wild camping, shelters, planning and packing.
- Navigation: using the sun and stars, maps, compasses and GPS.
- Fires and firelighting: quite simply all you need to know.
- Food: wild plants, foraging, fishing, backwoods cooking, outdoor ovens.
- Knots untangled: knots, lashings and pioneering projects.
- Safety and first aid: dealing with emergency situations.
So it looks like a must-have for less than £15 and you can get it from Amazon here or Beckenham Bookshop will get it in for you (normally overnight) if you are buying local (ISBN 0857332821).
Here’s a quick video and we agree with every word of it!
[youtube width=”640″ height=”360″]http://youtu.be/hsYTBgvcF5o[/youtube]
Tonight we spent an hour working with knives and with lots of care and concentration, we didn’t have any cuts! We’re halfway to making spike trolls… inspired by the Wonderful Whittlin’ Blog
Next week we paint them (and remember to bring a decent camera)
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I dropped by to visit the explorers while they were setting up their hammocks for the night
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- The first one up,
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- Sooooo comfortable
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- Rob working on his knots. He must have had an awful scout leader… (gulp… oh the shame)
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- Backwoods cooking for dinner. Stew in a bag.
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- Nick lets his knots take the strain.
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- Looking good, although maybe the tarp is a bit high.
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- Sean loves his hammock
I looked in on explorers last night and realised that I’ve failed with the current batch of younger explorers who have no idea how to chop wood in the wet to start a fire.
Tonight we taught the scouts how to use axes and saws (or just ran refreshers for some of them. Â We’d like to have been outside but it was way to muddy and horrid. Hopefully we’ll ge some fires burning soon.
Next week we finish off the fire safety badge too.
Knife sharpening
Fire starting with wire wool. And batteries
Feather sticks