The natural Navigation: The Right Course, Naturally

The third Condry Festival, ‘Nature and Outdoor Writing at its Finest’, took place on Saturday at the Tabernacl in Machynlleth, Wales. I was honoured to be invited to speak and it was a wonderful opportunity to spend some time in the company of those whose passion and dedication to understanding the natural world have set them apart. I listened to talks by Jack Grasse, Ian Wright, Jim Perrin, John Fanshawe and Andrew McNeillie. I learned a very great deal and enjoyed the process hugely.

Machynlleth is the right size for a small town and it holds some peculiar charms. There was an alternative taste evident in some of the shops and a vibrant liberal feel to the air. A source, who shall remain nameless, informed me that Machynlleth is the ‘lesbian capital of Wales’. I was in no position to argue with such an assertion, ill-equipped as I am with…

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On a Country Navigator course on Saturday, I was asked a question that I get asked quite regularly:

“What sort of people come on your courses?”

It is both an easy and difficult question to answer. The difficult part is that the backgrounds of those who have an interest in natural navigation is extremely diverse. It is tempting to say that it could not be more diverse, but that is not true; by the time someone finds themselves on one of my courses they have selected themselves as someone who can reach the UK (typically) and also someone who either is willing and able to spend some income on a rare skill or is close to someone who is willing to do that for them as a present. Put another, more flippant way, I don’t get many subsistence farmers from Africa or Asia on my courses.

It is fair however…

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For better or worse I seem to have a sixth sense for when conditions are great very early in the morning. I woke at 5.30am and was instantly drawn out into the neighbouring field to take in the scene and to take a picture. The snow was being lit up from the south by the waning crescent moon, the stars were out in force and Mars was peering down in red confidence from high in the west.

I stepped over the style into the field, camera in one hand, tripod in another and then it all went wrong. To avoid waking anyone I had not stumbled around for my clothes in the dark, but opted for the worryingly standard kit for this time of day: pyjamas, thick coat and wellies. My left foot slipped a bit on the style’s ice and a successful bid to save my skin and camera…

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Just back from minus 15 degrees in the Scottish Highlands and the unseasonable season continues! It’ s great – even if it has cost me a Land Rover Defender (AXA have just left a message to say that mine is a write-off following a failed negotiation with a stout beech tree).

Here I am taking a break from family duties and checking that the snow is doing what I have come to expect of it. The compass feels very light after hours of hauling a tobogganing sled, weighed down by two lumps, up the hill repeatedly.

This is not the glorious image of the winter solstice sunrise that I had been planning for you. Events conspired against that.

The original plan had been to drive up to a semi-secret location in the South Downs and take a picture of the sun rising in what were originally forecast to be clear cold skies.

Yesterday morning I was driving the four miles from home to the gym but all four wheels of the Land Rover Defender lost traction on black ice and I slid headfirst into a substantial tree at about 25 miles-per-hour. I walked away from the car-and-tree amalgamation and felt very lucky to be in much better shape than either. My next thought was that my wife and kids were due to set out on the same road an hour after I had. My mobile phone was on charge at home. I ended up having to…

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Yesterday afternoon I threw the snow off the Land Rover and headed out into the white – I had about half-a-dozen minor outstanding ‘to-do’s for the book, but there is no point writing a book about natural navigation if you are the sort of person who can resist these conditions. Dressed in a suitably ridiculous balaclava I made my way to the foot of Halnaker Hill and then proceeded uphill in wellies. Unless I’m on a mountain I find wellington boots with two pairs of socks the ideal footwear for small excursions in snow, even good hill-walking boots let some moisture in eventually, but wellies do at least stay dry even if it means slipping about a bit in places.

A roe deer jumped across the path in front of me as I climbed the hill and there was the red breast of a robin waiting on the branch…

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My wife agreed to drop me in a strange part of the South Downs this morning as part of a long-winded school run. The Land Rover was happy again, away from the ice. It will devour giant puddles all day long with a smile.

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.