DofE Open Gold Residential
Survival & Bushcraft
5 day Survival & Bushcraft Residential, West Berkshire
DURATION
5 Days + 4 Nights
FOR AGES
16+
LOCATION
Bennetts Wood, Reading, UK
PRICE
£599 (inclusive of VAT)
Monday 26th August - Friday 30th August 2024
‘Get to grips with the knowledge and skills to master outdoor emergency and survival situations’
An adventure for young people in a unique woodland setting, offering a varied, interactive and fun experience.
You will be introduced to the woodland basecamp training area in which you will learn the core techniques of
First aid, Protection, Fire, Water, Navigation & Food
You will undertake activities as individuals and as small groups to ensure that you have a thorough grasp of the skills required.
Leading to the final 24 hour challenge where you will utilise all of your new skills to support yourself in the wild.
Skills
This DofE Gold Residential combines theory with real-life hands-on practical survival skills training. You will learn the knowledge and practical skills required to ensure personal safety and what the human body needs when faced with a range of extreme and challenging circumstances. Enabling short to medium term self-sufficiency that can be translated to any potential emergency or survival situation.
Building on this core training, we begin to explore the bushcraft skills that will allow you to become comfortable within a woodland basecamp. Cooking your meals over an open fire that you must build, ignite and manage.
The Key Elements
First Aid, safety, safe use of tools
Camp site rules and hygiene
Fire lighting and safety around a fire
Friction fire lighting
Water purification
Natural navigation
Food preparation, cooking and storage
Preparing game for cooking
Core skills of survival
Shelter building
Embracing your environment
The 24 Hour Challenge
For the last 24hrs of the experience students will be encouraged to adopt the techniques, tools and materials of the survival training to live in the woodland, authentically relying on skills learned from the instructors during the first part of the week.
‘For the student that applies themselves fully, this would mean sleeping in a self-built natural shelter using a wool blanket, having prepared and cooked an evening meal on a self-lit fire using a friction technique.
They will have processed and purified their own water and crucially they will have a grasp of natural navigation techniques, being able to orientate themselves during day or night and move themselves and their gear utilising an improvised pack frame.’
(Adam Logan)
What’s included?
Accommodation and all food
Campfire cooked breakfast/evening meal
Fresh drinking water
Private woodland location
Porta Loos
Qualified and experienced bushcraft and survival Instructors and direct supervision
Maps of local area
All specialist bushcraft equipment, tools, blankets and resources
Cast Iron Cookware, kettles and steel eating implements
First Aid Kits
Written report
What you need to bring
Personal clothing, outerwear, waterproofs
Personal wash-bag / towel
Personal medication
Walking Boots / socks
Sun hat / sun glasses / sun lotion
Insect repellent
Gloves / scarf
Rucksack (a rucksack can be provided if required)
Water bottle
Notebook / pen / pencil
Torch
Adam Logan
Adam is a UK based bushcraft instructor with a passion for the Boreal landscapes of the world. A desire to teach from a place of authenticity, has led to spending hundreds of nights camping out in sub zero forests relying on handcrafted clothing, shelter and equipment.
Collaborative work with other instructors, schools and organisations across Europe and Canada gives Adam a unique perspective to reflect on how bushcraft and wilderness journeys are conveyed, and enables him to relate to a diverse audience of students in meeting their learning desires and needs.
Adam draws on a twenty year career working in the UK bushcraft industry designing and delivering adult training courses and expeditions where his focus has been on accessing, modifying, and relying on natural materials and traditional processes of manufacturing utility items.
Jamie Dakota
Jamie’s approach to bushcraft is an honest and simple one. He journeys through nature to connect with the landscape and to harmoniously live within it. In this way, his bushcraft has been informed by experience and practicality. His knowledge and skills connect with nature, not impact upon it. He has lead canoe trips in Scotland and winter trips in Northern Sweden and has collaborated with an array of outdoor specialists and instructors.Jamie has long supported the YHA in their bushcraft offering, providing the staff with specialist training to deliver simple but engaging bushcraft sessions for young people. Jamie believes that true bushcraft should always be subtle, in the background, and supportive. It is the foundation on which great adventure can be built.
Enquiries
If you are unsure of anything, or have any queries, please do get in touch.
We’ll be happy to answer any questions you may have.
If you already know you want to come, please book your dates towards the top of the page.