Well, I did it, on Saturday evening I headed out to location 2 as per my previous blog entry. I left the house a little late, about 20:30 and it took me an hour to walk in so by the time I finished setting up it was a bit dark, a bit of poor planning on my part.

One thing that did become apparent was that for anything longer than an overnighter, I'll need a bigger rucksack. Here's what I took with me;

From left to right, cell phone, map and SAK, Big Bum Bag (BBB), waterproof and crusader brew kit, camera bag, and my 25litre ruck.

As I was walking about quickly looking for a place to pitch up as it was dusk and getting darker by the minute I came across this on the path I was on, looks like deer nibbles to me but I'm not sure as my tracking skills are non-existant.

Anyways as I cleared a big rhodedendron (sp?) bush I saw a beautiful deer about 10metres away standing looking at me, it was quite small, no more than a metre tall and a lovely red colour, no antlers and with a small bushy tail with a white underside. My internet searches lead me to think it may be a roe deer but again I can barely tell a roe deer from a moose!! My heart was pounding as I stared at it and it ran off down a track before I could even think about breaking out my camera.

I found a nice spot with suitable trees and started setting up, I had a couple of small issues, one of the eyelets came off my tarp but I can probably fix this and I forgot how to tie the other end of my tarp line, I had a good evenk at one end but couldn't remember how to do the other end and keep it taught. I improvised a little and it seemed to work as it stayed up all night! I could have got my knot book out and figured it out but the light was going and the midgies were biting! A splash of Eau de Jungle Formula later and putting on my head torch soon sorted that out!

I set up my hammock with my bivvi bag underneath as an extra layer of insulation to lie on, got a stick to hold the midgie net off my face, fired in my sleeping bag and that was about it. Time to get a brew on!

I had a little candle with me so I put that on to save battery power and I must say it gives off a much better light than the LEDs do, much warmer. I think I may try and pick up one of those 9 hour candle lanterns, the light was just so much better.

I had a pretty comfy sleep (considering I was a little anxious!), dropped off about midnight, woke up a 1am with a local hotel letting off fireworks to celebrate it's opening, fell asleep again until about 3am when I woke up with feet like icebergs. I went to water the forest, stuck my goretex socks on and didn't wake again until about 6am when it was well and truly light and a really clear, sunny day. Here it what the site looked like;

It was a wee bit parky yet so I thought I'd light a wee fire to drive the midgies off who were still hanging about and also to give me a heat and generally perk me up;
As I had my morning latte (well, black coffee!) I thought I'd maybe have a look for the deer I saw the previous night and see if I could snap a piccie of it. When I finished up I put the fire out, grabbed my BBB and my camera and went for a poke about. After about half an hour, I admitted defeat and started packing up, here's how I left the site;

I didn't see much wildlife on the way out either, a nice wee wren which behaved a little oddly, hopping along the wall beside me chirping out almost like it was seeing me off the premises and some type of buzzard sitting on a fence post. I should really get a couple of books to help me ID birds, trees and flowers, could really help with the "that's nice, wonder what the heck it is" moments which are all too frequent right now!!

As I looped round to get back on the path, I looked back to the little wood where I camped and way in the distance I could see this;

2 deer laughing at my attempts to photograph them a short range! These guys were less than 100 metres from where I had spent the night enjoying the early morning sun.

It was a great 'bushmoot for 1' and I can't wait to do it again, lessons learned are;

1. Learn to tie the knots you'll need without having to use your brain, just your fingers.
2. Set off earlier
3. Get a bigger rucksack if you want to take some luxuries like food or spare clothes!!

Cheers,
Alan