• Welcome to The Bushcraft Forum

    You are currently viewing the site as a guest and some content may not be available to you.

    Registration is quick and easy and will give you full access to the site and allow you to ask questions or make comments and join in on the conversation. If you would like to join then please Register

South West Summer meet 2019 pictures and chat

OK here's my write up. There are MANY more photos and videos which I will share soon.

Sunday:
Arrived later than planned (19:00) due to a 2 hour hold up caused by rotten chicken carcasses on the M5. Phooooeeee!
Matt met us in the lower field and ferried us up to camp.
We said our hellos to those that had arrived then set to work setting up our camp.
View attachment 18701 View attachment 18713

View attachment 18712

View attachment 18714
We were still doing this in the dark and eventually met everyone round the communal fire where we sat until the wee hours drinking rum and David's lovely cider.
Around the fire were Matt, Neil, Dick, David, Emily, Ben, Ethan, Jack and us. (also on site but we didn't meet that night were Ryan, Tineal (sorry if I've mis-spelled this) and her son Trey)

Monday:
Pretty well hungover all day! Did a run to Sainsbury's for food since we'd missed the Sunday night closing time. Later set up for a storm coming in overnight and added an extra tarp to protect on the storm side. Later I was lying in my hammock hearing branches snap and hit the ground and wondering if I'd checked above our camp sufficiently!

Tuesday:
Very heavy wind and rain overnight but we survived unscathed apart from the fact that the storm changed direction and some of our kit got a wee bit wet (including the end of Mel's and Daniel's hammocks and sleeping bags) added more drip lines but a bit late. Rejigged the camp to protect against the wind from the north.
Mel made bacon sandwiches while I removed a couple of ticks from my leg.
Still heavy rain spells and strong breeze but forecast says dry for the rest of the week. Daniel made a half-hearted attempt at washing the dishes lol.
Emily made a lovely crumble for us to share. Thanks Emily.
View attachment 18702
Sat around campfire carving in the afternoon/evening.
View attachment 18703

View attachment 18704
Wednesday:
Up at 08:30ish Provisions are still at a reasonable level. We won't have to resort to eating a camp mate until after the Aldi parsnip soup is finished.
David has escaped. He must have heard me finishing the soup. :)
Made a couple of pot hangers.
A good result for our family in the HFT with Daniel taking first in the juniors and also first overall, me second and Mel 4th.
View attachment 18706 View attachment 18708

A big thanks to @divebuddy for setting up the HFT again and also for the CAAAAAKE, Thanks Dick!
View attachment 18707

Evening, spaghetti bolognaise for dinner then sat around the communal fire.
Heading to our camp after midnight we noticed that the stars were out. Here are a couple of photos I took.
View attachment 18709
A shot of the Milky Way (F2.8,15 sec, ISO1600 and tweaked in Lightroom)

View attachment 18710
And Ursa Major

Thursday:
Up at 08:30. Went for a walk in the woods
Back for coffee and made bannock
11:45 Matt, Neil, Ben and I went down to the rover to fill the water containers. Ben and I went to Lidl for some supplies.
Lunch: Made onion bannock and beans
View attachment 18711
Afternoon: Daniel played his guitar at the communal fire, Mel rested and I read and collected firewood.
Dinner of potatoes and Irish stew
Target practice with a few cans with Daniel then in the evening, you guessed it, sat around the communal campfire chatting. :)

Friday:
Up and packed what we'd not use and Matt helped us down to the car with it.
Did some more target shooting with Daniel, Ethan and Jack. (I'll post the HFT and shooting pics separately)
Chilled out for the rest of the day. Curry and rice for dinner.

