Month: September 2020

s people seek adventure closer to home this summer, a bushcraft course is the perfect way to immerse yourself in the countryside and tune in to the natural world, all while learning a new set of skills. 

Building a shelter, foraging for ingredients, lighting and cooking over a campfire – these are all things that chime with the modern appetite for slow travel and reconnecting with more traditional ways of life.

The bushcraft companies mentioned below are now taking bookings again, with hygiene measures in place around coronavirus. These vary from course to course, but include social distancing, the wearing of masks, and the sole use of one set of tools per person.

The flagship skill of any seasoned bushcrafter is the ability to summon up a comforting campfire using only the resources laid on by the wilderness. Trueways Survival’s day-long fire lighting course will take you through everything you need to know to make a fire in any circumstances, even if you find yourself out in the woods without so much as much as a cigarette lighter. You’ll learn to identify the best wood to gather for tinder (dry grasses, bark and pine needles), kindling (small twigs) and firewood, or, in a pinch, how to shave down a damp twig into a ‘feather stick’ which will catch light. 

It’s many a fair-weather camper who loads up on snacks only to forget the essentials – if this sounds like you, take solace in the fact that a handful of crisps can be sacrificed as an oily fire starter. When it’s time to strike that all-important spark, there’s the classic combination of flint and steel, as well as time-honoured tools like the bow drill and hand drill. You’ll also be taught the essential skills of knowing where and when to safely build a fire, how to put it out, and how, crucially, to leave no trace.  

Yorkshire/Hampshire/North Wales. One-day fire lighting course £105 per person.

Of all the potentially life-saving bushcraft skills that most of us have lost touch with in the developed world, the ability to find potable water in the wild tops the list. Being lucky enough to have drinking water straight out of the tap at home won’t help you out in the wilderness, where the ability to locate and harvest safe water is a critical survival skill. 

It’s not as simple as filling up your water bottle from the nearest river, either: chances are that farm animals will have contaminated it upstream. Standing water can be full of nasties, too. That’s why it’s crucial to filter any water you’ve collected, and then purify it either chemically or by boiling it for five minutes. You’ll learn all these skills on many introductory bushcraft courses, including this one from Jack Raven Bushcraft.

Kent Downs, between Canterbury and Ashford. One-day bushcraft course £85 per person.

Sleeping beneath the stars is all well and good, but often – in the UK, especially – a night in a hammock is just not going to cut it when it comes to protection from the elements. Trueways Survival’s shelter building course will prep you with the skills to get a roof over your head in no time, from picking the perfect spot (near a water source is always a good place to start) to choosing the layout of your new abode – will you go for a cosy A-frame, a (hopefully) sturdy lean-to or a ‘super-shelter’, using space-age mylar foil blankets and tarp? 

With your comfortable bolthole built, you’ll be taken through the best way to set up your hammock or bed to ensure a good night’s sleep – essential for giving you the energy to tackle the next day’s adventures in the great outdoors.

Yorkshire/Hampshire/North Wales. Two-day shelter building course £215 per person.

While a foraged feast might tide you over for a while, there’s no substitute for hunting for your own meat or fish dinner to keep you well-nourished during your adventures in the outdoors. The six-day Forest Hunter course from Frontier Bushcraft will equip you with all the tools you need to (sustainably) stalk and hunt deer, from identifying their tracks and other markers to shooting, skinning, and preparing a delectable venison dinner. 

If the thought of gunning down big game is a little too grisly for your tastes, then one of Coastal Survival’s fishing courses might be for you. Against the spectacular backdrop of West Dorset’s Jurassic Coast, embark on a coastal adventure which will see you fishing for meaty conger eel, mackerel and bass – or, if you’re unlucky, wrassling with a slippery, needle-sharp garfish, which can be grilled up in a pinch even if their lurid green bones are a little off-putting. Closer to the shore, rock pool foraging can yield such delights as mussels, velvet crabs, and edible seaweed.  

Frontier Bushcraft’s Forest Hunter Course is held in Moray in the Scottish Highlands. The six-day/seven-night course costs £727 per person. Coastal Survival holds courses off the coast of Bridport, West Dorset. Prices start from £126 per person for a day-long fishing course.

Coastal Survival holds courses off the coast of Bridport, West Dorset. Prices start from £126 per person for a day-long fishing course.

