Family Bushcraft

Setting off on your family bushcraft weekend, you'll find yourself walking into bushcamp through thick bamboo, head high bracken and wild rhododendron, which makes it feel like you're trekking into the jungle, but this Runnymede woodland site is actually within a stone's throw of Greater London.

Pull off J11 of the M25, park up, put your bag on your back and within minutes you've left behind the hassles of urban living for a bushcraft adventure weekend designed to get the whole family loving the great outdoors. After an introduction and quick lesson in knots and lashings from your instructor (former Army officer and published children's author, Ian Brember), your first bushcraft survival mission is setting about constructing a jungle camp.

And there's a busy day of bushcraft activities ahead, such as wilderness navigation, woodland stealth games, matchless fire lighting and campfire cooking. The campfire feast is always tailored to the dietary requirements of the weekend's participants, from a repertoire of dutch oven cooked meals such as campfire chilli, pasta bake, fresh cheese bread, apple crumble and other campfire dishes, meaty or meat-free, from all over the world.

If you're on the day course you'll head home after this, whilst those on the overnighter will be heading to your basha shelter and bunk bed hammocks that will provide a great night's sleep after an evening around the campfire on the improvised benches you'll make together as a family.

After a night between trees, or in your own tent if preferred, you'll relight the fires and cook up a well earned breakfast. Pancakes taste pretty good indoors, but are definitely best served in the fresh morning air, with the sun on your face. Those on the overnighter say their goodbyes, leaving the hardcore family bushcraft weekenders to enjoy another half day in the wild!

As you can probably tell, Ian doesn't believe that a family weekend of bushcraft, camping and survival skills is about scrambling for space in a crowded field or roughing it in the middle of nowhere with nothing but a sleeping bag and an empty stomach - it's all about living very well with surprisingly little. It is also his aim that visitors' outdoor adventures are not limited to their time at the bushcamp. Families leave their family bushcraft weekend with the knowledge and skills to embark upon family camping trips, any time the weather's good, bad or positively British.