Have a mini-adventure close to home

6:21pm Tuesday 26th February 2008

IT is not too difficult these days to find a television programme or film showing some intrepid explorers pitting their wits, skills and strength to travel across some forbidding environment in a remote corner of the world. Here in Britain we have few areas left that you could describe as wild and untamed for us to challenge our need for exploration.

Scotland has some wonderful wild areas as does, to a lesser extent, the mountains of Wales but is it possible to have a wilderness experience or an adventure here in the Wyre Forest?

Fortunately, with a little imagination, it is possible to find yourself a mini-adventure by just parting from the paths and opting to take the direct route between two points.

The runner-up in any contest on what has to be the harshest local environment has to be wet woodland.

Try crossing it in the summer and it is an impenetrable a jungle as you are likely to find anywhere.

One of the principle trees of this woodland is crack willow, notorious for snapping off, and these form a tangle of broken limbs for you to climb and crawl under. Growing through this tangle are 6ft tall nettles and sadly in most cases 8ft tall Himalayan balsam, both making seeing more than a couple of inches in front of you impossible.

This tangle of vegetation makes the air very still and humid, making the wood feel a good few degrees warmer and stickier than anywhere else.

Filling this still thick and sticky atmosphere are millions and millions of biting flies that have been breeding in the wet woods marshy woodland floor.

There is though in my opinion a worse place and this is scrubland. There are a few biting flies in this habitat but the worst of it is the plants which try to strip flesh from your bones.

Like wet woodland, the vegetation is usually around the 6 to 8 foot level and so dense you can hardly see your hand in front of your face. The plants that make up scrubland are usually well endowed with spikes, the least offensive being gorse and bramble, both of which liberally tear at you.

Then comes hawthorn and its bigger and nastier relative the blackthorn. This frequently beautiful hedgerow plant is armed with thorns that can be up the 10cm in length and strong enough to puncture Land Rover tyres. Never underestimate black thorn and always treat it with respect or you can end up with some very serious injuries.

The worst is rose. Beautiful it my be but its tough backward pointing thorns lie almost invisible in the tangle of the other scrub and when blundered into can take serious chunks of flesh off.

I can remember having to rescue a member of staff who got hopelessly lost in one area of scrub. I don't think they have ever ventured back in.

Sometimes going through a bit becomes unavoidable and then the secret is to fix points to move towards like prominent trees to stop yourself getting disorientated and to move slowly and carefully and unpick thorns before they do too much harm.

This is easier said than done as it's hard to see through the scrub and you have just stepped on a wasps' nest.

A half an hour in either of these environments is probably as much more of an adventure as most of us will ever want.

Unfortunately you won't be able to boast about it as few will ever understand its challenges and tribulations and more exotic sounding escapades seem to win the boasting stakes every time.

EDITORS CHOICE