Food, along with fire, water and shelter, is one of the four pillars of survival – but it’s vital that you know what you’re doing before you start browsing the aisles of nature’s supermarket. Bushcraft handbooks abound with horror stories of mispicked mushrooms and toxic berries, some of which look almost identical to more innocuous lookalikes. 

Did you know, for example, that eating the deadly webcap mushroom, easily mistaken for the truffle-like chanterelle, often results in kidney failure? Or that each aptly named death cap, a doppelgänger for several innocently edible mushroom species, is potent enough to kill two humans? 

It’s not just mushrooms you need to look out for, either; Britain’s hedgerows are bristling with unforeseen dangers. While feasting on fistfuls of blackberries is one of the great joys of a country ramble, you’d do well to avoid the berries of deadly nightshade, which will induce terrifying hallucinations on the way to hospital; or mistletoe, whose vomit-inducing berries will render you distinctly unkissable. 

Happily, help is at hand. Wild Food UK offers a range of foraging courses which will help you pick out only the safest (and tastiest) woodland ingredients, from the mighty chicken of the woods mushroom to the perennial foragers’ favourite, wild garlic. Roasted chestnuts and stewed apples are among the cockle-warming treats you can cook up with foraged finds, while citrussy wood sorrel, pineapple weed and nettles are among the more surprising edibles you’ll pick along the way.

Courses held nationwide, including Ledbury, Hertfordshire; Dartmoor, Devon; South Downs, Hampshire; and Eyam, Derbyshire. From £50 per person for a half-day course (under-16s go half price).

A far cry from the macho ex-SAS types who dominate survival television today, the modern bushcraft renaissance was spearheaded by Ray Mears, whose gentle, overgrown-boy-scout demeanour brought the outdoors into our living rooms in an accessible way. The company he set up pre-TV fame, Woodlore, remains one of the country’s leading bushcraft organisations. 

On their two-day woodland navigation course, you’ll learn how to use a map and compass to make your way through the forest, making use of natural features to plot your path.

To learn to read an Ordnance Survey map is to unlock a new language of runic symbols which can tell you far more than just the layout of local footpaths or the elevation of the nearest big hill. For example, there are different symbols to tell you what type of woodland you’re entering, which can give you an insight into what kind of food you might be able to forage there – it’s coniferous woodland you want, for example, if you’re after some pine nuts for a homemade foraged pesto. Some maps are so detailed that they even include prominent rocks, which can be an invaluable tool in determining your position if you’re well and truly lost.  

Woodlore’s two-day woodland navigation course is held in the East Sussex countryside near Tunbridge Wells and costs £300 per person.

“Take only pictures, leave only footprints” – the bushcraft credo is a golden rule and it’s important to abide by it, but it does make it trickier to take home a souvenir of your adventures. Enter Wildway Bushcraft, whose spoon carving course in the forests of Hampshire will see you gather around a campfire and engage in the ancient art of turning a block of wood into a piece of practical and beautiful cutlery. The expert course leaders will teach you all about how to choose the perfect type of wood, why it reacts to carving in certain ways, and how best to oil and finish your spoon so it’s both campfire and kitchen ready.

Courses are held in woodland across Dorset and Hampshire. The one-day spoon carving course costs £75 per person.

Brandishing a bow and arrow might not sound like the best-advised activity in the context of traditional British stag dos, but this is no traditional stag do: a two-day camping adventure with Wildway Bushcraft, featuring archery practice, axe throwing, and the skinning and butchering of a deer. Needless to say, booze is off the agenda until after the activities involving sharp objects – just one reason why this will prove more memorable than cutting a swathe through Riga or Prague over a long weekend – but there’s plenty of time for a few beers as you enjoy a hearty dinner of freshly prepared venison stew around the campfire. The (human) stag goes free, and also gets to take away a tanned hide as a souvenir.  

Held in private woodland in Hampshire. From £95 per person.

In 1991, the 5,000-year-old body of Ötzi the Iceman was found entombed in a glacier in the Tyrolean mountains. Among Ötzi’s perfectly preserved possessions were medicinal mushrooms, including birch fungus – thought to be used as a treatment for the whipworm found in his stomach. Today, many powerful drugs are derived from plants: aspirin from willow bark and morphine from poppies, for example. 

