410 Holly Worton ~ Adding a New Layer to Your Outdoor Adventures

Transcript

Holly:  Hello adventurers and welcome to the Into the Woods podcast, episode 410. This is your host Holly Worton, and I am back with another solo episode. Today I am going to talk about outdoors learning and how that can add a new layer to your outdoor adventures.

I spend a lot of time talking about trail running and hiking and walking long-distance trails and training and travel and all that stuff is really great, but what I have noticed that the courses and workshops that I have taken in the last couple of years have really added a new layer of knowledge, experience, of interaction with nature and trails and really added to my experience and made my experience much richer. I have talked about this a little bit, last year when I did the Ridgeway it was right after I had done my wildlife tracking identification course and I really started noticing things along the trail that I hadn’t really paid attention to before, things like kill sites (a dead bird) and different plants and different animal tracks, scats, all kinds of things that I didn’t really pay much attention to before and that really added a new level of experience to the trail, it wasn’t just me sharing the trail with other people, it was me sharing the trail with these other animals and birds, so it definitely added to the experience.

And as I record this today, I just got back a-day-and-a-half-ago from five days in the woods, I was on the three-day longbow making workshop which was fantastic followed by a two-day bird song and that was kind of an extra that we got because the wildlife tracking identification course last year was meant to start in April, in the Spring, and we would have started with bird song, when the birds were really out in full song, but, because of Covid, it got pushed back and the birds were no longer singer (at least not as much), so we had a two-day intensive bird day course at the kind of central campsite at woodcraft school, in the woods around there and then we went out to the heathland and different parts. So that was also really interesting because we heard different birds in different locations and then we went on the same property in the woods, but we went to a lake, a little lake/pond and saw water birds there and listened to the different birds that were in the trees around that area. So, it was really interesting to not only start to recognise different types of bird song, and that was really challenging for me, because I am not an auditory learner and I am not a very musical person, so it was really hard to kind of cement that in my head, but I definitely learned a few birdsong calls that I will recognise now. Just yesterday when I was out in the woods running. I was paying attention to the bird song in a different way, it wasn’t just this symphony of birds, I could pick out the different types of birds that were singing, much like in a classical symphony you can pick out the different musical instruments in the orchestra. So I really liked that bird song is no longer this mesh of songs and notes and things, I can start to pick out some of the different birds.

Much like, that I can pick out different plants that are growing alongside the trail and it is not just this strip of green stuff at the sides of the trail and that has also been really, really, important for me, because I love plants, I have always loved plants, but I didn’t necessarily know all of the stuff that was growing up there and it oftentimes looked like two ribbons of green alongside this brown trail and when I took my plant identification course two years ago, in 2019, that was when I started picking apart the different types of plants that were next to the trail, that was huge for me, just really, really, lovely to know the different types of plants. And, as I record this, I am about to go back, later today, into the woods for a second weekend of my ethnobotany course and by the time you listen to this I will be back from that. But I have just been reflecting on all these courses and all the knowledge I have gained at the woodcraft school and elsewhere and how they have added a really important layer of knowledge to my outdoor adventures.

In this episode I hope to encourage you to get outdoors and learn something new. So I am going to talk to you about the benefits of outdoor learning, how learning outdoors and country skills can really add a new layer to your adventures and make them richer, why this type of outdoors adventures can help you relate differently to nature, talk about different types of skills and knowledge that you can acquire in the outdoors, and I give you a whole list of ideas and inspiration for your next learning adventures. So, let’s get going. As I said, I just came back from bow-making, from the bird days, and I am getting ready to go into ethnobotany. So that’s where I am right now but I have taken a lot of other courses in the past that have also really added this layer to my outdoors adventures.