Saturday:
Up at 08:00 and all packed and left by 10:00

Another great summer meet organised primarily by @Matt , thanks again treacle. :)

View attachment 18705
Great write up and photos Paul, congratulations to all of you on the shooting
 
The chef
2019-07-30 18.07.02.jpg

A spider
2019-08-01 08.51.33.jpg

The dunny
2019-08-01 10.34.23.jpg

Neil, Matt and Ben collecting water
2019-08-01 12.03.53.jpg

James Taylor impression :)
20190730-IMG_4513.jpg

Dunno these two heh
20190731-IMG_4617.jpg
2019-08-01 13.45.27.jpg 20190729-IMG_4443.jpg 20190730-IMG_4501.jpg 20190730-IMG_4512.jpg 20190730-IMG_4524.jpg 20190731-IMG_4552.jpg 20190731-IMG_4574.jpg 20190731-IMG_4580.jpg 20190801-IMG_4669.jpg 20190801-IMG_4671.jpg 20190801-IMG_4680.jpg 20190801-IMG_4718.jpg 20190802-IMG_4756.jpg
20190801-IMG_4698.jpg
 

Attachments

  • 2019-07-30 18.06.38.jpg
    2019-07-30 18.06.38.jpg
    144.6 KB · Views: 147
  • 20190731-IMG_4590.jpg
    20190731-IMG_4590.jpg
    194.1 KB · Views: 128
Thanks @Bam
I found though that, for a family of 3, it's just a little slow for the amount of water needed for day-to-day use.
I was constantly filtering, boiling and cooling water to keep up with demand and it was the filtering which was the bottleneck (pun intended heh)
The method is definitely fine for a single person but I think last year we ended up just boiling instead of filter/boil

20190729-IMG_4402.jpg
 
Thanks @Bam
I found though that, for a family of 3, it's just a little slow for the amount of water needed for day-to-day use.
I was constantly filtering, boiling and cooling water to keep up with demand and it was the filtering which was the bottleneck (pun intended heh)
The method is definitely fine for a single person but I think last year we ended up just boiling instead of filter/boil

View attachment 18741

Fair one, I've only been providing for one but only used the gravity method for 'just cos' and to prove it works. If you've still got the 'squuezy bags' you can put a bit of direct pressure on which ups the flow rate, I daresay it would work with the plastic bottles too if you were in a rush for 'high quality H2O'. I need to have another play....
 
Cracking photos and write ups chaps.... and chapesses :) .......nice set ups...... and lots of camp tinkering going on:thumbsup:

Even with some stormy weather to deal with it looks like it was yet another fun meet for everyone:thumbsup:

Thanks for sharing.
 
Not sure I can add much to the write ups the guys have done. I arrived on the Sunday lunchtime and having got stuck on the track on the recce day offloaded the heaviest kit and managed to get up into the woods using the "woodland" route. Emily and co, Ryan and co, David Day, Matt and Neil were already there and well set up. Neil as usual provide a welcome brew whilst I set up my camp and Matt kindly transported my heavy gear in the Discovery. Monday was taken up setting out the HFT course but luckily I left putting up the signs and lane numbers until after Tuesdays rain.
Monday night was noisy, windy and heavy rain. Tuesday was wet on and off and I took the chance to make a bannock which turned out to be edible and got scoffed by all(see pictures). The whole week was one of the best meets I have attended. I am glad everyone appeared to enjoy the HFT course. We ran two rounds of twenty targets each round and were able to get the results sorted before Ryan and co left. I will publish the results on a separate post. Forgot to say we welcomed the Scottish contingent on Monday who almost swept the board in the HFT.
Big thanks to Matt for the organisation of the meet. Some pictures below of my set up and food. There are some more but the file size is too big.
IMG_20190724_121229.jpg
IMG_20190728_175459.jpg
IMG_20190729_101946.jpg
IMG_20190729_200125_BURST002.jpg
IMG_20190730_105121.jpg
IMG_20190730_124656_BURST002.jpg
IMG_20190730_132229_BURST002.jpg
IMG_20190730_180401.jpg
IMG_20190729_104708_BURST001_COVER.jpg
 
Back
Top