Assignment 3 – Self Organized Trip

 

I undertook my Self-organised Forest Field Trip from Wednesday 30^th April – Saturday 3^rdMay. We set off on a pre arranged route in

Jegersberg, which is a highly dense and vegetated area full of a variety of trees and shrubbery which make it a very unique and beautiful area. It is a rather hilly landscape with many lakes and streams running down valleys with some nice, small crags for climbing. The conditions were very dry and warm, which made hiking very pleasant and the weather stayed clear for the majority of the trip.  We had three main focuses for the trip that we wished to address and improve on, and they were: shelter building, whittling, and navigation.

 

Shelter Building

I feel we were very successful when it came to our shelter building, and personally, I certainly broadened my knowledge base in the topic.

Night one I created a lean-to shelter on an overhung branch which I laid my tarp over. I placed two larger branches as support branches for the tarp to rest on and create tension points for the tarp. Although this shelter looked solid, and the tarp seem taught and strong, the night proved to be windy and thus loud due to the flapping of the tarp. This shelter was also west facing which means I received a large amount of afternoon sunlight, which provided warmth but little relief from the shade.

Night two I created a similar lean-to shelter but with more of a flat roof but using two large trees

as supports and two large rocks as anchors. I also strung a rope through the centre of the tarp to help with stability and create less room for the tarp to flap in the wind. This shelter performed perfectly overnight, there was little flapping of the tarp due to the surrounding wind protection and the extra tarp that was wrapped underneath the lower side provided a nice place to rest my backpack and equipment. There was ample room to squat and sit underneath my tarp and plenty of room to move around without leaving the protection of the roof. The one thing that I would change is the position of the run out of the tarp, as if it were to rain, the water would drain out to a higher position than that of where i was sleeping, which would have led to a wet night.

Night three when we returned to our original camp site, i made a few adjustments

to my set up. I placed a line up of tree branches on the open side of the tarp which created a nice shaded area from the sun for me to sit in my shelter. I also addressed the issue of the flapping tarp by placing more branches and bushes on the exterior of the tarp to reduce the space for the tarp to flap. This change worked perfectly overnight and resulted in a comfortable night’s sleep.

 

 

Whittling

Over the three nights I created my own cutlery set from whittling sections of birch wood, all of which i would like to perfect in my next trips and eventually use for eating. Night one I fashioned a fork, night two i created a spoon and night three a knife. It is certainly a more difficult and time consuming task than I had expected, but very relaxing at the same time. I learnt that birch bark is some of the best wood for carving. As it is a very soft wood, creating specific shapes, curves and lines is very easy and thus creating cutlery is a very enjoyable task.

 

Navigation

As navigation was another one of our major learning goals, we all spent time using the map and compass to find our way through the different tracks and paths Jegersberg has to offer. But on Friday afternoon, Craig took us through a few activities to improve our ability to create and walk on a bearing. We did an exercise where we placed a coin on the ground, took a random bearing, paced out 25m, then took an exact 90 degree left turn, repeating this process 3 times, to see if we landed back on our coin, creating a perfect circle. This taught us a few things. First we discovered how many paces we take for 100m, how to use our compass to walk on a bearing: eg. Not looking at the compass, instead finding an object along the compass line and walking towards it, and how to use the compass to make exact right angle turns. Throughout the course of the trip we also improved our ability to read contour lines, use more than contours and paths to find our location on a map, understand the connection between pacing, speed, and time travelled, and how to relate what we see in our surroundings to what we see on the map. Overall I can safely say that not only mine but the group’s ability to navigate improved.

 

Nutrition

In terms of nutrition, I kept it very basic and easy seeing I had to carry it with me the entire 4 days. Lunches I pre made a bread called damper, which is an Australian home-made bread that is essentially flower and water, with jam added after for taste. This bread is chunky and long lasting which creates a tasty and carbohydrate filled lunch each day. Breakfasts consisted of oats with sultanas and long life milk. For two of the nights I had enchiladas, one of the nights included meat and the other supplemented with beans rather than meat and the third night I had sweet and sour curry. As snacks, I stuffed my bag with lots of carrots and two bags of Nut mix to eat during the days walking, and kept some chocolate as desert to eat before going to bed. I felt that this menu worked perfectly. I never felt hungry or with a lack of energy during the day which means that I was taking in enough carbohydrates to keep me energised. Overall I took approximately 4.5 litres of water with me, which I feel in hindsight was not sufficient enough, although I boiled water for my dinner for each of the three nights, the waterI brought wasn’t substantial enough for my 4 day hike, so this is something that I would need to adapt in the future.

Overall I had no issues with my equipment. My sleeping equipment – bivouac, sleeping bag, sleeping mat, and tarp kept me dry and warm, my clothes and shoes kept my temperature regulated regardless of the activity, and all my accessories such as compass, head torch, knifes, waterproof stuff sacks worked effectively.