Wild camping

[The_Exile]

Has anyone ever done it, or do it regularly? The last couple of times I've been camping I've been utterly pissed off with other people, not respecting the land, being loud and obnoxious and all round fed up of regular camping. Used to enjoy getting away for a bit in relative solitude but these days it seems everyone is flocking to the hills and it's just getting busier and busier.

Therefore I'm 100% going to just wild camp from now on in the middle of nowhere, but wondered if there's anything I should be aware of? Any tips or stories of disaster I can learn from? I know we have the right to roam up here so I can pretty much go almost anywhere. Had a look at my old camping stuff (not been in a couple of years) and might need some new supplies, likely a new tent as the one I have/had was a relatively big one for me plus 2 or 3 others and I'll likely be looking to get a smaller one, easier to put up etc. Any recommendations for good gear that has impressed you would be much appreciated.

[18Craig75]

Used to do it often when we were a bit younger. Pack the car with food and drinks, we always pre-planned and often went to scope out an area before the actual camping trip! We always wanted it to be accessible by car, but also far enough off the beaten track so as not to be disturbed. Often we’d park up then make a couple trips back and forward.

Great times to be honest, it’s a great feeling being in the outdoors. We were always respectful to the land, all the basics like tidying up, not leaving fires and closing gates etc and never had any grief from anyone!

[Dalianwanda]

We did it this year down in West Cork. My mrs was doing a half Iron Man down there so we decided to make a holiday of it (this was just before we lockdown again). I have to admit I wasnt fully bought in to going wild all week. Its something Ive only done for a night never a week & not knowing the area was a bit apprehensive about finding a spot/will we get into trouble/how do I get a shower! :greengrin

So we did a bit of research, there are a few sites that give you coordinates of good spots (Im guessing there will be the same for home. We also looked up all the good hidden beaches as we felt that was gonna be best bet. We also asked friends in the area what they new. When we got in the area we spoke to other campers (we could sit outside the local pub and everone was in a chatty mood). So Id definately recommend asking about..Not to make it too planned but at least to have an idea or some potential options.

In terms of packing we just made sure we were ready for anything. Obviously cooking stuff stove pans etc- I bought basics like noodles/pasta couple of sauces and just bought veggies when passed shops (although they were few and far between)..Loads of water. A cool bag. Bags to leave no trace. Since we were doing it for a week I have a good blow up mattress...game changer was bringing a duvet and my normal pillows. Hammer/wee spade..Plenty of tent pegs (just because I wasnt sure what kinda ground we were gonna be on and bent tent pegs arent your friend). Our tents just a wee 3 man but has a yawning which Id say is a must just for storage or if the weather turns somewhere to sit.

We ended up in an amazing spot for 3 days on top of a cliff overlooking a small cove (place called crookhaven). We could scramble down to the white sandy beach and swim and wash in the morning then just chill up on the cliff for the day. We were blessed with the weather. At night we just shared a couple of drams and star watched. We did move a couple of times but the pic attached shows the one Im talking about.

All the camp sites we passed were sold out (we checked as we passed)..Im sure some of them were lovely but Im so glad we did what we did.

Ive got to say it was one of my favorite holidays ever & I'll certainly be doing it again this year.

[Speedy]

There are some restrictions on when/where you can wild camp so worth checking in advance. You're not allowed to wild camp at Loch Lomond in the summer months for instance.

[Pretty Boy]

The big clue is in the name. It's supposed to be wild so don't pitch a tent 20 yards from the side of a road on fragile sand dunes alongside 50 other people with the same idea.

It's all pretty simple. Don't camp in a field with animals or crops. Don't camp close to someone's home or property. Do your business more than 30 metres from water and bury it. Don't light a fire unless you really have to and keep it small. And most importantly leave no trace.

As for actual advice. Research your planned spot before you go. Get a decent water filtration system (I'd recommend a LifeStraw). There's only so much water you can carry and with a decent filter system you can cut down on unnecessary weight. Depending on how wild you are going have a map and compass and know how to use them. Have a decent camping stove. Don't carry too much stuff, in the summer with good weather forecast and if I'm at low level I quite often take a bivi bag instead of a tent.

