Author Topic: Walking and staying  (Read 2408 times)

mick1983

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Walking and staying
« on: 14:00:44, 12/08/16 »
Does anyone else feel the desire to head north to scotland, leave society behind and live wild off the land?

For me the everyday stress is so overwhelming,

I hope to go and do this.

Has anyone here spent a prolonged period of time in the wild and found they could have stayed???
I would love advise to be able do this .




wild-camping-uk.freeforums.net

youradvocate

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Re: Walking and staying
« Reply #1 on: 14:46:06, 12/08/16 »
Living (almost, but only in the summer) off the land was viable when I was a child. As a Romany child we lived in Kent wandering from farm to farm, so fruit and veg was always there for the taking (whoops, slipped into stereotype) or should I say was readily available in all sorts of places. I think 'living off the land' (what do the words actually mean to you?) perhaps was more accepable then, life was simpler, we had less materialistic wants and needs and we didn't have to bother with gas and electricity. This was not available to us until 1958 when we finally moved into a house. I wish you luck but I suspect you will have to overcome a 2016 mindset, going back to a simpler life, may prove to be very difficult to achieve. Your suggestion of Scotland also seems to me to complicate the mattter, I assume (weather mainly) that 'living off the land' there would be more difficult than trying to do the same in Kent?

If a may, just a suggestion, get a small caravan, or perhaps a small river boat or canal boat, park it somewhere of choice and live in it for an autumn and winter! By spring you should then know if your idea its viable. Personally I quite enjoy central heating and Tesco Express, I'm older now and couldn't even attempt to start afresh! Two weeks hiking with a tent is enough for me.

MoelPysgod

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Re: Walking and staying
« Reply #2 on: 22:09:19, 13/08/16 »
Mick - in a word, yes.

Except, I'd need money. A way of making money. I don't know how to brew beer or distil whiskey or grow tobacco or coffee, and I couldn't do without these. And I'd need a generator to power a device for playing music. Also female company. Otherwise, yes.

I'd just walk around Scotland. Spend a month getting to know the Cairngorms, then in Summer head up to Assynt or Fisherfield and spend my days gazing down at cnocs, lochs and valleys, my nights slumbering by the river.

After two months I wouldn't mind being rained on for four days straight. After six it would seem normal. I wouldn't yearn for internet, for HBO drama serials, for football, for politics - imagine a life where politics was a distant memory! When I yearned for company I would spend a couple of nights at an inn, with this money that I mentioned, before taking off again to spend a week walking to Fort William, where I'd buy new shoes. The next day - off West, I'm Knoydart-bound.

Instead of TV, my evening viewing would be the changing sunlight on the slopes of Cairn Toul. Instead of traffic, electrical hum and adverts - the rustle of rush, the howl of wind and the song of lark. Instead of tax rebate or lucky scratchcard, my unexpected surprises would be driftwood for a bothy fire or a summit being above the clouds I'd spent three hours' damp walking in.

My own experience of this is laughably limited, but during a week walking through the highlands earlier this year I got, for the first time, the true meaning of the Bare Necessities. Two of the highlights of a fantastic week were realising there was NOTHING to stop me having a snooze in the sun on the shores of a loch, and finding some wood to burn after crossing a river. Both things made my day, they were free, they were simple, and they meant as much to me as anything experienced in day-to-day life. All I cared about that week were a) getting to where I hoped to sleep (but no big deal if I didn't, I had my tent) and b) would I get rained on. I was so happy.

...Worth mentioning though that the wood turned out to be too damp to burn and I went to sleep with cold feet. You can't have it all.

alewife

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Re: Walking and staying
« Reply #3 on: 08:50:02, 14/08/16 »
No.
Alewife


...beware of the bull!

alewife

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Re: Walking and staying
« Reply #4 on: 08:50:14, 14/08/16 »
 :D
Alewife


...beware of the bull!

altirando

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Re: Walking and staying
« Reply #5 on: 00:19:19, 24/08/16 »
Problem is, the land is always owned by someone who might take exception to your activities, seeing them as trespass and theft.

mananddog

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Re: Walking and staying
« Reply #6 on: 07:15:49, 24/08/16 »
I have a small-holding and am almost self sufficient in food I brew beer but need to buy the ingredients for this and I brew about 450 litres of cider per year. However, I need coffee, cleaning products etc and food for the dog and the amount of money I generate from all this does not cover all this and heating and car insurance etc so I do occasional contract work from home.

The down side of doing all this is that it reduces the amount of time I have for walking especially in summer. The missus and I have separate hols in summer except for weekends away to keep things going, this is why I do most of my long walks in the autumn and winter, but all in all I like the balance.

rambling minster

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Re: Walking and staying
« Reply #7 on: 08:41:14, 24/08/16 »
i have often been tempted to do the same but suspect i would be back at home crying after a few days :)


but you are right, modern life has so many stresses. we may have HD TVs and internet but is anyone actually any happier?


i have a book about a chap who lived in a bothy in sutherland for 30 years, you would find that interesting, i suspect


here is a link:
https://jamescarron.wordpress.com/features/surviving-strathchailleach/

Owen

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Re: Walking and staying
« Reply #8 on: 09:39:09, 24/08/16 »
How do you mean "Living of the land"? Do you mean in a hunter/gatherer type way? Or, do you mean in a crofting type way? If the former then forget it, it's fantasy, there just isn't enough small game or wild plants to sustain anyone long term left.
The main problem with crofting is just finding a croft, crofting families like to keep the tenure within the family so they don't come up all that often. It is extremely hard work and definitely not stress free, all the crofters I know also have some sort of job as well - mostly as farm labourers for someone else. i.e. they work all day at the big farm only to go home and start working on their own. These days they do at least have "security of tenure" (the laird can't just kick you off for no reason) but generally crofters don't own the land so still have to pay the rent.     

mananddog

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Re: Walking and staying
« Reply #9 on: 19:30:14, 24/08/16 »
i have a book about a chap who lived in a bothy in sutherland for 30 years, you would find that interesting, i suspect


here is a link:
https://jamescarron.wordpress.com/features/surviving-strathchailleach/

Yes but he had a pension and lived rent free courtesy of the MBA. I stayed in the bothy when I did the CWT - not a cheerful place. but it has excellent peat all around it for the fire.

 

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