Monday, 26 August 2013

Ashden woodland trip 2013

Just back from another camping trip to the woods, this time joined by friends from work and their families... A few intrepid campers started the outing on Saturday, and it was lashing it down with rain, so we opted to walk to a pub for dinner. Thankfully the rain paused for a few hours after that, so we did get to light a fire, drink beer and Jesse even entertained us with the guitar for a while!

DSC_6961 woodland camp fire

The following morning (when the weather had dramatically improved!), our numbers were swelled by the rest of the group, and we went on a tour of the woods, looking for signs of wild boar activity and other wildlife...
DSC_6963 woodland walk

Once back at the camp, it was time for lunch, and Sarah had brought along a Toyola charcoal stove. Toyola is one of our past winners at Ashden, given an award for production of efficient stoves in Ghana and a novel way of helping people to pay for them. It certainly did the job here, and we cooked some sausages in a pan on it!
DSC_6966 Lighting an efficient chacoal stove

DSC_6967 Toyola efficient charcoal stove from Africa

It wasn't all about eating though, there were some woodland crafts going on too - here's Carla using a side axe while making a wooden mallet:
DSC_6970 Using a side axe

Time for a quick group photo...
DSC_6972 woodland group photo

Chainsawing is a bit antisocial, from a noise point of view, so we waited until most of the day visitors had gone before getting out some spare safety gear (PPE) that I'd brought, and having a go at cutting up some logs... So that was five people getting their first go on a chainsaw - when you live in a city, there's not always much opportunity to try this, but they all did very well!
DSC_6976 chainsawing logs

DSC_6980 chainsawing logs

The fine weather held right through until today, so we had one more chance to sit round the fire into the evening before the end of the trip...
DSC_6983 woodland camp fire

Looking forward to the next time!

Mike

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