There are few things more satisfying to me then the sound of rain on our campervan roof, or the

way the dawn light spills in first thing in the morning, coaxing you out of sleep and calling you to face

the day ahead. There’s also watching the stars dot the night sky from the open window as I lay in

bed. For me campervanning soothes my soul.

Not the type of campervanning where you pitch up on big, sprawling campsites and find yourself

stuck in a sea of others – no, there is nothing soul soothing about that at all. In fact, the idea of that

fills me with dread, I like to be out in the middle of nowhere, where it’s quiet save for the crackle of

corvids over-head, or the gentle lapping of water on stones.

A lot of people think you kind find wildness on a campsite, but there are plenty of wilder sites that

offer you a chance to reconnect with nature. The sites with limited facilities, no lights, the option to

have a campfire should you wish and probably most importantly no Wi-Fi are fantastic ways to

reconnect with nature.

In fact, some of our wildest adventures have been on campsites. Small, five van sites, or a farmer’s

field where they have let us squirrel ourselves away in a quiet corner. Here we have sat with the

doors wide open, the crackle of a campfire sending smoke signals up into the settling dusk as bats

whirl over head and owls hoot from the tree line.

My favourite and most definitely wildest experiences were in a camping field in Arisaig that sat

perched above a white sand beach. Each morning we would submerge ourselves in the icy, turquoise

waters of the sea and swim until our teeth chattered and our fingers turned blue. We would warm

them on hot coffee with our toes in the sand and watch as seals swam past on their way out to the

ocean. When we could, we would sleep with the back doors open and let in that special Scottish half

light of the summer, with far off islands sketched on the horizon.

We may be in a campervan and not in a tent, but we have still felt the wild. We have let in creep in

around our edges and cement its way into our everyday lives. Staying in a van teaches you to look

for the wild in every day, whether that’s the sunrise, or listening for the songs of birds that drip

down from the trees.

Our van life has encouraged us to disconnect from many modern appliances and reconnect with

nature. We try to live as simple life as we can, we try not to fill it with things and gadgets and instead

to look out for and appreciate the slower simpler things. A good book with only the birds for back-

ground noise, the first stars of the evening, the gentle pitter-patter of rain our campervan roof.

– guest blog by Jeni Bell

www.seekingwildsights.co.uk

Renting a camping tent online has been made so much easier with the Olpro Loan & Go service. Simply choose a tent you need and add to cart with one click. With Loan & Go you can select from a range of tents and awnings that you can borrow from Olpro. If you don’t camp often, this is a great way to hire the tent you need and save money. This takes away the need to buy a new tent each year as your circumstances change. Select a tent based on size, style and berth – we’ve got so many options. Tent can be borrowed for 3 or 7 days. Get in touch with Olpro if you need to borrow one for a longer period of time.

Which camping tent should I hire?

When you rent a camping tent from OLPRO, you can rest assured that you are getting great quality equipment.

Hire a Poled Tent

All our poled tents come with plenty of ventilation and fly screens on all doors and windows. What’s more, they’re easy to set up and they come with an oversized bag, so you won’t struggle getting it back in. Tents are available for hire at bargain prices in a multitude of sizes – choose any size from a small pop-up tent to an 8-berth family tent. Whichever poled tent you need, you’ll find exactly what you want for your camping trip at OLPRO.

Hire an Inflatable Tent

If you’re looking to hire an inflatable tent – look no further. You will find that inflatable tents are easier to pitch when compared to traditional tents – which makes them perfect for beginner campers. Even when inflating multiple air beams, it is still guaranteed to be much faster than poled tents. If you’re new to camping, we recommend alleviating some of the camping stress by renting a high quality, durable inflatable tent.

Hire an Awning Extension

Looking to get a bit of extra room for your next camping trip? We fully recommend hiring one of our spacious campervan awnings for the weekend. We are established manufacturers of quality outdoor leisure products, so you can rest assured that you’re getting the best quality campervan equipment online.