I have taken a wild camping course, that was one of the first things that I did, I really wanted to get into camping but I didn’t know how, I didn’t know what gear I needed, I didn’t know what mistakes not to make and I just got online and I googled, ‘wild camping course’, and I found this guy that was doing wild camping courses and I signed up for it and we went to the black mountains in South Wales and he had all the gear, all I had to bring was just clothes and a sleeping bag and he brought a backpack and tent and a sleeping mat and cooking stove and that kind of thing, so that was a really, really, great experience, so I will link to that course in the show notes, but I am not sure if he does it anymore. Someone who does wild camping courses is Mark Reed, and I have done a lot of navigation courses with him, and he does at least three or four wild camping courses every year in the north, North Yorkshire, so I will link to him in the show notes. I really recommend something like this, if you want to sleep in the outdoors but you have never done it, or you have never done it on your own, or you are afraid to do it or you don’t want to make mistakes, do something like this where you are supported and the people will teach you about what skills you need and what you need to know and what kit you need. So wild camping, very exciting.

Foraging days, I joined a meet up group a couple of years ago and went on this foraging day, it wasn’t even a full day, it was a half day, but if you search for ‘foraging courses’, you can find all sorts of courses on foraging and that is great because when you go into the woods you see all these green things(!) and you learn which ones you can eat and which ones you cannot eat and which ones that you can’t eat might be confused with ones that you can eat, so that is a really good thing to learn and it really adds a different layer to my adventures.  

A couple of weeks ago when I went to Savernake Forest to take photographs of the trees for my book, the beech leaves were just coming out and they were really fresh and young, and you can eat young beech leaves and they are really delicious and lovely. I was just kind of walking along and plucking beech leaves and eating them as I went. And I went on a run the other day with my husband, and I plucked a couple of beech leaves, and I gave him one to try and I don’t think he liked it very much, he chewed it and then he spit it out! But it adds a different layer to your experience because as you are running or walking a trail you can snack on things a long the way! It is like a salad that follows you along the trail.

Forest bathing, I went to a forest bathing meet up group, once, never went back sadly because it never coincided with my availability, but that forest bathing, again it was like a half day, was where I got the idea for my book, If Trees Could Talk, because a yew tree on that day gave me the idea for the book. And forest bathing is great because it helps you to connect with the senses, so you are hearing, you are smelling, your touch, your taste, it really encourages you to slow down and connect with nature, so it is a really good skill to learn, even if you just kind of go to one course and learn some of the basics. One of the things that the trees in my book, If Trees Could Talk, said over and over and over again, was ‘slow down you move too fast’, and I think that slowing down is a great way of connecting with nature and it is something that I have to remind myself to do. I will go out and specifically go out to connect with trees and connect with nature because, of course, otherwise I am walking or running down the trails.

So wildlife tracking and identification, I did that last year at Woodcraft School, it was really, really, great, we learned track and sign, lots of different animal tracks, signs like scat, left over snacks, like seeds and nuts and things that animals would have eaten and left the shelves, learning which types of animals leave different types of bite marks on the shelves, that kind of thing; really, really, interesting, because I learned a lot about what the behaviour of animals living in the woods that I walk through. And we also went to different habitats, we went to the coast, we were a lot in the woods but we saw different things and we went to heathland and saw reptiles and it was just really, really, really, good.

Then, towards the end of last year, I did wildlife trailing which is where you find deer tracks and you follow them, hopefully to the point where you see the deer, you can do this for different types of wildlife depending on what part of the world you live in, that was really good because it also helped me to learn just how many deer there are in the woods and their lifestyle and how they move and what they do and how to sneak up on them and observe them, that was also at woodcraft school. Last year I did the advanced bushcraft award, it was a level 3 award, it was super intensive, five days, we did spoon carving, we did fire making, we did cordage making, we learned plants, we learned trees, we learned about heat and cold injuries, heat stroke, filtering water, finding water, purifying water…all the kind of basic skills if you are in a survival situation in the outdoors and, if you are not in a survival situation and you want to do crafting stuff, like spoon carving or cordage. It was a really, really good intro to these skills and if you just search for ‘bushcraft school’ in your area you can find either a comprehensive course like this or you can find something that is a little more specific, if you have a specific skill that you want to learn. That was also woodcraft school.

