Wild Camping

The Lake District, 2017

Bank holiday Weekend, April 2017. I've neglected exploring the UK for a while now so me and my good friend (Mark) decided it was about time we headed somewhere closer to home.

Wild camping is something we'd wanted to do for a while and so we started planning our first trip. Wild camping is essentially sleeping out in the wild away from traditional camp sites carrying everything you'd need to survive. Admittedly, this was our first trip and so we chose to carry enough for one night at a time, returning to the car each day to head to the next destination.   

We settled on the Lake District given its history of wild camping and after a bit of research, a few trips to the outdoor store and plenty of chats with anyone we thought seemed half outdoorsy, we made our way up the M6 motorway. First stop: Penrith.    

We picked up a 3-person tent. It comes in a bag the size of a shoe box and weighs about 2.5 kgs. Good news when it comes to carrying this thing up a mountain in your back pack. Not such good news when it comes to sharing the tent with a 6 foot 2 German lad that likes to eat a kilo of nuts as an afternoon stack. This thing was pretty cosy.  

Snug as a bug in a rug.

The food was great. We had special camper's meals for dinner which consisted mainly of 'All Day Breakfast' - A boil in the bag packet of Sausages, eggs and beans. Breakfast was a couple of boiled eggs and cereal bars. The handy camping stove above made light work of heating things up. However, the stove proved to be a little to good, burning any sauce that wasn't stirred every 5 seconds. 

I was surprised on the first morning when Mark asked where he could shower. Given that we were wild camping, I figured that there would be a heavy use of baby wipes. Nevertheless, Mark had come prepared. He stripped off, donned his swimming trunks and headed into the clear (and crisp) waters of the Ullswater.  

Turns out it's pretty cold. 

The experience left me with a couple of realisations. The first (and the more trivial observation), is just how much I take my warm, dry and comfortable apartment for granted. Sleeping out in close-to-zero temperatures on an uneven hard floor has made me a lot more appreciative of what I have and consequently, a lot more sympathetic to those who do not have the same luxury.

I often think about why many people I know want to escape to nature at any opportunity they're given. Again, similar to the Lapland trip, I think it comes back to being present. Having to focus on where we were going to sleep each night, how we were going to get there and what we're going to eat occupies the mind and forced us to be present. The lack of phone reception probably aided this too. The satisfaction of hiking up a mountain, pitching a tent and then cooking your own dinner definitely gave me an endorphin kick. 

Finally, the feeling of vulnerability was perhaps the most eye-opening part. Lying down at night inside our little tent; our little lamp seemingly acting as a homing-beacon for any wandering loonies or randy deer in the vicinity, I couldn't help but feel a little on edge. It gave me a real buzz (more so the fear of the wandering loonies as opposed to the randy deer). Unsurprisingly, we woke up perfectly untouched the next morning aside from a few deer mulling around outside our tent at night. First wild camping experience complete and circle of comfort that little bit wider.