Hire tents and awnings from OLPRO online

Prices include the delivery fee and the return fee. To return the tent after you have borrowed it, simply attach the returns label we provide and bring it to your local post office. We offer a multitude of tents in different sizes, shapes, and colours so we are sure that you’ll find exactly what you need for your camping holiday.

Contact Olpro on +44 129 989 6959 or email [email protected] if you need help with renting a camping tent online.

https://www.olproshop.com/collections/olpro-loan-go

In this video, Nearly Wild Camping’s founder, Steve Evison, shares a few thoughts on tents he and his family have found work well for Nearly Wild Camping.
Steve has camped in many situations from extreme Himalayan mountain environments to wild Alaskan forests, commercial campsites to roadside verges! In this video, he shares some thoughts on some of the types of tents he has used for Nearly Wild type camping and why.

What does bushcraft and wilder camping mean to me? Well, apart from its practical application and the fact that I think it’s just good fun. For me, I get a deeper sense of meaning from it. Especially when spending nights alone in the wild with little and basic equipment. Meaning that I desperately need in this confusing world where everything is now coming under question. I believe, it’s about getting rid of the fluff and peeling away the layers of useless, material baggage of the modern world and condensing down what you actually need in life to some basic tools and priorities.

If you think about it: the human mind and physiology has been moulded by hundreds of thousands of years of hunter gatherer evolution. Well over 90% of our existence on this planet. Therefore, practicing these skills connects me with what I can only describe as the primal fundamental human reality. Like a memory of something that I have never seen. Like acting out distant knowledge encoded in our very DNA. In the woods I feel whole and I feel human.
In many hunter gatherer societies, boys were initiated into manhood by being banished alone into the wilderness to fend for themselves. To allow the “boy ego” to die and for them to return a man. Perhaps this is the origins of what Joseph Campell described as the “Hero’s Journey”. A story represented in myths throughout cultures and ages all around the world. I see the solo journey into the wild as a metaphor for life and an exercise to better understand ourselves.
The wilderness represents chaos. When the walls of your reality break down and the comfort of order disintegrates. You are alone with your thoughts, there is no one else to rely on and your only companion is a few basic tools in your backpack. Then like King Arthur’s knights, you must willingly enter the part of the forest that seems darkest to you and confront the shadows that are awaiting in the abyss.
But your mission is clear. You must setup or build a shelter to maintain your core body temperature and establish a microclimate of order. Create fire -man’s greatest companion- to provide the energy potential to make water safe to drink, food more nutritious, manipulate resources in your environment to make tools and banish the beasts of the darkness. With each of these challenges overcome you plant a seed of order in the chaos. You find new appreciation for the simple things in life and become grateful for what little you may have.
But in synchrony with the chaos of the wild, there is also space, harmony and a stillness. Sensations that we are we so deprived of in modern life. Free from distractions, your evening entertainment is the crackling fire accompanied by the forest symphony. Its a chance to reclaim your attention and be alone with your thoughts and see what your thoughts actually are. Content with the primal attraction of staring into the flames of your camp fire, you commune with the ancestors. The passage of time seems less rigid and less relevant.
Its a chance to observe the way of the forest; many life forms performing a slow, cyclic dance of life and death; struggling for survival yet effortlessly being; competing yet cooperating simultaneously.

In the abyss of the wilderness, perhaps something inside of you may die and something new will be reborn. On returning to the known world, many things may not seem so scary any more. You have a whole new appreciation for the simple things in life: The joy of clean running water; the wonder of a hot shower; the cosy security of a solid shelter and the marvel at the easily available food from all around the world and the indescribable contentment of sharing a meal in the company of loved ones. The experience is a reminder of what is actually important and can be used as an everyday meditation of gratitude. A useful tool I have found to get me through the harder days in life.
Despite our need to create habitable order from the chaos of nature; I don’t believe that nature is something that we must battle and subdue. Nor separate ourselves from and contain as ornaments of purity, only to admire from a distance, never to be touched. For you cannot separate the organism from the environment and what you do to one you do to the other.
For as Chief Seattle said “Man did not weave the web of life-he is merely a strand in it”. Therefore, I believe we must relearn how to be active, responsible participants in the natural world. We must not suppress, but integrate our wild nature, immerses ourselves in the wilderness and be aware what we have evolved to be.
The forest is the site of the rite of passage and without the woods, we humans are stuck in a hall of mirrors, bound to reflect only our man-made world and ideas.

