I've had a couple of meetings in England this week, and between them had the great pleasure of spending a night hanging with some Bushcraft UK folks, a couple of whom (tripitaka and Gailainne) are also members here at HF. I came to know tripitaka a while ago when I shared some Amsteel blue and SMC rings I had with him. Stuff like that is hard to get in the UK.
The location was Loch Ken, in Southern Scotland. The campsite was on the Loch itself, a short distance from a parking area. This was car camping at its best. The locals came very well equipped! Gailainne brought a Kelly Kettle and seen in action it is very impressive.
I came with what you see below...my full kit in a GoLite Ion. I'd brought along 1 extra length of 5' webbing, and two 6' lengths of extra suspension line. I needed it all to get my hammock hung around the available trees!
Here's Trev and Gailainne marking time on the beach.
Gailainne is using a DD hammock, on the ground. The number of trees available for hammocks was very limited. tripitaka had a Blackbird under a HH hex tarp just out of sight of the picture. Trev doesn't hang and was on the beach around the corner behind the tree he's leaning against. My hammock was a bit further down the way.
The DD appears to be quite a rugged piece of kit. The midges in Scotland are notorious, and the DD netting is up to the task. We mostly had breezes that kept the buggers away though.
Trev is a joinsman (carpenter who specializes in joining pieces of wood, e.g. doors and windows) and brought a canoe he'd fashioned himself. It is a brilliant piece of work.
There are AMERICAN crayfish throughout the Loch, like most Americans in the UK, considered to be a nuisance. Seems they were introduced to be farm breed but some of the nasties escaped. Here tripitaka and Gailainne are catching them.
Gailainne put a piece of shrimp on a line, dropped the line in the water, a crayfish would grab the shrimp with his pinchers, and then they'd scoop him up. That was the theory anyway. They caught two that way, then later Trev and tripitaka went out in the canoe, discovered that the crayfish climb up and cling to the bottom of lily pads, and came back with a harvest of a dozen or so. Here's a big one just before going for a swim in a pot of boiling water.
tripitaka was a gracious host; I had a great time meeting up with him, meeting Gailainne and Trev as well. tripitaka also gave me some pointers on stealth hangs in the English Lake District, a topic I'll reserve for another report.
Grizz
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