There's loads of great resources online with suggested kit lists and recommended and reviewed spots.

[Jim44]

I can’t give any advice on wild camping but your intention to buy a new tent reminded me of this. Many moons ago, Blacks of Elm Row had a really clever ad for the sale of their end of season stock in their window in December. It read - ‘ Now is the discount of our winter tents.’

[Hibrandenburg]

Stay off the beaten track. The fewer people that stumble across your pitch, the less likely anyone will have reason to complain. I used to have some old sack material and a 9m² army camoflage net that I'd throw over my tent, never once did I have any trouble.

[Dalianwanda]

I can’t give any advice on wild camping but your intention to buy a new tent reminded me of this. Many moons ago, Blacks of Elm Row had a really clever ad for the sale of their end of season stock in their window in December. It read - ‘ Now is the discount of our winter tents.’

:greengrin

[lapsedhibee]

I can’t give any advice on wild camping but your intention to buy a new tent reminded me of this. Many moons ago, Blacks of Elm Row had a really clever ad for the sale of their end of season stock in their window in December. It read - ‘ Now is the discount of our winter tents.’

:greengrin

[K-Zazu]

Best place to camp near Edinburgh/West Lothian?

[Lancs Harp]

I can’t give any advice on wild camping but your intention to buy a new tent reminded me of this. Many moons ago, Blacks of Elm Row had a really clever ad for the sale of their end of season stock in their window in December. It read - ‘ Now is the discount of our winter tents.’

:greengrin Class mate. Hibs class :thumbsup:

[Pretty Boy]

Best place to camp near Edinburgh/West Lothian?

North Esk Reservoir in the Pentlands is a good spot. Feels far more remote than it actually is.

[K-Zazu]

North Esk Reservoir in the Pentlands is a good spot. Feels far more remote than it actually is.

Where about in the pentlands is that man? Thanks

[Pretty Boy]

Where about in the pentlands is that man? Thanks

Just past Carlops off the A702.

[Jim44]

North Esk Reservoir in the Pentlands is a good spot. Feels far more remote than it actually is.

Is that not where the murder/s involving a soldier from Glencorse Barracks took place a long while ago?

[K-Zazu]

Just past Carlops off the A702.

Are u allowed to camp in pentlands?

[Pretty Boy]

Are u allowed to camp in pentlands?

Yes. As long as you follow the rules sets out by the access laws and a couple of additional rules put in place by the park management.

[pollution]

Is that not where the murder/s involving a soldier from Glencorse Barracks took place a long while ago?


Was it not near Flotterstone where the three were murdered ?

The £25000 was never found either. Tragic greed.

[Jim44]

Was it not near Flotterstone where the three were murdered ?

The £25000 was never found either. Tragic greed.

Correct, it was Glencorse reservoir.

[lapsedhibee]

Was it not near Flotterstone where the three were murdered ?

The £25000 was never found either. Tragic greed.

Slaughter in the snow - Colonel tells of brutal Glencorse massacre

IT WILL be 25 years tomorrow to the day since Colonel Clive Fairweather discovered the abandoned Land Rover with its engine still running.

The commanding officer of Glencorse Barracks in Penicuik, Midlothian, thought there had been an accident.

Then a passing dog walker pointed out the gory trail of blood in the snow.

"The snow brings it all back," he said. Bright red blood in the fresh white snow.

That was the trail. Three miles in total. To the reservoir at Loganlea and back again. It was Thursday, January 17, 1985. The morning Corporal Andrew Walker calmly asked for a lift from town back to barracks from his three Army colleagues.

Within half an hour, he had murdered them in cold blood, disposed of their bodies and hidden £19,000 in cash before making his way back to his base at Kirknewton.

It was one of Scotland's worst murders and Walker was jailed for 30 years, later reduced to 27 years on appeal. At the time, it was the longest sentence ever handed down.