I think wildness is essential to human wellbeing and as John Muir once said “Thousands of tired, nerveshaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wildness is a necessity“.
I feel like we can all benefit by reconnecting to our wild origins and experience feeling human again.

– adapted from a video transcript by Tom Langhorne – YouTube channel ‘Fandabi Dozi’

https://www.youtube.com/fandabidozi

Spiced Lamb Kebab & Winter
Vegetable Curry – FireChef

Brrrr it’s cold, snowing even. I need a hot bowl of something from the campfire.
With winter cooking outdoors -people comfort- should come first. We want a lively fire radiating
good heat, once cosy we can then start cooking and adapt our dish to the fire. We will use the fire’s
radiant heat to cook a giant Lamb Tikka Kebab and to accompany it a warming pan cooked Winter
Vegetable Curry.

Ingredients:

Fragrant Paste
1 whole bulb (8 cloves) Garlic
25g Ginger root
25g White onion
25g coriander stalk
4 Green chillies
1 tsp coriander seeds
1 tsp cumin seeds
2 tsp mustard seeds
1 tsp fengugreek seeds
5 green cardamon pods

Main
1 bunch coriander leaf
600g Scottish lamb (leg meat, generous chunks)
3 parsnips
½ swede

200g spinach leaf
200g baby plum tomatoes
1 pint (loch) water
100g butter
Slosh rape seed oil
½ tsp Salt (to taste)

(Yellow Sauce
2 Lemon Juiced
1 tbsp demerara sugar
2 tbsp rape seed oil
½ tsp turmeric)

Preparation

I pre-marinated the lamb so all that needs doing is threading on the skewer and positioning it to
cook near the fire.
For the fragrant curry paste blitz equal quantities of garlic, ginger, onion, coriander stalk and 4 thin
green chillies (moderate heat, tweak to preference). Toast the spices gently for 4 minutes to release
the oils and create that nutty aroma, grind and add to the mix*
For the lamb tikka marinade- and add to a bowl with the lamb, lemon zest, yoghurt and half the
fragrant paste. Season with salt, mix and leave. If your trekking in carry it in a picnic box with tight
lid, then with every bouncing stride smile at the thought of your lunch getting a free marinade
massage!
* alternatively a couple of spoons of store bought curry paste would suffice.

Cooking

Balance the loaded skewer across the fire pit rocks. As we are cooking indirect, using the roasting
heat of the fire, I have gone larger on the lamb chunk size. For portability I have chosen to cook this
on a long skewer. A folding grill would also do, we just need to get the lamb positioned about one
foot away from the fire for its indirect roast.

For the curry lets start by adding rape seed oil to a hot pan, then melt the butter and add the chopped
onions and the remaining fragrant paste. Gently cook the onions and paste till browned. My pan is
carbon steel and great for searing however direct on the embers would be too much so I have raised
it with rock and branch. Chop the swede and parsnips to rustic proportion then add to the frying
aromatic paste. Stir occasionally, then add a wee splash of loch water, topping up again as the pan cooks dry. When the vegetables start to soften add the box of plum tomatoes and let them join the
bubbling mix, they will soften and pop imparting further to the sauce.

Place the shallots unpeeled into the embers- the embered vegetable is a thing of delight, slow
cooking direct in the embers imparts a lovely smokey flavour and we simply remove the burnt
outside when its done.

