No stranger to spending her nights outdoors, Woodlore Aspirant Instructor and regular blogger Sarah Day shares her love of camping out under a tarp:
Sarah Day
Sleeping under a tarp is a daunting experience to the uninitiated – we are so used to having four walls and a floor (even when camping!) that going without seems ridiculous. However, most of the Woodlore Field Team camp out under tarps/ hootchies for at least some of the season, and they do bring several benefits.
I often find it difficult to sleep in a tent now; they can seem a bit airless after a tarp and, although on cold mornings the prospect of leaving a toasty warm sleeping bag is uninviting, once I’m up the cold is generally invigorating. I love lying in my sleeping bag, warm and comfortable breathing the sweet smelling air you only get after a night of gentle rain.
Tarps also force you to be organised with your kit. I always bring too much stuff with me – I’m often out for weeks at a time, but much of it is half-finished projects, books and examples of things for lectures. Being under a tarp makes it essential not only to be organised but to form out some sort of routine. At the end of a day I always put my kit in the same places, my fire flash and certain things from my pockets go into my hiking boots which have the insoles pulled out so they can air. My clothes are folded and put back in my rucksack and my head torch is looped round the drying line strung under the tarp. My Swannie is folded into a pillow with a shirt wrapped around it like a pillow case and my rucksack is propped up against a stick, purposely driven into the ground with my Swazi draped over it as a rain cover (especially if it’s still damp from a day of April showers). Because I follow the same pattern every evening, I know that my kit will be fine, whatever the weather. So, when I’m woken up in the middle of the night to the first pitter-patterings of a rain shower, I can lie there warm and smug, allowing the rain to lull me back to sleep.
A squirrel pup found at the course site
The Ray Mears & Woodlore Bushcraft Blog 