The soldiers had been collecting wages from the town's Royal Bank of Scotland. The lift wasn't a problem for paymaster Major David Cunningham, accompanied by Staff Sergeant Terence Hosker, on his first pay run after a transfer, and Private John Thomson. Walker had asked for one before.

But it wouldn't be long before the men realised something wasn't quite right.

Minutes later, Walker pulled out a sub-machinegun, signed out of the armoury that morning, and ordered them to turn left up the town's Mauricewood Road, instead of continuing straight on, back to barracks .

Witnesses reported seeing the Land Rover driving erratically, indicating a struggle inside. That was when the first shots were fired. Nearby residents recalled the sound of muffled gunfire.

S/Sgt Hosker got two rounds in the chest while Major Cunningham was shot through the ear, the bullet going straight through the windscreen.

At this point, Private Thomson was forced to keep driving up a deserted farm track past the Flotterstone Inn.

Clive, a retired prison inspector, said: "Thomson must have been petrified at this point. He was just a young laddie.

"Walker was probably telling him not to worry, that he wouldn't kill him. He didn't plan for the men to be shot then. He wanted to do it up in the hills."

What Walker didn't realise was that blood was seeping from the floor of the Land Rover on to the road.

"The blood was in the snow on the road, dots of it," said Clive. "I didn't realise till later but what I was seeing was the blood when he went up the road, and the blood when he came back down. Two sets of blood tracks.

"That was the thing that screwed him - the snow. It had started snowing that day for the first time that winter."

The monster forced young Thomson to help him carry the bodies from the Land Rover up to a lonely spot in the hills at Glencorse reservoir to hide them.

It was then he made his fatal mistake.

Clive said: "All the bullets before had travelled straight through the bodies.

"Sometimes bodies can twitch or move after death. That's what Hosker's body must have done.

"Walker panicked and shot another three rounds into him. They were three unnecessary and cowardly rounds, and one bullet lodged in his shoulder.

"It matched the sub-machinegun signed out by Walker that day."

The bullet provided crucial forensic evidence linking Walker to what became known as the Glencorse Massacre - despite his carefully planned alibi.

Clive, who was deputy commander of the SAS during the Iran embassy siege in 1980, has seen many horrific sights.

But the plight of his men, especially Private Thomson, a married father of one, is imprinted on his memory.

He recalled: "Walker shot him through the head, neck and forearm. He was trying to protect himself."

The three bodies were found lying side by side at the empty Loganlea cottage in the picturesque Pentland Hills, popular with walkers.

Thomson and Cunningham had been shot through the head and Hosker five times, three after his death.

It's thought Walker stashed the stolen cash - £18,600 in £10 notes, and £400 in £5 notes, which has never been found - somewhere up in the Pentlands before driving off in the Land Rover .

But he skidded in the deep snow and hit a wall.

He abandoned the vehicle - and only minutes later Clive and his regimental sergeant major found it. Clive said: "When I was told the pay team were late back, I reckoned the guys had gone for a beer at Flotterstone.

"That's the only thing I could think of.

But we alerted the police and went looking for them. This woman stopped me and said, 'Excuse me, are you Army?'.

"I said yes and she said 'Have you seen all this blood?'

"I thought someone had hurt themselves. It was not until I saw all the blood in the Land Rover, that I realised. I knew immediately it was an inside job.

"What I didn't know until much later was that Walker must have been standing in the trees watching me. If you go there now, there is still a mark on the wall where he crashed."

Walker took some of the cash and hitched back in the opposite direction to Fairmilehead and then back to Penicuik to pick up a yellow Fiat he had borrowed for the day .

"There was enough time for him to stop and get rid of the money," said Clive. "But he couldn't bury it because the ground was too hard. There were plenty of drystone dykes and rabbit holes to stuff it in, though.

"He couldn't afford to have the cash on him at Glencorse in case we searched the place. So he went to Loganlea to hide the money and to kill the men."

Walker actually told his wife Mary he had found a bag of money under a drystone dyke in the Pentlands.