Keep the fire lively, stay warm. Occasionally moving to turn a shallot, reposition the kebab or stir
the curry, I take in the surrounding winter wilderness and its stark contrast to the magic of the fire
before me. Let’s talk about fire another time, for now- back to the feast.

Once the vegetables are soft to the blade. Add a good pile of the fresh spinach and stir into the sauce
until all leaves have soften. Season with salt, taste and re-season if need be. We are ready…

Nearly Wild Camping

I wanted to do something special for the good folk of Nearly Wild Camping as their cause has
struck a personal note with my growing up stealth camping, so let’s plate up with some love.
First a generous line the vegetable curry across the plate, next the lamb tikka chunks crossing the
curry, nestle to the side of this glorious intersection a generous dollop of yoghurt. Garnish the plate
with the embered shallots, an accidental scattering of coriander leaves, and finally an optional
shallot centric drizzle of my yellow sauce.

How did it eat?

The savoury spiced lamb is a delight, sitting beautifully with the warming fragrant curry, contrasted with yoghurt tang and herbs… and those sweet-sweet embered shallots? well they are always welcome at the flavour party.

Have a good meal,

Peter Roobol,

Founder,

FireChef Cookware – Outdoor Cooking Equipment for Campfires and Fire Pits

Steve was recently interviewed on The Outdoors Station podcast:

Travel: ideally everything should fit in a single backpack (or fix to it) so that it can be easily carried and kept in one place, you don’t want to get off the train to realise you left your tent behind! And because you are carrying everything you will need to consider the size and weight of everything you put in your backpack. If you are not totally familiar with the area it would be wise to have a detailed map. Let someone know where you are going and when to expect you back. You could also leave this information in a parked car. Note that you may not have good enough signal to navigate by mobile phone.

Shelter: tent or hammock / bivi bag and tarp.

Wear: layers of warm clothing with a waterproof outer layer, gloves, hat, sturdy footwear, maybe over-trousers and gaitors. In the UK the temperature is generally going to be lower than in your home and there may be some wind chill.

Sleep: sleeping bag or wool blanket, sleep mat, dry bag to make pillow, thick socks to wear overnight, maybe a hot water bottle, woolly hat.

Eat: stove, gas, spare gas, pot / billycan, stove wind shield, water (even if you intend to source some locally), food that will not spoil easily, spork or similar, cup, tea/coffee, salt etc.

Other: first aid kit, rubbish bag, torch/head torch, spare batteries, length of duct tape, cordage, emergency blanket, whistle, small towel/wipes, toothbrush, insect repellent, maybe a water filter.

Note the preparedness rule ‘3=2=1’ … if you have 3 ways to light the stove and one doesn’t work, you still have 2 and if another method doesn’t work you still have 1 eg. matches, lighter, ferro rod.

The same applies to say light – torch, head torch, keyring torch – all could fail due to battery life.

You don’t need to apply this rule to things that rarely fail or could be repaired in the field eg. footwear – but packing some duct tape and some cordage could save the day if your boot starts to fall apart and they have many other uses too.

Conclusion: Overall you are looking to be self-sufficient and will probably need to modify what you take on a wild camp depending on the time of year and the location eg. warmer sleeping bag in winter months or at high altitude. You should also have knowledge of how to deal with not having toilet facilities when you wild camp ;)

All of the UK is owned by someone or some organisation. Wild camping does happen but is often not possible or realistic for many people hence the reason for creating Nearly Wild Camping.

Nearly Wild Camping has been working hard to help people access wilder camping opportunities for some time, whilst also ensuring some benefit to the landowners. We are not aiming to replace or challenge wild camping, we are here to make wilder camping more accessible whilst giving real benefit to both campers and landowners.

Nearly Wild Camping (www.nearlywildcamping.org) has been running for some years, has almost 1000 members and 65 locations already. We are a corporate partner of the National Association for AONBs and we have recently been granted Welsh Government camping exemption certificate for locations (we are still waiting to hear about our England licence, though hope to hear soon).

