Barney's Bimbles and Adventures

It's been a while since my last blog post and for that, I sincerely apologise. I've had a busy few weeks of work and sometimes other priorities takeover. I have still been getting out and about and maintaining my one camp a month. Feel free to head on over to my Instagram feed where you’ll see a few photos from those trips. I've simply not had a lot of time to scribble down some of my musings on this blog! I enjoy the creative process in producing a fairly amusing and insightful narrative to accompany my photos and this sometimes takes a bit longer than I’d like. By the same token, I probably make life difficult for myself by waffling on a bit too much in my blog posts! In the last couple of weeks I’ve been out on another wild camp along the north Kent Marshes. A separate post is about to be published on that trip. I also enjoyed a day camp up the woods. I took this day camp as an opportunity to practice my fire lighting skills as the last few camping ...

There’s said to be lots of spooky goings on at the end of October. Young witches and ghouls knock on strangers doors asking for sweets while others, of a less sincere mind, patrol the streets looking for the next house to egg! It’s a strange time of year indeed! With this in mind, you’d be forgiven for thinking that I might have been a little silly wandering into an unfamiliar woodland to meet a bunch of strangers. I didn’t know whether to honour the Halloween traditions by asking them for sweets or throw eggs at their tarps! But all was well as they formed part of a local bushcraft group that I had recently joined on Facebook. One of the great things about this pastime is that it’s never too difficult to strike a conversation with folk that share your interests. After getting a little ‘geographically challenged’ in the unfamiliar wood!, I called for some help (thanks Chris!) and eventually headed into camp carrying a rucksack which weighed a ton! That’s when you know the...

Anyone that knows me, knows that I like food…….Err hang on a minute, that’s wrong….I  LOVE  food! I spend my life bouncing from one meal to the next while shoe horning in audacious spurts of exercise in order to keep my obesity levels finely balanced. And so it goes without saying that, for me at least, one of the most thought provoking things to go into my planning for a camping trip is not so much the kit, but of course the food that I want to eat and whether I’ll have enough room in my bag for it! So what do I do? Sometimes I try to re-create the amazing meals that my wife and I have at home. Sometimes I trawl the supermarket aisles in search of inspiration. And other times I watch countless youtube videos of other outdoorsy folk to see what food they’re throwing down their gullet. All too often I watch these videos and feel a tinge of disappointment when I see them reaching for an ‘adventure meal’. Yes, I’ve tried a few of them and yes I recognise their advantag...

It’s been a while since my last blog entry, and for that I apologise. Sometimes other commitments must take priority and I’ve simply not been able to get out for as many adventures. Stick around though, because this one’s a good’un. For a long time now, I’ve been wanting to camp on the north Kent marshes. It is, in my opinion, a serene environment. It is also a conflicted environment in which you almost feel like nature is waging war against great titans of industry. The landscape is dotted with fascinating wartime relics, disused factories and quarries that are still in service. It is also flanked by one of Europe’s largest container ports. At this point you’d be forgiven for wondering why on earth I’d want to camp here, but bare with me! The thing that makes this marshland so serene is that it’s jam packed with amazing wildlife. The north Kent marshes stretch from Dartford to Whitstable and are recognised as one of the most important natural wetlands in Northern Eur...