He had thought up his detailed alibi in the preceding months. Having spent time in Northern Ireland, he knew IRA code words and planned to send one to newspapers in a bid to blame the robbery on terrorists.

Walker was so confident his plan would work, he ordered a new £8000 MG Maestro, telling the dealer he would pay for it in cash by the following weekend.

While working as an instructor at Glencorse, he had spent weeks meticulously planning the robbery.

At first, it looked like professional thieves. Police were sceptical one man could kill three soldiers.

But the Army's special investigation branch examined the list of weapons drawn on the Thursday morning at all four Edinburgh barracks and checked every one. Walker's story aroused immediate suspicion.

He said he needed it to give a firearms lesson to a corporal - but he knew nothing about it.

Walker said he had left the weapon in an office, which had already been searched for another item that day.

He said he had borrowed the yellow Fiat to go home for kit, but the mileage showed a longer trip. He also said he had been with a girlfriend in Edinburgh, but she had moved.

But the ammunition, which he had stolen months earlier, snared him.

Ejection marks on the cases, the striking mark on the detonator cap and the marks on the bullets created a forensic print that could only belong to the sub-machinegun issued to Walker.

Walker was arrested and charged on Saturday, January 19, and found guilty after a three-week trial that May.

Security arrangements at the barracks were criticised in the wake of the murders. But ironically when Clive took charge at Glencorse just weeks before the killings, he immediately spotted that the pay run, done at the same time every week by unarmed men, was an easy target for a robbery.

He said: "I arrived in December and gave Major Cunningham until the end of January to do something about it. I said: 'You are going to get done'.

"But I had no idea it was going to be murder. The men couldn't arm themselves so they were just the same as civilians."

The day before the robbery, Cunningham told Clive his suggested changes would be in tomorrow .

Clive added: "When I arrived at Penicuik, everybody said, 'Get rid of Walker'. I said 'Get me the evidence and I will'. His nickname was Billy Liar."

The week before the murders, Walker was absent from duty and later charged with lying. Clive sacked him, sending him back to his base with the Royal Scots at Kirknewton.

The Royal Scots were due to leave for Germany soon, so Walker was forced to carry out the robbery the next week, and from Kirknewton instead of Glencorse .

Clive said: "In a way, I accelerated the course of events because I sacked him. On the Friday, I found him guilty of lying, put him on a three-month warning, posted him back to Kirknewton and the last thing I said to him was 'I can see you in a blue suit, son, eating porridge'.

"He got the longest sentence anyone has been given - even Megrahi. It is a story of utter greed. He hoped he would get £70,000 to £80,000, but he only managed £19,000 .

"For weeks, he had been telling people he had a pools system and had had a few wins on it.

"His idea was to take them up the hill, kill them, dump the bodies and the Land Rover and be back in the barracks in 25 minutes.

"His alibi would be staff saying he was in the radius of the barracks and he would send the IRA code words to the papers and no one would ever suspect him.

"It could have worked ... if it hadn't been for the snow and that bullet."

[Jim44]

Slaughter in the snow - Colonel tells of brutal Glencorse massacre

IT WILL be 25 years tomorrow to the day since Colonel Clive Fairweather discovered the abandoned Land Rover with its engine still running.

The commanding officer of Glencorse Barracks in Penicuik, Midlothian, thought there had been an accident.

Then a passing dog walker pointed out the gory trail of blood in the snow.

"The snow brings it all back," he said. Bright red blood in the fresh white snow.

That was the trail. Three miles in total. To the reservoir at Loganlea and back again. It was Thursday, January 17, 1985. The morning Corporal Andrew Walker calmly asked for a lift from town back to barracks from his three Army colleagues.

Within half an hour, he had murdered them in cold blood, disposed of their bodies and hidden £19,000 in cash before making his way back to his base at Kirknewton.

It was one of Scotland's worst murders and Walker was jailed for 30 years, later reduced to 27 years on appeal. At the time, it was the longest sentence ever handed down.

