Jeremy dropped two hefty boxes onto the table with a thump. “Ration packs – as used by the British Army,” he said, fixing us with a solemn look and pausing for gravitas. “There are 5,000 calories in this box, and they could save your life. If you’re hungry, your brain simply stops working.
“Back in hour,” he breezed, leaving us to survey our bulging new kit bags. “Oh, and a word of advice: best empty yourself before we set off.”
Sat in the breakfast room of our hotel with a Scottish fry-up filling our bellies and a clear, blue sky outside, a trip to the Inner Hebridean island of Islay seemed to promise a pleasant weekend in the country. But now, faced with a box of vacuum-packed ready meals and a survival kit that included a water purification pump favoured by United Nations outreach workers and the kind of viciously serrated knife to make even Crocodile Dundee flinch, things were suddenly taking a serious turn.
Islay, a 3,400-person strong mound of peat and rock hugging Loch Indaal, is the southernmost island in the Hebrides. It’s also one of the wealthiest, thanks to its buoyant whisky industry, with seven distilleries yielding over £1 million per month in tax revenues from the sale of top-notch single malts.
Away from the cosy guesthouses and spectacular coastal scenery, however, it’s a wild place. Four walkers lost their lives on Islay last year, all of them ill prepared for the raw onslaught of nature when the wind changes strength and the mist descends like a slow madness.
Islay, therefore, is the ideal place to learn the art of bushcraft, a concept dating back to the trappers of Canada’s Great Lakes in the 19th century, and now popularised by the likes of Ray Mears.
Jeremy Hastings has been leading bushcraft courses for five years now, drawing on his 24 years of experience as a wildlife ranger and wilderness instructor in Morocco, Finland and southern Africa. The course – 24: The Wilderness Taster, which we were about to embark on – teaches essential outdoor skills with an emphasis on low-impact movement through remote locations.
“Personally, I prefer the term wildness living to bushcraft,” said Jeremy, as we set off from the drop-off point, a three-hour, cross-country yomp ahead of us. “Bushcraft tends to be hyped as a macho activity, but it’s actually more about living with the nature and integrating with the natural environment.”
With blue skies, cotton-wool clouds and a gentle easterly keeping us cool, we set off at a steady pace. En route we stopped regularly to watch the local fauna against a backdrop of rolling hills and bluebell-dotted fells: red deer and wild goats kept a respectful distance, while lapwings, herring gulls and oystercatchers discussed our presence overhead.
As we walked, Jeremy slipped gently into instructor mode, taking a softly spoken approach to teaching outdoor skills. Descending a gentle hill, he encouraged me to collect wiry tufts of juniper to use for kindling, and he demonstrated how the pellets of fur and bone regurgitated by golden eagles offer clues to the indigenous foodstuffs available on the island.
We strolled along a deserted beach and tried foraging for food, uncovering winkles and mussels to cook over the fire later, and sea lettuce to wash off in the sea and chew on for a quick, mid-hike protein hit. But when we arrived late afternoon at our makeshift camp, the caves on the island’s remote north-western tip, the gentle pace gave way to the serious business of addressing the three cornerstones of outdoor survival: water, heat and shelter.
A frenzied hour ensued: Jeremy set me to work, first building a fire and making a brew of tea for hydration after the walk. Then he turned my attention to collecting firewood, purifying water and collecting loose grasses – both to use as improvised bedding under our sleeping bags and to smother the aroma of goat dung permeating the cave. Having absorbed a crash course in fire husbandry and shelter building, I was more than ready to attack the ration pack for my 5,000-calorie fix.
Sadly, the boil-in-a-bag Lancashire hotpot was rather disappointing, while the fruit dumplings in custard were consumed more out of necessity than culinary enthusiasm. By now dusk was descending and, while the sunset crashing across the rocks was glorious, the mercury was heading south and the wind chill permeated my waterproofs with increasing intensity.
It was serious now. The nearest civilisation was a 24km cross-country hike away while beyond the caves the next stop was Nova Scotia, some 5,000km directly across the Atlantic Ocean. Tired, the wrong side of peckish and increasingly chilly, I was concerned that Mother Nature was rapidly gaining the upper hand.
Jeremy, however, remained sanguine. “I feel completely comfortable in the nature. The secret to bushcraft is not taming the nature, but blending into it,” he explained. “This is not a survival course – there’s no urgency to remove ourselves from the situation. We’re prepared for everything.”
I’ve never spent the night in a cave before but, as I pulled the sleeping bag up around my neck, I was glad of the shelter – and glad that I had an expert bushcrafter on call. Nevertheless, tales of the Carraghban dragon, the wild beastie that, according to Gaelic legend, breathes three plumes of fire and stalks the island by night, preying on lost cows, errant sheep and cave-dwelling adventurists, filled my semi-consciousness as I closed my eyes and drifted away.
Dawn was early and welcome, with the first cracks of daylight seeping through around 5am.
We were up with the curlews, collecting dry wood for breakfast around the fire and clearing the camp of all signs of our presence. As we started the hike back towards civilisation, a more blustery, foreboding day was breaking around us, but the prospect of a good Sunday lunch spurred us on through the drizzle.
Back at the pick-up point, Jeremy’s wife was waiting with the Land Rover and homemade flapjacks. We were tired, exhilarated and newly conscious of the respect with which Mother Nature deserves to be treated.
What did I learn? Lots. Water is key to survival; when crossing rivers always look upstream for incoming logs and dead sheep; the British Army is desperately in need of a good roast dinner.
Most of all, however, I’d learned that a city boy with a woefully short-lived career in the cubs can survive 24 hours at the end of the earth and develop a new-found respect for nature in the process.
That, and the fact I need a decent espresso in the morning.
24: The Wilderness Taster goes from Islay Birding and Bushcraft (
