Looking at options for a few overnighters this year.
Exeter isnt far from Dartmoor, so lots of options for lying on the floor up there, but considering other options, closer to home.
Ive always wanted to try a hammock, and i think it potentially opens up many more options for sneaky overnights. there are plenty of stands of trees between arable land, and National trust plantations to the east.
Im thinking if one was a reasonable distance from a footpath, a good trek from any population centres, and didnt hold a rave, the liklihood of the odd dog walker on a longer route or passerby even noticing is negligible.
Woodbury would be really close, but liklihood of getting disturbed by Marines playing the same game is not insignificant i suspect.
i realise its only down to me to test it out and make it happen, but does anyone else operate along the same kind of lines?
any advice, tips, horror stories, great succeses?
I'm 40 months into bivvy-a-month and have had some great nights close to home as well as further away. Only had to choose a different spot twice due to other people or my own incompetence. Just bought a hammock from Aldi which I'll be trying out soon because finding a flat spot in the woods at night is literally a dark art.Â
Yeah, have done that in some of the copses back when I was in the UK. Was actually quite nice to be just a little away from houses and people for the night.
I managed to find a decently wooded area away from where the dogwalkers usually went that was thick enough to shield me from view, but also had big enough trees to hold my hammock and tarp.Â
Out here I'm spoiled. Half the land I have is part of a larger forest and I can walk out into the forest proper and put up a hammock effectively wherever I want. The biggest risk is hunters during the season, but outside that: no problems.
Only had to choose a different spot twice due to other people or my own incompetence
Is that a different spot from the one you had in mind, presumably scoped out on the map before hand?
40 months into a bivi a month is good going. Thats something to aspire to 🙂
Exactly that. Had a lovely looking 'summerhouse' in a country park that I'd spotted on Google maps but could I find it at midnight in the pissing rain? Ended up in a drainage tunnel with halloween appropriate spiders. The other time was a quarry in the local woods that was loud with music and breaking glass so I beat a quiet retreat. Had a fox wake me up by nipping my big toe through the bag one time. A couple of bothies but mostly not even a tarp. All good fun.Â
I'm usually a little more cavalier about bivi spots, in the Chilterns you're never really far enough from civilization to really tick all the boxes. Sometimes just being a few hedges away from suburbia ends up being quieter than a spot that looked perfect on a map.
Definitely. This was about ten minutes from home on Saturday into Sunday (local golf course).
Damn it, I need to grow some balls and get bivvying!
Damn it, I need to grow some balls and get bivvying!
Same here. Dug my old 1980s vintage Snowdon Mouldings (there's a name that's a blast from the past) bivi bag out last autumn for a night up on Brown Clee, first time it had been used since probably 1997 in Ladakh. My brothers took tents, but all was fine. It might well come to a bothy with us next weekend, in case the place is rammed.
From the perspective of someone that works in the sorts of places you seek, just don't be a dick about it and it's fine.
No rubbish, no fires, no regular spots or excessive clearing, further than can be seen from forest tracks or paths and it would be very hard for us to even know you were there. If a site is being actively worked, it's more likely to be visited by the people that manage it.
There are always some land owners that are worth avoiding and are the sorts you find everywhere in life.
But definitely no fires, that really boils people's piss.
at midnight in the pissing rain? Ended up in a drainage tunnel
ok this is probably not as much of a concern in the UK climate as it is in places with more significant arid periods and bigger storms... but getting into a drainage run, while its tipping it down?
You live and learn. It was blocked up about 20 feet in and almost perfectly dry as it happens. Went back a couple of weeks later (and found the elusive summerhouse) and it was six inches deep. Slept in a soutterain another time which was wetter due to condensation, and a graveyard, and a falling down mansion, an old castle, a gunpowder factory and various spots of woodland and moorland. Still not managed a beach or an island.Â
