Scythe13's Survival Weekend Test

[Scythe13]

Ladies, Gentlemen, and NR

It is 14:45 on Sunday 8th Jan 2012.

I am sat at home on my computer having returned from the best weekend of my life!

This is going to be a HUGE post of many paragraphs! So before you start yourself reading, I'd pop the kettle on, as we are going to spend a while together.

Friday 6th Jan 2012, at 21:00

Sat with our bags packed my girlfriend thinking "We do have toilet roll, right?" The front door opens and her dad, who closely resembles Santa Claus, but with a closely trimmed beard and no red suit, walks in to the kitchen and says, "Okay guys, are you ready?"

Alice looks at me and smiles. I just stand there smiling! We are blindfolded and walked out to the car. Alice sits in the front seat and I'm lead to the back seat behind her. "This is it baby, no turning back." I said. To which she joyfully replied, "Cool, let's do this."

That is how this adventure started.


A few days before the above occured, I had the idea of testing my BoB (Bug out Bag) by going camping for the weekend. After telling my girlfriend, Alice, about the idea, she suggested we make it into a survival weekend. "Hey baby, how about we get my dad to drive us somewhere, blindfolded (I hoped she meant us blindfolded, because I'm not one to get into a car with a blindfolded driver!) and then after the weekenks camping, we wake up on the Sunday and have to walk home?"

The above idea does sound awesome! But considering that I have only moved to the Bristol area 4 months ago, and did not have a clue about and landmarks, coupled with the thought of "I've only been camping once for an over night thing" the only thing I could say to her was..."Sure, that sounds awesome!" And so our journey began.


We were sat in the car, blindfolded, bounding down what could only be country lanes! There are no way motorways, or any other road, could be that twisty, turning, and all round helterskeltery! We kept driving on and on. Now and again we would see a dim glimmer of light, which we assume was maybe a small village we were passing though. But I couldn't tell you for sure.

Our idea was to be about 5 miles away, as the crow flies. So this journey was either to make us lose our barings, which I never had. Or it was much further than we were expecting.

We arrive at the destination at around 21:30.

The 4x4 screached to a hold and Santa said "Okay, you're here. Take off your blindfolds. There's a path to our left, follow it on and you'll find a woods on the right."

As we lifted the blindfolds, we could see NOTHING! It was pitch black! The only thing we could see was what the headlights of the car lit up. When we got the bags from the boot of the car, the first thing we did was get out our torches. There were no sign posts, no lights of civilisation, no hint of human life other than the fact that we were on a road and there was a big gate before us. We were in the middle of nowhere! What had we gotten ourselves into? There was only one word I was thinking, and I can't say it because it's 4 letters long, and naughty.

We walked for at least a mile down this stoney path. Approximately 1/2 a mile down the path we could hear running water. Alice shon her torch where the sound was coming from, and that's when we found we were near a small waterfall. Her dad had dropped us off half way up some giant hill (or small mountain if you prefer). So, sure enough, we knew there was a source of water available, if we could retrace our footsteps.

The further up the path we got, the less chance there was that it was still a path. Which is best summed up by the use of the words "Geoff, are we still on the path?" I couldn't answer that question with an accurate answer. The only thing I could be certain of, relating to our position, was that there were a lot of trees around us.

Considering the plan was to sleep in a forest, and we were in the middle of a forest, we decided we had reached our destination. It was time to pitch the tent.

One thing we were VERY pleased about was that it had not rained one bit on the walk to the forest. Once we were in the forest, the weather seemed equally beautiful, which we were more than happy with. We searched around and found the perfect little spot (see photo's on Flickr). I could not take a picture of it as it was too dark and my iPhone is one of the old ones without a light on the camera, so I do apologise.

The tent was all layed out ready to be put up, but then we were caught out by Sod's Law! "Alice, is it raining?"
It was.
Alice unzipped the front of the tent and threw our BoBs and GHBs into the tent. So our first bit of 'rush' had already happened. Everything we had for the next 2 days getting almost soaked through! But we avoided it.

We got back to pegging the tent, in the dark, in the rain, in the forest, in the middle of nowhere. That's when we hit our first proper snag, or shall I say stone. No wait...rock. That would be a better word. We could only get about 70% of the pegs into the ground. Loads were hitting huge rocks and the alike. There was no way around them. That kept us busy for another 10 minutes until I told Alice to get into the tent and set up the sleeping bags "There's something at the bottom of the main bag for you." So she headed into the tent as I finished off the last few pegs....badly.

I hear a high pitched shreik from inside the tent. Instantly my mind races, 'has she found a rat, did she cut herself, twisted her ankle, what's going on?' She had opened the bag and taken out the surprise I had for her. It was a double bed. One of the blow up ones you get, that you use a stupid yellow foot pump for. So once the tent was pegged, that matress kept us busy for the next 10 minutes. Those yellow pumps make a noise like a whining cat that swallowed a balloon and the air was being forced out! I'm so glad we were not on a camp site. That noise would have been so embarassing for us both.

Once we had all that sorted out, we got straight to the main bag, pulled out the sleeping bags, snuggled in, and got ready to sleep.

What can I say, we didn't sleep to begin. We did what any couple would do in the middle of nowhere....we warmed each other up.......you work it out. Yeah, you know what we did. And being a real gentleman, I fell straight to sleep afterwards...as always.

It was not the best nights sleep. The wind was blowing the trees around making a loud swooshing sound. Imagine you are at the beach sleeping in a cave, and you can hear the waves loudly roaring away as the tide comes in. That is the best way to describe the wind in the trees. The rain was dropping down on the tent from the top of the trees sounding like hail hitting the roof of the car you're sat in. Other than that, it was a pretty good nights sleep.

And so ends day 1 of my weekend adventure.