I do not share everything in this blog, you will be pleased to know. Most matters familial and ablutionary are kept from these pages.

So too are exact locations from time to time. It is not usually necessary to pinpoint the precise spot where a natural navigation technique revealed itself, or to give a 16 figure grid reference of the perch from which a photograph was taken.

Sometimes, I must confess that I deliberately fail, as unostentatiously as possible, to reveal even a general location if I am keen not to encourage visitors for any reason. This is rare, but it does happen. I have walked on certain routes in the Lake District and felt guilty for having let my boots join the millions of others that etch too deeply into these rocks at times. The guilt would worsen if I then added in any way to the numbers who walked the exact same path.

On occasion a place I find is magical because of its remote, untouched nature. Then I feel conflicted. I try very hard to make sure that there is genuine value in my blog, that it reveals not just natural navigation observations and techniques, but also shares wherever possible the broader joys of the outdoors and where these are to be found.

I have just returned from a short family break in the Vale of Ewyas in the Black Mountains. However aware I am that we were not the first to visit or discover this corner of the Brecon Beacons National Park, shock may not have registered on my face if a shepherd had appeared from behind a rocky outcrop and announced that we were the first to visit the valley in a hundred years.

This is a place that has been carelessly and wonderfully overlooked by modernity. As if to add a piquancy to the natural wonders of the Llanthony Valley as it is also known, mobile telephone signals have failed to penetrate the land. Not even TV signals can bulldoze their way through the high rock fortresses on either side.

The place has drawn monastics, writers, artists, recluses and rebels of every flavour for centuries. And in fitting testimony to the wildness of this place, it spits them all out again. Even those who, like the designer Eric Gill, came to get away from  ‘men of business’ find that it is altogether too remote and run back to milder wilderness, their reclusive tails tucked between their legs. The few that stay are eccentric, and if not tinged with madness when they moved there, then they guard against its onset for sure.

A thin and at times testing road runs up through the village of Llanthony, with its 12th Century Priory, heading northwest towards the town of books, Hay-on-Wye. Either side of this tarmac that has a weak grip on the green, is a valley that sighs in the face of anyone who dares bring the slightest urbanity with them. It is a place that challenges, a place that inspires. Bruce Chatwin was a convert and based his novel, On the Black Hill, here. If you have ever wrestled with writing poetry, if you have ever stared within and asked if you are truly a poet and been tortured by that simple question, then this is the place to head. You will know shortly after arriving and be able to answer the question with authority by dusk.

If you are more content to sense than create and you go seeking natural wonders, you will soon find it is impossible to take a big enough mental basket. It will overflow with observations before you have actively sought any.

Natural navigators will find the valley teeming with clues. In the dawn photograph above we are looking northwest. This perspective gives us a chance to appreciate one of the most beautiful clues, albeit one that is sketched out with one of nature’s broader brushes.

Natural navigation is dominated by an interest in finding direction, it is both the amuse-bouche and sirloin steak of the subject, but there are many navigational delights that do not concern themselves with compass points.

We can garner an understanding of our altitude from the life we find around us.

In the view above we get a chance to witness how the plant life changes with altitude. Deciduous woodland in the valley bottom surrenders to hardier pines. At the treeline the pines give way to the rust of winter’s bracken. Looking higher still only the hardiest of plants, lead by the grasses, will be found. The plants themselves shrink as the rock of the mountain forces its way higher into the more violent winds and more determined snows.

These are the clues to our height that are easiest to take in from a distance before we head up the hills themselves and risk failing to see the wood for the trees.

There was a temptation for me to fail to mention the Vale of Ewyas at all. There are many who would prefer me not to whisper its secrets. However, three things made me happy to share it. They are all related.

Some places are stronger than us folk. The Vale of Ewyas I hope and believe is one of them. If it is not and it ever needs help in its defence, then its chances are better if at least a few have fresh memories of it. Finally, this is a blog and blogs that fail to let slip the odd secret are not worth their electronic ink!

This is the best wild place I’ve ever been to that is relatively easy to get to.

Addendum:

The rather poor and poorly-focused photograph below was taken a couple of days before the one above. Notice how there is still a tiny and thin band of snow high on the northeastern side of the distant mountain, but none elsewhere. Such places are teeming with clues.

“Leaves at the bottom of a tree are often larger on the shadier North side to make the most of available light. This is often the case in Sycamore. They will also be darker due to the high concentrations of chlorophyll.”

From now on, I’ll be on the lookout for these shady characters. Sorry, couldn’t resist.

Andrew has a bushcraft blog which is well worth checking out here.

I took some photos of the results of my moon shadow stick, together with a perfect north-south line, which I will be using on my Beginner’s Guide to Natural Navigation courses. Yes, that is a bit of a tease, but those who come on the courses part with £105 and I make sure that it includes plenty of exclusive material, not least dozens of images that cannot be seen anywhere else.

As compensation, I have posted these photos that I also took yesterday, of snow clinging in long thin strips to the southeast side of the tall beech trees.

The picture was taken looking northeast. The very perceptive will have noticed that there are molehills in the foreground and that they are in the shaded ground, very possibly not a coincidence. Something I touch on in my book. Oh you tease, you!

The Gooleys were camping on the Isle of Wight over the weekend. It was great weather, the few hours of rain that are necessary to make it feel like proper British camping kept themselves to late at night and early in the morning, which was considerate. A few observations will creep into the blog in due course, but to save me a bit of time as I work to catch up on some emails, below is one that artfully saved me the need to blog properly. Thank you, Rob.

Tristan,

I hope you are well.

Emily and I attended your course at West Dean some months ago, and since then we have spent much time working out north from south based on the “tick” shaped branch formations.

I recall you showing us many pictures of trees and asking us to determine directions based on the tick shape. And I have now something to add to your collection of pictures.

While walking through the Tate Gallery today I came across this painting. This picture is a view over the Thames from Richmond Hill, painted in the early 19th century. If you’ve ever been on Richmond Hill, you would know that this painting looks to the west. But even if you didnt know this, there are two ways of working out directions. First, the little note underneath the painting says this is a view to the west! Secondly and of more relevance to natural navigation is the way the branches come out of the trunks. The tree on the far left shows the best example of the “tick” shape from which you can draw a south/north line, south is to the left, north to the right, and west straight ahead!. I was very impressed with Turner’s attention to detail!.

http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ViewWork?workid=14761&searchid=30595&tabview=image

I hope this is of some interest to you.

Kind regards
Rob Worthington

The farmers are finely tuned into what is and is not productive land, they know from experience the parts of their fields that are not high-yielding. This will very often coincide with the areas that the sun does not reach fully, the shadows on the north side of tall trees for example. There is a bias towards finding these ‘buffer strips’ on the northern side of woodland, at the southern edge of fields.

This photo shows one example in the rape field in the middle distance, there is a buffer strip north of the woods in the right of the picture. It helps to show that we are looking east.

The heart of the tree is marginally closer to our side of the tree, which hints that we are south of it, looking north.

If we peer through the undergrowth and bare tree branches we can see that the land falls away to lower country in the distance. The South Downs are a predominantly east/west range of hills and so any time that we can see a long way down into lower land it suggests that we are looking north or south. The hills are also close to the south coast, so if we can see a long way but cannot see the sea then it would suggest we are looking north.

After seeing such a large, panoramic clue it is important to stay aware, keeping the senses alert and to zoom back in to the smaller details. The grasses are bent over away from us and to the right. Likely pushed over by a southwesterly wind, further confirming that we are indeed looking north.