While you won’t come across anything quite so potent on a walk through British woodland, there are a host of plants which can help relieve the kind of minor injuries which commonly afflict bushcrafters. A dried marigold flower, for instance, can be rubbed onto insect bites and stings to reduce swelling, while primrose has long been used as a salve for wounds. Sage, meanwhile, is said to be something of a panacea, used to aid digestion, depression, and even memory loss. As with all foraging, it’s important to know exactly what it is you’re ingesting, so an expertly guided woodland medicine course like the one offered by Woodland Ways is a good idea for beginners.

Appleton, Oxfordshire. One-day course costs £95 per person.

Learning to survive and thrive in the outdoors is a lifelong pursuit, and while a day or weekend course is the perfect way to dip your feet, a longer trip is a great way to test your mettle and find out if you’re harbouring an inner bushcrafter. Woodland Ways’ Immersion Survival Course sees you taking to the woods for 10 days, learning all the basics of wilderness survival from putting up a shelter and lighting a fire to butchering game and cooking it on the campfire. You’ll also learn how to fashion animal bones into tools, make buckskin moccasins, and even build a woodland sauna – by the end of this one, it might be the modern world, not the woods, that needs some adjusting to.

Appleton, Oxfordshire. Ten-day course costs £895 per person.  

As holidaymakers and the journey industry hold out to find out the latest additions to the UK’s “no-go” checklist, today’s figures for new bacterial infections point out that Poland could shortly be stripped of quarantine exemption.

The transport secretary, Grant Shapps, is anticipated to impose a self-isolation requirement for arriving travellers from a person or much more nations at 5pm on Thursday. At the exact time, the Overseas Office environment will warn against journey to the influenced spots.

As coronavirus an infection costs rise across most European nations, far more nations have moved over the United kingdom government’s threshold of 20 new bacterial infections for each 100,000 in a 7 days.

Although the British isles is now at 64 on that index, the selected stage has not improved – that means that destinations these kinds of as Croatia are rated as “unacceptably high risk” even although their infection prices are significantly less than 50 percent the UK’s.

Poland has had the worst 7 days for new infections due to the fact the Covid-19 pandemic commenced, and now has a score of 24.4. Were the Department for Transportation to incorporate it to the no-go checklist, the impact would be considerable for travellers with family members one-way links in both of those Poland and the United kingdom – as perfectly as airlines and airports. 

The amount of flights between the two countries, and the passenger loads on them, are considerably bigger than the recent regular.

In accordance to figures compiled by The Laptop Company from European Centre for Disorder Prevention and Control info, each Italy and Greece are at the threshold established by the British isles govt for self-isolation – with premiums at 20.1 and 20.5 respectively.

But not like most European countries, the islands in just about every could make a variance. The governments in England, Wales and Northern Eire currently alert from vacation to some Greek islands, although Scotland imposes quarantine on the total of Greece. 

1 attainable outcome is that the mainland could be rated no-go although immediate vacation to islands this kind of as Corfu, Kos and Rhodes is unaffected. 

Italy, which is at the moment open up for vacation, could be divided into the “safe” mainland and Sicily, which are beneath the threshold, while Sardinia has quarantine imposed.

Two other Mediterranean destinations, Cyprus and Turkey, are nicely down below the Uk threshold – at 10.8 and 13.4 respectively.

Some travel field figures feel that a a lot more substantial transform to the UK’s quarantine plan could be made imminently.

The threshold was established when new an infection premiums for Britain and the rest of Europe have been much decreased than now.

1 check out is that blanket quarantine could be reimposed.

Airways and the broader journey field are contacting for tests to be involved in the command measures, but the government has explained current tests are unreliable.

The self-proclaimed mayor of Hell is inviting guests to remain at his “lair” through Oct to rejoice Halloween in a tongue-in-cheek Airbnb listing.

John Colone, a resident of the township in Michigan, is opening up his mayoral pad so these living in the US condition can consider his place as mayor for the night time.

He said: “I am the most important Halloween enthusiast in the world (and the underworld), so I hope that our very little slice of paradise can fill fellow Halloween fans with all of the frightful chills and spooky sensations of the season.

“And to our guests and before long-to-be Mayors, I belief you’ll locate that there is no spot extra welcoming than Hell on Earth – we can not wait around to present you a helluva fantastic time!”

Would-be mayors will keep at the “Mayor’s Lair”, which has been set up with a queen-sized bed for two and a gothic seating space.

Attendees can take pleasure in the city of Hell at their leisure, with Colone recommending Hell Hole Diner and Hell Saloon for foodstuff. There are scenic hiking trails nearby, or you could chill out in front of the cozy hearth pit and check out horror videos and carve pumpkins.

