This year’s Canoeing in the Ardeche course took place last week, but not without complications! Weeks of torrential rain and hailstorms left the usual route of the gorge at such a high water level that it would have been illegal to paddle down.
Torrential rain at the Pont d’Arc campsite
A badger footprint, spotted on the Woodsense – Tracking & Nature Awareness course
If you’ve been watching Ray’s latest series, Survival with Ray Mears, and are itching to give tracking a go yourself, take a look at our Woodlore Tracking course.
Run from an expedition-style camp in East Sussex, the Woodsense course aims to sharpen your senses, helping you to develop powerful observational and deductive abilities. You will learn various tracking methods, as well as how to get close to animals while remaining undetected.
Students on our Wilderness Navigation Course
Alexis, a recent student of our Wilderness Navigation course, kindly sent us a slew of pictures and some great feedback from her week in the woods:
“It was great fun and I learned a huge amount! This is my third course with Woodlore and it never ceases to amaze me how the instructors manage to use differentiated teaching, to pass on so much, in such a short space of time and keep you laughing! It is quite a shock when you flick back through the notebook at the end of the week and see just how far you have come and realise that things that you found hard on day one, seem like a walk in the park by the end of the week!”
Hard at work on the Woodlore Camp Craft course
Last week Woodlore ran the first Camp Craft course of the season, spending the week outside in the woods, surrounded by the beautiful bluebells and soaking up the start of spring (better late than never!). The students left on Saturday afternoon with knowledge of various axe techniques – including how to fell, limb, section, and split timber – as well as ways of creating a comfortable camp area to live in the wilderness.
Maps: Power, Plunder and Possession, on BBC Four
A couple of fellow Woodloreans have kindly brought to our attention a new series, recently broadcast by the BBC, on maps, called Maps: Power, Plunder and Possession.
These shows may be of interest to you, especially if you’re thinking of attending our Wilderness Navigation Course or, quite simply, if you’re interested in maps!
The first two episodes have already been broadcast, but you can catch up on these shows online on BBC’s iPlayer:
Darren Bates, now in his second year on the Woodlore Outdoor Team
Each year, Woodlore carry out a rigorous recruitment week in the woods, putting applicants to the test in order to find the very best staff around. Succesful applicants of this stage are then trained up and brought on to help run our Bushcraft courses.
After completing their first course season with us, these new team members have their profiles added to our Field Staff Biographies page, and it is on this note that Woodlore would like to introduce the latest members of our Outdoor Team:
For our UK-based Bushcraft Courses, we are proud to welcome Darren Bates, Ben Gray and Nick Thompson to the fold. All three have a clear passion for the outdoors and have proved themselves to be great additions to our team.
On the Wilderness Expeditions front, we are excited to welcome Tony Pape to our team of Specialist Instructors. Tony – better known as Blue – will be leading this year’s Canoeing in the Ardeche course, a week-long expedition through the picturesque Ardeche Gorge in Southern France.
If you’re planning to attend one of our courses, please check out these new instructor profiles, where you can get to know the team before you arrive.
Students enjoying lunch in the sun on our Introduction to Bushcraft course
Woodlore’s course season got under way over the Easter weekend this year, getting off to a great start.
Beginning with an Introduction to Bushcraft course on April 1st, we’ve since held two more Introductions, two week-long Fundamental Bushcraft courses as well as our Wilderness Navigation course. The Camp Craft workshop is up next, so let’s just hope the nice weather continues!
The Ray Mears & Woodlore Bushcraft Blog 