Make it to the end of this weekend survival course and you could be walking away with a NCFE IIQ award! This accredited bushcraft course is indeed educational and hands-on but also a whole lot of fun out in the great British outdoors. Will you have what it takes to survive?
These weekends are organised all year round in both Devon and Staffordshire. Depending on the season the challenges you face could be keeping warm or trying to keep yourself cool but whatever the weather and whenever you go you’ll always need to know how to get food get water organise shelter and light a campfire. Luckily then the syllabus for this course includes all that and a whole lot more.
Over two days out in the ‘bush’ you will watch and learn from the pros. Each task will be demonstrated by one of the survival experts then it’s over to you to have a go yourself. Some of the tasks require real skills and you’ll feel an incredible sense of achievement when you do succeed. We especially like the woodcrafting elements which includes using folding and bow saws as well as leaning how to fashion wooden tent pegs to keep your tarps in place.
Another feature of these NCFE-approved courses is the food. Most definitely not one for vegans or vegetarians you will be shown how to prepare game such as pigeon or pheasant as well as trout rabbit and even squirrel. Not your usual weekend meal plan we have to say.
In a similar vein you’ll see how to identify which plants are edible medicinal or poisonous as well as being able to name tree species and recognise what their uses could be. You’ll also be shown how to lay traps to catch animals for tea with the legalities of what you’re doing being covered too – no-one wants to get into trouble for poaching on this course!
The most basic survival instinct is for water. Particularly poignant if you travel to remote places you will be able to purify water so that it is drinkable after all it’s not everywhere in the world that you’ll find a nice fast flowing mountain spring to drink from.
These weekend survival courses start on a Friday evening and go right through to Sunday lunchtime and as the organisers themselves say: ‘This is learning through experience at its best’. You will need to go into it with an open-mind enthusiasm and a ‘can-do’ attitude and if you have all that you and your new found bushcrafter buddies will not only survive the course but have fun and get the certificate to prove it!