At the Locks of Adore Bridge, the nearby reverend is even joyful to officiate marriages for all those who could possibly desire to tie the knot in Hell. Social distancing will be managed at all situations, of course.

Bookings, by way of Airbnb, will open up on 14 October at 12pm EST with 3 individual evenings out there – 18, 21 and 24 October – and the exceptional keep expenses $31 for each night time, furthermore taxes and charges.

Airbnb has outlined several just one-off stays in the earlier.

A three-yr-aged youngster with autism was allegedly kicked off a flight and subsequently banned by the airline after he refused to have on a mask.

Cebastian Lewis, who is non-verbal, was traveling with his spouse and children dwelling to Chicago with Spirit Airlines when the incident transpired.

His mother Zana Shelton reported a flight attendant stopped them when they have been boarding the aircraft, demanding that Cebastian put on a mask.

“I’m like well he’s autistic and we didn’t have this difficulty coming below,” Shelton informed Fox 32 Chicago. She stated that “they just put him on the autism spectrum. He has sensory hold off and speech hold off.”

Family members members managed to get the facial area masking on Cebastian when boarding the plane, but he swiftly removed it again.

“As before long as he sat in the seat he took it ideal back again off,” mentioned Shelton. “So [the flight attendant] was like, ‘he has to get off.’

“Everybody experienced to deplane and then the police had been called.”

Spirit Airways has accused Shelton of swearing at cabin crew and statements the family members was uncooperative and refused to get off the flight.

Shelton states that, though she cursed, it was mainly because the flight attendant was remaining “very ignorant”.  

The carrier stated in a assertion: “Spirit demands appropriate encounter coverings through your overall journey with us.

“The only exception to this plan is small children beneath the age of two.

“Any other guest who is not able to have on an ideal deal with masking for any reason, including health care, will not be permitted to travel with us at this time.”

The airline refunded the family’s air fare, but yet another shock awaited them.

A several days right after the incident, two letters arrived from Spirit Airlines, just one tackled to Shelton’s sister, the other to three-calendar year-outdated Cebastian himself.

The letters banned the toddler from flying with the airline due to his failure to comply with its confront-masking plan.

Spirit has given that reported the letter to Cebastian was a blunder.

The Independent has contacted the airline for more comment.

A group of influencers was asked to go away some Mayan ruins in Mexico soon after they behaved “immaturely”, by refusing to don masks or exercise social distancing.

The solid associates of a preferred local reality display named Acapulco Shore (not dissimilar to the UK’s Geordie Shore) were invited to tour the Uxmal ruins by tourism officers in the hope it may well stimulate people to return to the attraction.

But the visit promptly turned bitter, with staff members at the website accusing the 8 solid users of ignoring signposted guidelines about donning masks at all periods and training social distancing of at the very least half a metre.

The influencers “were requested to leave, in compliance with wellness policies,” reported the Countrywide Institute of Anthropology and Heritage (INAH), studies AP.

INAH included that the group had “flagrantly violated the established security and cleanliness protocols,” yucatanexpatlife.com/invited-to-endorse-yucatan-social-media-influencers-kicked-out-of-uxmal/”>Yucatan Expat Lifetime noted.

Pictures of the tour posted to social media present the team posing in near proximity to a single an additional by one of the historical buildings.

Authorities from the Mexican condition of Yucatan admitted the tour was aspect of a marketing campaign to restart tourism in the region, but deny that the solid users were being compensated for the check out.

“The influencers have been not paid out just one solitary peso,” tweeted Michelle Fridman, the Yucatan point out tourism secretary.  

“It also was not some 50 %-baked concept but somewhat part of a strategy integrated in the program for recovery from Covid, and if we carefully measure the impact, we estimate we bought 200 million hits for a sector that urgently needs advertising.”  

Even with the terrible behaviour, the group continued their tour of Yucatan the following working day, with visits to Valladolid and Izamal.

The Uxmal ruins, which incorporate ancient temples, palaces and pyramids and are considered just one of the most significant archaeological websites of the Mayan culture, reopened on 17 September.

Mexico, like a lot of locations, has struggled with the collapse of its tourism marketplace in the course of the pandemic.  

Vacationer arrivals fell by 93.4 for each cent at a single position in May, when projections clearly show that visitor quantities in 2020 total are anticipated to be 42.8 for each cent reduce than in 2019.