The soldiers had been collecting wages from the town's Royal Bank of Scotland. The lift wasn't a problem for paymaster Major David Cunningham, accompanied by Staff Sergeant Terence Hosker, on his first pay run after a transfer, and Private John Thomson. Walker had asked for one before.

But it wouldn't be long before the men realised something wasn't quite right.

Minutes later, Walker pulled out a sub-machinegun, signed out of the armoury that morning, and ordered them to turn left up the town's Mauricewood Road, instead of continuing straight on, back to barracks .

Witnesses reported seeing the Land Rover driving erratically, indicating a struggle inside. That was when the first shots were fired. Nearby residents recalled the sound of muffled gunfire.

S/Sgt Hosker got two rounds in the chest while Major Cunningham was shot through the ear, the bullet going straight through the windscreen.

At this point, Private Thomson was forced to keep driving up a deserted farm track past the Flotterstone Inn.

Clive, a retired prison inspector, said: "Thomson must have been petrified at this point. He was just a young laddie.

"Walker was probably telling him not to worry, that he wouldn't kill him. He didn't plan for the men to be shot then. He wanted to do it up in the hills."

What Walker didn't realise was that blood was seeping from the floor of the Land Rover on to the road.

"The blood was in the snow on the road, dots of it," said Clive. "I didn't realise till later but what I was seeing was the blood when he went up the road, and the blood when he came back down. Two sets of blood tracks.

"That was the thing that screwed him - the snow. It had started snowing that day for the first time that winter."

The monster forced young Thomson to help him carry the bodies from the Land Rover up to a lonely spot in the hills at Glencorse reservoir to hide them.

It was then he made his fatal mistake.

Clive said: "All the bullets before had travelled straight through the bodies.

"Sometimes bodies can twitch or move after death. That's what Hosker's body must have done.

"Walker panicked and shot another three rounds into him. They were three unnecessary and cowardly rounds, and one bullet lodged in his shoulder.

"It matched the sub-machinegun signed out by Walker that day."

The bullet provided crucial forensic evidence linking Walker to what became known as the Glencorse Massacre - despite his carefully planned alibi.

Clive, who was deputy commander of the SAS during the Iran embassy siege in 1980, has seen many horrific sights.

But the plight of his men, especially Private Thomson, a married father of one, is imprinted on his memory.

He recalled: "Walker shot him through the head, neck and forearm. He was trying to protect himself."

The three bodies were found lying side by side at the empty Loganlea cottage in the picturesque Pentland Hills, popular with walkers.

Thomson and Cunningham had been shot through the head and Hosker five times, three after his death.

It's thought Walker stashed the stolen cash - £18,600 in £10 notes, and £400 in £5 notes, which has never been found - somewhere up in the Pentlands before driving off in the Land Rover .

But he skidded in the deep snow and hit a wall.

He abandoned the vehicle - and only minutes later Clive and his regimental sergeant major found it. Clive said: "When I was told the pay team were late back, I reckoned the guys had gone for a beer at Flotterstone.

"That's the only thing I could think of.

But we alerted the police and went looking for them. This woman stopped me and said, 'Excuse me, are you Army?'.

"I said yes and she said 'Have you seen all this blood?'

"I thought someone had hurt themselves. It was not until I saw all the blood in the Land Rover, that I realised. I knew immediately it was an inside job.

"What I didn't know until much later was that Walker must have been standing in the trees watching me. If you go there now, there is still a mark on the wall where he crashed."

Walker took some of the cash and hitched back in the opposite direction to Fairmilehead and then back to Penicuik to pick up a yellow Fiat he had borrowed for the day .

"There was enough time for him to stop and get rid of the money," said Clive. "But he couldn't bury it because the ground was too hard. There were plenty of drystone dykes and rabbit holes to stuff it in, though.

"He couldn't afford to have the cash on him at Glencorse in case we searched the place. So he went to Loganlea to hide the money and to kill the men."

Walker actually told his wife Mary he had found a bag of money under a drystone dyke in the Pentlands.

He had thought up his detailed alibi in the preceding months. Having spent time in Northern Ireland, he knew IRA code words and planned to send one to newspapers in a bid to blame the robbery on terrorists.

