The natural Navigation: The Right Course, Naturally

Welcome to the Natural Navigator

Reading the kids their bedtime story is one of the great escapist tactics. Being transported to worlds filled with Power Rangers and Megazords, or preferably something more ‘Winnie-the-Pooh-like’ is a pretty good way of switching off for the day.

Occasionally the tactic backfires. When the stories become deeply mythological it can take me closer to one aspect of my work. Last night the Lion King started to get a bit celestial…

Mufasa looked up at the starry sky and said, “The great kings of the past look down on us from those stars. So whenever you feel alone, just remember that those kings will always be there to guide you… and so will I.”

A combination of a low-show on Friday due to bad conditions and the fact that everyone is really getting into the idea of heading off somewhere hot at some point this year gave the Destinations Travel Show a real buzz yesterday.

I gave my talk, ‘The Forgotten Journey’, on behalf of the Royal Geographical Society. The audience clearly had one or two enthusiasts amongst it as the questions were even more interesting and perceptive than usual.

Some of my family live nearby and had threatened to turn up and heckle at the back. One small problem was that they intially headed to the wrong part of Earls Court and only arrived to hear the second half of the talk. There may be a opportunity for some weekend work there, either for me or some sharp Tom-Tom salesman.

The more I study natural navigation, the more indebted I feel to trees. There are few environmental conditions that they do not make some effect to reflect. Sun, rain, shade, heat, cold, dryness, dampness, soil type… and in this case snow and wind.

Early on Monday morning these young beech trees pointed very dependably to NNE with their white lines. I was able to leave the path with confidence.

After a long stretch at the desk yesterday I treated myself to a dusk trip up into the Downs in the Land Rover. Leaving the main road along a little known and steep track, the tarmac turned to slush then hard, packed grey and white ice. It is the first time in years that I have come across a situation that my Defender has struggled in. The words of a 4×4 expert I know came to mind, ‘Sometimes the number of wheels doesn’t matter, if there is no traction, then there is no traction.’ I parked, wedged some rocks under the wheels and scrambled up a steep shortcut on all fours.

The rewards were moody fluctuating skies, an angry wind and great views.

Time for a bit of ramble.

At the heart of natural navigation there is potential for conflict.

If the sun did not behave with rational, dependable predictability then reading its effects might be a forlorn cause. We can say with great confidence where it will be in the sky at almost any moment in the future. And yet, nearly everything that follows the sun closely, from plants and animals to the weather itself, does not seem to have much fondness for rigid patterns or predictability.

This photo is an example. I could have worked out exactly the spot that the sun would rise and what it would do during the day years ago if I chose to, it would be a poor bookie who took bets on that sort of thing, but the weather… that is very different. The odds of me being surrounded by deep snow right now, particularly…

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As my head hit the pillow last night I was worried about today. Worried about missing out. The forecasted snow might mean that I should be outdoors, but today was always shaping up to be a very busy day at the desk.
One of our sons solved this little dilemma by getting me up at 4.30am. One peek out the window was enough to bring a childish, almost wild, excitement. For me that is, my son fell straight back to sleep. I was out on the hills by 5.00am. The plan wasn’t perfect: in order to avoid waking my wife I had to make do with the kit I could find downstairs.
I ventured out into the cold woods, wearing jeans, wellington boots and a pair of gardening gloves. The Shackleton Centenary Expedition this was not.

The woods managed to be both white and dark simultaeously.

I have just returned…

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Spent this morning at the Beeb’s Art Deco emporium on Portland Place, Broadcasting House. Enjoyed the interview/chat with John McCarthy on his Excess Baggage show. My only concern was that they were going to expect me to find my own way out of their labyrinthine building. It would have made for a small story that: ‘the Natural Navigator waxed on about navigation to the nation, before spending hours hopelessly running up and down the corridors like a rat in a maze.’

A nice woman called Lindsay ushered me safely out, saving some blushes.

I feel a need to touch on a subject that occupies my thoughts from time to time. Any attempt to truly understand nature inevitably leads to analysis and yet nature itself seems well-equipped to mock such overtures. When standing on a beach, admiring the final deep pinks and oranges of the sun setting over the horizon, it seems churlish to let words like bearing, declination or azimuth enter our thoughts. To look at the wondrous and bizarre world of lichens and then think of Latin names feels wrong. Should solstices be about understanding the physics of our solar system, or naked abandon and dancing around fires and stones? I’ve absolutely no idea. I am delighted to not have any final answers in this area and so for now I will leave you with an excerpt from an extraordinary book.

‘When analytic thought, the knife, is applied to experience, something is…

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I was on a night navigation exercise the other night – not to be confused with a ‘stumbling around in the dark effing and blinding’ exercise. I downloaded the photos this morning and this one reminded me of the importance of sound and touch, especially at night. The paths and animal trails were slightly lower than the surrounding grass and had been sheltered from the thawing effects of the day’s warmer breezes. They had all retained their hard frost, unlike the grass which had softened.

It was possible to tell if I strayed off a path without any light at all, by the feel of the soft grass against the icy crunch of the path, ie. by using hearing and touch. A lot of wayfinding revolves around sight, but it adds greatly to the satisfaction when the other senses come into play.