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Failed family wild camp

G1ZmO

G1ZmO

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Thought I'd share our little fiasco with you.

So we had planned to go down to Galloway Forest to wild camp on Friday night but I had a work's meal to attend so we were a bit tight for time.
We got the rucksacks 90% packed before I went out for the meal with the intention of leaving as soon as I got home.
I got home at 19:30 but realised that Mel and Daniel had not had their dinner as they were expecting to cook over the campfire. With an hour & 1/2 to drive then find a spot, set up camp, build a fire then cook I advised that they had better eat before we leave.
The outcome was that we didn't leave the house until 20:45 and got down to the forest at 22:00 with an hour(ish) of daylight left.
We spent this hour driving and walking around trying to find a suitable site for 3 hammocks. The difficulty here is that a lot of the 'forest road' runs through felled areas and the access tracks down to the various lochs either had no suitable trees for hammocks or were already occupied by campers (of which there were quite a few) and access to water sources was very limited.

Darkness descended (such as it is at this time of year) and we decided we'd left it too late and decided to call it a day and head home again. You could say I was slightly annoyed and the drive back was not the most joyful experience.
We got home at 00:30 and Mel and Daniel went to bed while I poured myself several measures of rum before retiring for the night.

All in all, we(I) planned it badly. We should have taken the tent as backup and should have gone earlier.

After I finish this post, its back onto the maps and planning our route for today. Another attempt at finding a location for an overnight tonight but perhaps driving north to a more mature pine forest or deciduous (if we can find such a thing)

I will post a wee report of tonight's camp tomorrow providing all goes well :)
 
Aww well, Paul :(

Hope the next outing goes to plan for you all............ and you have a relaxing camp.
At least you sussed the area for another visit maybe?

Look forward to hearing about it :thumbsup:
 
How unfortunate. A friend of mine is about an hour from the forest and l'm sure she would have let you wild camp in her woods - save the disappointment of not finding somewhere. l'm sure the weather is bringing everyone out camping and now the Scottish schools have broken up it will be even more crowded! Hope you succeeded on attempt no. 2.
 
Thanks all. Yes, we did succeed on attempt 2 and camped at the same spot where I did my first solo camp.
I'll do a report and post pics and video when I've gone through it all.
Suffice to say we are all sunburnt and I had a challenge on my hands to filter & boil enough drinking water to keep us going. And we had wayyy too much kit again.
Watch this space :)
 
All is well that ends well Paul:thumbsup: first attempt was a practice run lol. Looking forward to the pictures and write up mate:D
 
These things happen. If you've checked out an area mid week or off season and found it isolated and pleasant you can almost guarantee that by the following weekend it will be knee deep in litter with black plastic bags of dog shit festooned from every fence or gatepost...seething with towns people who have no idea how to behave and apparently no common sense.
Saturday I was doing the monks trod across common land west of Rhayader (with my three dogs on leads) and there were two separate dog attacks on sheep kept there for conservation grazing around the dam (one of them I was forced to intervene to help get a ewe out of the water, up the steep bank of the Clerwen reservoir. All the time the dog owner was standing there like a lump, repeatedly saying he didn't realise that there were sheep in the area.....in Wales? Seriously?
 
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Some pics for you. The video isn't done yet.

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Ystranc said:
These things happen. If you've checked out an area mid week or off season and found it isolated and pleasant you can almost guarantee that by the following weekend it will be knee deep in litter with black plastic bags of dog shit festooned from every fence or gatepost...seething with towns people who have no idea how to behave and apparently no common sense.
Saturday I was doing the monks trod across common land west of Rhayader (with my three dogs on leads) and there were two separate dog attacks on sheep kept there for conservation grazing around the dam (one of them I was forced to intervene to help get a ewe out of the water, up the steep bank of the Clerwen reservoir. All the time the dog owner was standing there like a lump, repeatedly saying he didn't realise that there were sheep in the area.....in Wales? Seriously?
Click to expand...
Yet could you imagine the furor if the Farmer had shot the Dogs for worrying his Sheep (quite lawful), perhaps this is what it would take to make people understand the countryside is a working environment.
 
The Boogie Man said:
Yet could you imagine the furor if the Farmer had shot the Dogs for worrying his Sheep (quite lawful), perhaps this is what it would take to make people understand the countryside is a working environment.
Click to expand...
To be truthful that would have been unlikely because the land owner is Welsh water but I know exactly what you mean.
 
Oh, isn't it beautiful? l do love it up there although our last visit (Sept 16) was spoilt by rubbish people had left behind. This hot, dry weather is helping to keep the midges away too. And to top it all it's a Dark Sky Park even though it doesn't really get that dark for long at this time of year. Why do you need to go abroad with scenery like this so close? Will you be going again with less "stuff"?
 
You're right Barbara. Even at that remote spot there was an inflatable mattress that someone had just left there. I would have taken it away for disposal had I not been already over-weighed with kit. I can be a lot more minimalist with gear going solo but I will certainly try to reduce next time we family camp again. (though I can't guarantee minimalism for the forum's summer meet LOL)
 
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