To make a change from walking and camping, this goat tried another outdoor activity recently – tree planting!
The weather was beautiful and a gang of us planted 100m of hedgerow – about 500 trees in a morning.
The day was organised by the Surrey Hills Society. The aim was to improve this part of the surrey hills for wildlife by creating a new hedgerow corridor. We planted a mix of species and the canes and protectors were reused from a previous project.
L
Dry bags are great – little water tight bags that you can used to both organise your stuff in your backpack and to keep it safe and dry. I have these ones from sea to summit in a variety of sizes:
The different colours are helpful, but once you’ve bought more than one of each size, you might know something is in a bag, but which one?! We are super proud of this nifty tip – a bit of ‘decoration’ with a permanent marker and there’s no more confusion. Particularly if the doodles match the thing in the bag eg the footprints oneonce had clean socks and change of shoes in, the one with the spirals had things like charger wires and headphones.
Hope this tip helps you pack for your next adventure.
L & R
I’m sure you will all agree that the refreshments are a very important part of any day out… and our lastest walk was planned around starting and finishing at Wilfrid’s Cafe in Droxford.
We’d discovered this community cafe before Christmas when we walked from Beaconhill Beeches – and with ample car parking in the village centre, we thought it would be a good place to start the next leg of the Wayfarer’s Walk.
L
Waterproof jackets are an essential and waterproof trousers are pretty useful too – keeping you warm as well as dry when you’re around the campsite. But I also love my waterproof gloves!
If you’re out walking all day and your gloves get wet, either just as your hands swing at your side or because you have to touch wet gates to open them, then you are in for cold wet hands which is miserable. Waterproof gloves are the prefect solution!
I had a pair of sealskinz a few years ago and I loved them. But I clearly loved them too much – I wore them lots, not just for long walks… and consequently I lost them! I eventually accepted they were not going to rematerialise and bought myself another pair recently.
I got them in Blacks… and made the very useful discovery, that you get a discount there if you’ve got a National Trust membership card. Very handy!
Although tight gloves feel snug and warm in the shop, if they reduce your circulation at all that won’t help with keeping your fingers warm. So I erred on the safe side and got mediums, which are actually a bit long in the fingers, but I’ve been enjoying wearing them.
L
I got a new cookery book for Christmas – and I’m hopeful it will provide inspiration for some good camping meals!
Long-life ingredients are ideal for camping when you have limited space in your cool box. I’ve already adapted some recipes from Jack’s earlier book (A girl called Jack) for previous trips. So I’m hopeful of some new inspiration for 2022’s camping trips!
As you can see, I purchased some tins to start trying it out straight away!! The first recipe I tried was tasty, but not ideal for campfire cooking as it was a pie!
L
Both the goats are looking forward to some good camping trips in 2022, and we’ll be sure to tell you all about them!
The weather is mild enough to be camping today, but sadly we aren’t! I did go for a new year’s day walk, but it wasn’t very exciting… instead I thought I’d tell you about the lastest bit of the Wayfarers which I completed before Christmas: Beaconhill beeches
If you live near enough, maybe it will inspire you of an idea where to walk this weekend.
Happy new year!
L
Wishing all our followers a Happy Christmas!
I thought I’d share this picture of my favourite Christmas present – a tent for each goat and hopes for a new year filled with new camping adventures.
Mine’s the tent on the left, the other goat can have the one on the right…and I’m a bit concerned that the washing might have to be re-done being as there is a seagull sitting on it!
If you want one of your own, it came from here: http://www.shoredriftltd.co.uk
Hope your new year is also full of happy adventures.
L
When we recently did the next phase of the Wayfarers Walk, we didn’t think we’d need to watch out for sharks in rural hampshire!! Read about it here: Hinton Ampner
In our last post we confessed that we hadn’t camped as much as we’d like to last summer, but that our tent had been up to other things. Turns out bell tents aren’t only useful for camping in…
One of the goats had the honour of being her sister’s bridesmaid this summer and with that came responsibilities for a hen party. With the help of a party decorator Sandy the Bell Tent and Gary the Gazebo were transformed into a stylish venue for a garden hen party!
R & L
We may not have done much blogging, but we did fit in a bit of camping – mainly revisiting old favourites.
This summer we went to Climping in West Sussex , Bridport in Dorset, Kent twice – near Marden and near Crowburgh and finished off with one of our favourites near Andover in Hampshire.
All the reviews are up to date if you want to plan your trip for next year.
In the next post we’ll show you what our tent was up to when we weren’t camping…
L & R
Embrace your inner goat 