We set out to do the Discovery award.  Paul, Linda, Nathan, Samuel and another Paul.

It turned into an epic, addictive journey which lasted from June to late December. This is not essential, 4 days is all that is required, but once we started we just couldn’t stop and we ended up willingly spending in excess of four days.

Following the guidelines from the John Muir Trust we set out to discover our wild place. This was the 9 acres of woodland we had bought to start CDWES.

Day One

This saw us all deep in the woods trying to see the wood for the trees, or more accurately the trees in the bracken. We enjoyed discovering and exploring our wild place, and found it to be really wild too, with many additional features which we had not realized were there.

Day Two

A few sessions were given over to planning and contemplating our sanity for taking on a project like this.

We then decided we would concentrate on attacking the bracken in the three main clearings. We would then brash some of the tracks made by the resident roe deer to make them wider and taller so we could explore in more comfort.

The brashing was relatively easy work, side branches were removed and the odd tree pruned to allow the tracks to flow.

The bracken however was a totally different beast to control.  It had been left for years to do what it does best SPREAD!  New growth was sprouting out from underneath old bracken litter. It took several days alone to clear the bracken, but we refused to admit defeat.

Day Three

Work load dictated that this day would not be for several weeks. When we did get back up to the woods we discovered that the bracken had done an Arnold Schwarzenegger on us ‘I’ll be back’! and had returned with a vengeance.

The plan for Day Three was to enjoy the surroundings and explore the woodland in more depth. Instead all of our pent up aggression on the return of the ‘Dreaded Bracken’ was taken out with whipping sticks and a strimmer - the battle was won that day.  We now realise that the fight with the bracken will require a long haul effort , but hope that we have turned the corner and are winning the war.

Day Four:

A day of celebration - which saw us play host to friends and family over the course of a weekend. We shared our success and our future plans and had such a good day in the woods that three of the more hardy amongst us wild camped. We were rewarded at dawn the next morning when a young buck roe deer nonchalantly walked through camp as we were all stirring from sleep.

We enjoyed ourselves so much that plans are already in an advanced stage to start the Explorer award.  We will fell some of the Pine, Larch and Spruce and plant deciduous broad leave trees in their place.  The timber will not go to waste as we plan to make shelters, fencing and bird and bat boxes from it. More tracks will be cut allowing us to explore deeper into our woodland. The bracken will again feature heavily as we recommence battle in early spring.

We can thoroughly recommend the John Muir Award to anyone and are more than happy to assist your group in any way.

More picture of our woodland are available to view in our gallery.

For further information click below to download.

Introduction to bushcraft course information.

Introduction to bushcraft booking form.