By setting up a wild camping organisation of which both campers and landowners are members, we have started to establish a real community of campers and locations. It is important to us to offer a range of wilder experiences, including importantly locations which help people learn and develop their skills. And, if we are really able to help people re-connect with nature and the countryside it’s important that we can have locations which are close to the urban areas where so many of us live.

We have worked hard to keep our prices low to make sure that affordability isn’t a barrier and we know from feedback that it works. However, we also know that the income that the landowners get matters, helping them to find the money they need to manage their land. We have spoken with some of ourlandowners about considering a small payback to local wildlife and landscape organisations to help with their work, but we do not demand it. We would of course be happy to pilot other ways of doing this and have done some trials of our own already.

Our booking system is not online, but direct to the landowner. This is deliberate and based on our experience of working with both online and direct booking methods. We have found that the ‘good old human relationship’ ensure our members get the best service, helping campers connect with the landowner and learn about the countryside more directly through them.

We decided to be a club (it’s easy to join, and only £20 per year so it should not exclude anyone on price!) to help give landowners confidence, and to provide a framework for us to build a network and community for people to join, where they can learn about and enjoy responsible camping either as a camper or a landowning provider – and some are both.

Working with the John Muir Award programme, we are developing camping guidance and we are soon to launch social weekends with a learning aim, focussing on low impact, leave no trace, give something back camping. These will develop camper skills, build social networks and enable attendees to access to some of our more sensitive camp locations.

We are very proud of what our small team have achieved so far, mainly through voluntary efforts and with only a small initial external set-up grant (from a Powys LEADER programme). We are now a self financing success story and we aim to now build up what we offer.

We are proud of our Welsh roots and very pleased that Wales has been the first country to grant us the camping exemption certificate. We believe this is an important part of building a greener economy in Wales and fits with important Welsh Government agendas. We have 5 years’ practical experience of working with campers and landowners and have a huge amount of knowledge to share. We are now starting to blog, vlog and share this, based on real experience. In addition, our founders have now also launched Nearly Wild (www.nearlywild.org), a community interest company, to help other types of nature-based business and the people seeking to buy nature-based products and services.

We have lots more plans in the pipeline, so please do help support us, get involved or become a Nearly Wild camper or camping location.

The Nearly Wild Camping team.

1) Watch – mobile phones lose charge, aren’t very waterproof and damage easily so keep a cheap digital watch to hand. Check it’s set to the correct time before your camping trip.

2) Salt – you only need a small amount. Useful for adding to food and replacing that lost through sweat. You can go a couple of days without but on longer camps you will start to miss it.

3) Duct tape – you don’t need a full roll, you can just wrap a few meters around a pen or similar object. Has many uses for fabric/pole repairs.

4) Spare torch & batteries. It’s easy to misplace your main torch or run the batteries flat which is no fun in the middle of the night. A mini backup torch kept within easy reach of your sleeping bag is useful to quickly get your bearings should something awake you in the night.

5) Expanding cloth tabs/coins – taking up only a tiny space, just add water for a useful all-purpose cloth/wet wipe/towel/hand cleaner/spill wiper….

6) Water purification tablets – if in doubt pop one of these in your drinking water, it may just prevent an upset stomach and many trips to the toilet!

7) First aid kit – no camp should be without one. Check it contains the things that you think you may need – common items like plasters, anti-septic wipes and paracetamol may need topping up.

8) Scouring sponge. Just what you need for those stubborn campfire/BBQ cooking marks on pans and grills. Also useful for sponging up spills and tent leaks/condensation.

9) Notebook & pen. In a different environment you never know what strange thoughts will emerge – just had a great business idea? – write it down. Finally worked out how to fold away that pop-up tent – write it down. Need help lighting the campfire – tear out a couple of blank pages…

10) Whistle – you may never need to use it for yourself but it’s also great way to attract attention for others too. eg if you find a mountain biker who has broke his ankle in a woodland and can’t walk out.