The very first course that I did at woodcraft school and I am linking to woodcraft school in the notes because this is my favourite school where I love to learn this stuff and sadly I am working my way through all the courses and I think I have only got one big course left which I won’t be able to sign up for this year, because it doesn’t fit into my schedule so it is going to have to be next year. But the first course I took was ‘plant identification and you’ and that was a five-day super-intensive course that was all about plant identification and you, so we learned all the different ways to use these plants, whether it is for medicinal purposes, or for eating, or for creating medicines, like tinctures or salves fo rather skin and we actually made some things and took some things home, so that was really, really, good.

And then other types of things that I have done, even before this, I did National Navigation Award Scheme, I did the straight to silver, so that was really important because that is about navigating, reading a map, knowing how to use a map and compass. I have done the gold course with Team Walking as well, but I haven’t done gold evaluation and that is something I want to do either late this year or next year, because I feel like I have unfinished business with that, but I also feel like I need to practice the gold techniques. That’s really good because that is learning how to navigate by contours and kind of the different features in the land. And that is a really good skill, not just to learn how to use a map and compass and navigate, but it is really good because it helps you pay attention to the way the land looks around you and it is really good, because I have done the course in North Yorkshire where there is not as much woodland so you can really see the different land formations from a distance and that gives you a totally different perspective, so that is really good.

And I also did the Lowland leader award and I did it at the time because I was leading walking groups here in the Southeast and I wanted to learn what I needed to know about leading groups, so that was really useful, there was a lot of navigation in it, but also I learned some really practical things like how to use trails, how not to use trials, that kind of thing.

And finally, outdoors first aid which I have done twice, because you have to update it every three years and that has been super, super, useful to know the skills to take care of myself and others if I get injured or someone else gets injured.

So how have these courses helped me to add this extra layer of experience to my outdoor adventures?

Forest bathing, as I said, helped me to slow down and just use all my senses. I can recognise plants now, I know some of their uses, I know of the folk lore behind the plants, which I love learning and I know if they are edible or not. Obviously never eat a plant or forage a plant if you are not 100% sure what it is. I notice animal tracks and signs that I wouldn’t have noticed before. I have really seen details on the trails and around the trails that I just wouldn’t have paid attention to before these courses. They really helped me to understand what’s going around me in nature, who is sharing the trails that I use, because it is not just other people, there are a lot of animals out there, even if you are not necessarily seeing the or hearing them. Bushcraft has really helped me to understand the risks of being outdoors and the heat and cold injuries and how to stay safe, it has given me the confidence to be in the outdoors.

Bow making course, we talked a lot about history and how these longbows were uses and it really helped me to understand the history of the land that I live in, it also helped me to just engage with wood in a crafty manner and understand how much work went into making these longbows. I mean, it was full on, it was three days, three-and-a-half, we got there in the evening before the first day. There were some days where I started at 7.30am and I didn’t finish until 9/10pm and all day long I was working on the bow. This is one of those courses that is so intensive that they make your dinner for you so that you don’t waste time cooking and you could just work as much as you need to. It was really full on and it was really great to just get a sense of how people would have made these bows in history, because we weren’t using power tools, it was all with draw knifes and spoke shavers and different types of blades to make this bow, so it was really good.

Lowland leader, as I said, has given me more of an understanding not just how to lead people on trails but how to use trails. So, one of the interesting things I learned was the trails and footpaths here are technically one metre wide, so when it is muddy, and you walk around the edges of a trail you are making it muddy, and you shouldn’t do that. I learned a little bit of the etiquette of using trails and sharing trails with other people, which was really useful.