Walker was so confident his plan would work, he ordered a new £8000 MG Maestro, telling the dealer he would pay for it in cash by the following weekend.

While working as an instructor at Glencorse, he had spent weeks meticulously planning the robbery.

At first, it looked like professional thieves. Police were sceptical one man could kill three soldiers.

But the Army's special investigation branch examined the list of weapons drawn on the Thursday morning at all four Edinburgh barracks and checked every one. Walker's story aroused immediate suspicion.

He said he needed it to give a firearms lesson to a corporal - but he knew nothing about it.

Walker said he had left the weapon in an office, which had already been searched for another item that day.

He said he had borrowed the yellow Fiat to go home for kit, but the mileage showed a longer trip. He also said he had been with a girlfriend in Edinburgh, but she had moved.

But the ammunition, which he had stolen months earlier, snared him.

Ejection marks on the cases, the striking mark on the detonator cap and the marks on the bullets created a forensic print that could only belong to the sub-machinegun issued to Walker.

Walker was arrested and charged on Saturday, January 19, and found guilty after a three-week trial that May.

Security arrangements at the barracks were criticised in the wake of the murders. But ironically when Clive took charge at Glencorse just weeks before the killings, he immediately spotted that the pay run, done at the same time every week by unarmed men, was an easy target for a robbery.

He said: "I arrived in December and gave Major Cunningham until the end of January to do something about it. I said: 'You are going to get done'.

"But I had no idea it was going to be murder. The men couldn't arm themselves so they were just the same as civilians."

The day before the robbery, Cunningham told Clive his suggested changes would be in tomorrow .

Clive added: "When I arrived at Penicuik, everybody said, 'Get rid of Walker'. I said 'Get me the evidence and I will'. His nickname was Billy Liar."

The week before the murders, Walker was absent from duty and later charged with lying. Clive sacked him, sending him back to his base with the Royal Scots at Kirknewton.

The Royal Scots were due to leave for Germany soon, so Walker was forced to carry out the robbery the next week, and from Kirknewton instead of Glencorse .

Clive said: "In a way, I accelerated the course of events because I sacked him. On the Friday, I found him guilty of lying, put him on a three-month warning, posted him back to Kirknewton and the last thing I said to him was 'I can see you in a blue suit, son, eating porridge'.

"He got the longest sentence anyone has been given - even Megrahi. It is a story of utter greed. He hoped he would get £70,000 to £80,000, but he only managed £19,000 .

"For weeks, he had been telling people he had a pools system and had had a few wins on it.

"His idea was to take them up the hill, kill them, dump the bodies and the Land Rover and be back in the barracks in 25 minutes.

"His alibi would be staff saying he was in the radius of the barracks and he would send the IRA code words to the papers and no one would ever suspect him.

"It could have worked ... if it hadn't been for the snow and that bullet."

Now that would be really wild camping. :greengrin

[The_Exile]

Might just stay in the hoose now :greengrin

Thanks folks :aok:

[CMurdoch]

The big clue is in the name. It's supposed to be wild so don't pitch a tent 20 yards from the side of a road on fragile sand dunes alongside 50 other people with the same idea.

It's all pretty simple. Don't camp in a field with animals or crops. Don't camp close to someone's home or property. Do your business more than 30 metres from water and bury it. Don't light a fire unless you really have to and keep it small. And most importantly leave no trace.

As for actual advice. Research your planned spot before you go. Get a decent water filtration system (I'd recommend a LifeStraw). There's only so much water you can carry and with a decent filter system you can cut down on unnecessary weight. Depending on how wild you are going have a map and compass and know how to use them. Have a decent camping stove. Don't carry too much stuff, in the summer with good weather forecast and if I'm at low level I quite often take a bivi bag instead of a tent.

There's loads of great resources online with suggested kit lists and recommended and reviewed spots.

Good post PB

[CMurdoch]

:greengrin

I liked your gamechanger, taking your own pillows.
Wife and I even do that when staying in hotels!