Following our day of bushcraft CPD on Wednesday, Chris Hughes, Paul Francis and I found ourselves down at Cefn Lea Conference Centre running a bushcraft session for the men and lads of Carreg Llwyd church in Oswestry. They’re spending the weekend at the centre and, as part of their programme of sessions, they asked us to put on a couple of hours of bushcraft for them.

The site we were given to use wasn’t ideal, due to the steep wooded slopes, but sometimes you just have to get on with it. When we arrived to set up the weather was amazing but, by the time we got stuck in to the session, it was changing rapidly and it wasn’t long before the temperature dropped and the sleet arrived. There were certainly questions about whether bushcraft had become survival! However, everyone coped remarkably well with the conditions and made the best of it.

After some brief introductions, we spent some time looking at the safe use of knives and hand saws, practicing by making ‘tent’ pegs which would come in useful later. The saws also came in handy for preparing firewood. With the makings of a fire in theory prepared, it was time to get some shelters up. With the size of the groups, and the weather conditions, it was more appropriate to use tarps than build gash wood shelters, but it still took a while to identify sensible locations due to the steep slope. We then looked at a number of different ways to light a fire, and spent a short time practicing, before getting a couple of decent fires going for cooking purposes. Once the fires where going strong, we even managed to do a bit of simple cooking of damper bread (a simple mix of flour and water) with sultanas thrown in to sweeten it a bit.

Although the weather wasn’t kind to us, the guys from Carreg Llwyd certainly were, and it turned into a great afternoon. Chris, Paul and I were all impressed that everyone remained positive in the cold and sleet, and managed to get fires lit in difficult circumstances. Well done!