Friday, February 22nd was another classic cold British day and I had been eagerly anticipating the date because it was Bivi night. There is a small group of people I know, that belong to a loose kind of a club called, the Brighton Bivi Club, once a month they set a date to bivouac in the South Downs National Park. I am not usually able to attend and a last minute change of date made it look unlikely for me this time round. However, always keen for adventure my friend Dai agreed to join me and so on that freezing cold evening I met him at his home.
People will either get it or they will not, we don't care. Walking out in the dark, cold snow filled evening we set out across the hills, familiar trails from our long runs in the area, friends chatting and walking, wrapped up in layers against the bitter chill of the winters evening.
The walk, the pub, the sleeping out in the hills amongst the elements is just a glorified sleepover/mid night feast, for grown ups but it is a small way that we can enjoy the adventure and freedom of the outdoors in our busy lives.
After just four miles of walking in the freezing cold the warm ambiance of a village pub, complete with roaring open fires was a little too much warmth. Shedding layers and finding a spot in comfortable old couches by the fire, we settled in for our first pint of local beer. After consuming one beer for each mile walked we decided that it was time to head back out onto the hill to find the spot that we would use for the night's Bivi.
I have some years of experience in the art of bivi'ing out with Dai and not all of them have been good experiences. Some have been absolute classic successes and others, epic fails. My favourite was an Alpine spot we chose, high above the Chamonix valley in France on a beautiful clear summers night, I won't bore you with the epic fails. They are stories in their own right. The point is, if Dai is left to choose the sport on his own the adventure could go either way..He probably feels the same about me.
We headed off up the hill, out of sight from the village and near to a wooded area. If there was a book about it, it would suggest a flat sheltered place, I am also sure that my good friend would have read the book about it. This particular place had one of the two essentials. It was sheltered from the biting wind, Tick. It was not however that flat but now we were full of Harvey's best beer we were keen to set up camp and light a fire. The area did have lots of wood for the said fire and soon we had set up a temporary shelter with a basher, (a small tarpaulin) tied between trees and a fence and While i quickly set about making a bew of hot chocolate on my stove I left Dai to fire making.
Comedy is not always obvious but now I come to write about it I am laughing. I have spent years doing random outdoor sports and events along with Dai. He has a preferred method for fire lighting which includes using a tampon. Yes! He always carries them just in case. A neat plastic wrapped, tightly packed, bullet of feminine hygiene product is apparently the perfect kindling for the part time adventurer. My hat is off though because by the time my Jet Boil stove started to hiss, his blowing through cupped hands and then frantic flapping of hands had produced a small fire with the interesting technique that he champions.
Tucked up in more duck down and synthetic gear than you can imagine we broke out the rum, French cheese and bread, fruit cake and sat by our fire under our shelter in the light flurry of snow and we were happier for it.
We had Just got settled and Dai piped up that he was not happy with the shelter. Heaven knows why, I was the one compromised by the most slope and was only just benefiting from the poorly rigged material. He was determined and I went along with the beer and rum fuelled decision. After quite a bit of tinkering and pulling and tying of string he was happy. "that is the taught method" he proudly exclaimed. I told you he had read the book. It wasn't really any different and I was still left mostly without shelter but we slept well and after a cup of tea in the morning and a lovely walk back over the hill the adventure was complete in time to join in with our family lives as if we had not been away.
Sometimes a small adventure close to home is much better than no adventure at all.
A Travelling Wilbury sleeping out in the Alps August 2010
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