Now if you search online for the benefits of outdoor learning you mostly see information about children and forest schools and that sort of thing, but adults can really benefit from learning about nature. A lot of us are so disconnected from nature and taking courses like this in addition to getting outdoors helps give us a greater respect for the land that we live on, it gives us a greater perspective and understanding of what is going on outside our front door, whether it is in the fields, in the forests, on the coasts and it gives us a greater respect for our natural resources. I think it is really useful, not just for children to learn this stuff, but for adults and there are so many kinds of outdoor courses, so you can find something to either deepen your knowledge about your favourite topics, plants in my case, or learn something new, like animals in my case. I was just talking about this around the fire the other night with some of the friends that I have taken a couple of courses with, because at the Woodcraft School, a lot of people come back and do more and more courses, it is not just me that is a special groups, people love this school and they come back and keep doing courses there, so it is really lovely because I have seen lots of people on two or three different courses. And I was chatting with a friend, and we were talking about ethnobotany vs the wildlife tracking and she was saying that her thing is animals, and she has more experience with animals, whereas with the plants it is all new information for her. And for me it is the exact opposite, I love plants, I have always loved plants, my first job when I was 15 was in a garden centre and I was learning plants and selling plants and helping people find the best plant for their garden and I have always loved plants. Whereas the animal stuff was really new to me, and I think that was super-overwhelming to me, because there was so much to learn, overwhelming, not in a bad way, but I didn’t go on to do the assessment, because I just felt that there was so much information and I really needed to spend some more time learning. However, a lot of people went straight on to assessment from the four months course that I did, and they did really well on their assessment, so it is just me that is a bit insecure about my knowledge of animals, but I do want to do one of the assessments next year.

But yeah, you can either find something to deepen your knowledge about something you already know or learn something totally new. One of the things that I really want to do is a wilderness quest, where you go out into nature alone, spend a couple of nights in nature with just the bare minimum, sometimes you are fasting and a lot of time you will just have water with you in a very simple shelter. There are lots of places around the world that do this, that is something that has been on my list for years. You could do woodworking, spoon carving, whittling, making a long bow, that kind of thing, that is an interesting way of working with natural materials. You could learn fire making, that is a very basic part of any bushcraft course, but there are specific courses that teach you how to make fire in different ways. You could do a thing, an escape to the woods course, which is kind of like an escape room but in the outdoors. You can do camp cooking, you can learn how to cook on a fire, you can learn how to make your own herbal remedies, you can learn flint knapping, you can learn how to butcher an animal. So, in the level 4 bushcraft course that I want to take, one of the things you learn is how to butcher a deer and skin a deer, there are also courses where you learn how to do that with a rabbit and then make a rabbit stew on the fire. If you are a meat-eater that might be something that you want to learn. You can learn how to make cordage and tie knots, you can learn basket making, or basket weaving. You can learn country skills, looking online for different types of country skill courses and you can learn dry stone walling, bee keeping, spinning wool, making art containers, making rag rug and all these things will help you add that extra learning, that extra layer of knowledge, of experience to your outdoor adventures.

Think about these topics that I have mentioned to you and see what sounds like fun? What sounds like a challenge? And go online and search, there are courses like this all over the place. And most of them are on the weekends because that’s when people are available, sometimes they are available during the week, but there are so many courses. Take a look, see what is available in your area, and as I said you can either dive deeper into things that you already know, or you can learn something completely new and different or something that is maybe outside of your comfort zone.

So, I hope you found this interesting and useful and I wanted to remind you before I sign off that today, the Monday that this goes live, is the last day of my ebook promo which I am doing with my author friends, so if you head over to HollyWorton.com/adventure today is the last day that you can get these ebooks for adventure and travel for free or a super great discount. So HollyWorton.com/adventure to get some free and cheap ebooks and and that is all for now.

So that is all for now, let me know what you thought about this week’s episode you can email at [email protected] or you can find me a line and get in touch there.

Remember to visit: HollyWorton.com/410 for the show notes on this episode. I will have all the links of places to look for courses, places where I have taken courses, and you can find your own. And feel free to get in touch if you have any questions or if you want to get my opinion on some of the courses that I have taken, just feel free to get in touch.

And that is all for now, happy trails to you and have a fantastic week in the outdoors.