My thanks to Ruth Street for taking the Beginner’s Guide to Natural Navigation Online Course and for feeding back about her ‘Graduation Expedition’:
Having done the online natural navigation course and tried out some of the techniques locally, I was keen to have the opportunity to put them together and try the graduation expedition that Tristan suggested.
However, there is very little open access land near where I live, so I took the opportunity of using a short break in the New Forest in January to experiment.
As it was early in the year, I knew I wouldn’t disturb any ground nesting birds. I used an Ordnance Survey map and local knowledge from previous visits to the area, to locate an area of open moorland with heather and gorse near the road. I decided the easiest option was to try and walk south from the road. Conveniently, this was also downhill towards a stream so the chances of getting lost were minimal.
There was a footpath near where I started going SW so I knew if I went S and then W I should find the footpath. That meant I had two handrails. It was 3pm so the sun was in the SW when I started. The weather had been very wet and I knew that the New Forest can be very boggy in the low lying areas as there is a hard pan created by minerals in the sandy soil which impedes drainage. So, I wasn’t sure how far downhill I would be able to go. It was difficult to walk in a straight line as there were thick clumps of heather which I had to walk round.
After walking a short distance, there was a small tree in front of me so I used that as a focal point. About half way down the hill to the stream, the ground became too boggy so I decided to turn west, towards where the footpath should be. I checked the position of the sun in the sky and conveniently, the New Forest ponies had made a track through the heather in the direction I wanted to go. It joined up with the footpath and I turned NE along it, into the wind with my shadow in front of me.
Along the way there were some gorgeous gorse bushes in flower, which were a welcome sight in January and smelt delightfully of coconut. On the NE side of several of them were hollows where the ponies had sheltered. The footpath took me back to the road where I looked at the route I had taken on my phone. My intention of walking S turned into SE and I walked just over a mile but I had used all the natural signs successfully. I felt a great sense of achievement and freedom that I had been able to find my way off the beaten track without getting lost.
You might also enjoy:
Street Country – Ruth Street’s outdoor education enterprise
Learn more about the online course.
The Collection – Hundreds of unique photos and videos of natural navigation clues and signs