Reading a recent thread, i was surprised at how many people routinely carry knives in the UK ('surprised' is a softer and less contentious word than 'concerned'.) as I've had a Swiss army knife in the lid pocket of my rucksack for about 20 years and i can't recall ever having used it. I go out for the day a lot with no kit and only a couple of cheats - i can freely choose the place and time (not the mountains in winter for example) and pub meals feature a lot in the itinery, but the thread got me thinking - can i manage overnight in the UK with no kit at all?
Anyway, now that spring is (almost) here, i'm going to have a crack at it. Richard Mabey says that 'playing at survival is, i feel, the unacceptable face of foraging, smacking of SAS endurance tests...' but an SAS endurance test is not what i'm looking for - I'm just questioning the need for a rucksack full of gear, not in the UK at least, and then taking it a couple of steps further. You need water, of course, but with a little planning, you can get it in situ and you can manage without hot food for quite a while. These chaps: http://v-g.me.uk/index.htm have something interesting to say about water - "We never treat collected water in any way. Period. We never boil the water either, in fact in the summer months we don't even carry a pan and stove. People worry too much.".
So - any advice that people would like to give? Any pointers? Anybody do this on a regular basis?
Cheers.
Anyway, now that spring is (almost) here, i'm going to have a crack at it. Richard Mabey says that 'playing at survival is, i feel, the unacceptable face of foraging, smacking of SAS endurance tests...' but an SAS endurance test is not what i'm looking for - I'm just questioning the need for a rucksack full of gear, not in the UK at least, and then taking it a couple of steps further. You need water, of course, but with a little planning, you can get it in situ and you can manage without hot food for quite a while. These chaps: http://v-g.me.uk/index.htm have something interesting to say about water - "We never treat collected water in any way. Period. We never boil the water either, in fact in the summer months we don't even carry a pan and stove. People worry too much.".
So - any advice that people would like to give? Any pointers? Anybody do this on a regular basis?
Cheers.