Rainy Solo Hammock Camp on an E-Bike

Wow, what a mission that was. I think I made a terrible mistake today coming to this woodland. I've camped here before but usually from the other end so I follow the trowels. The trowels, this is completely unmanaged, completely overgrown, fallen trees everywhere. I pushed the bike most of the way. It was like carrying a canoe down a mountain in Sweden. Oh but I'm here now. That's a Himaway Cruiser. It's an e-bike I'm currently trying out actually but conditions are just too bad. There's fallen logs everywhere. It's very muddy from all the rain we've had over the last week. It's raining right now and it's very clayey mud as well. It's just sliding all over the place even with them big tyres. But as it's raining I think the first today. I also knew it was going to be muddy. I was warned but do I listen. I should have gone to my other location I had in mind. Just getting through them trees was very very hard work. Yeah walking most of the way and not carrying. I'm here now. I've got my tarp up, my hammock tarp. As you can probably guess I'm hammocking tonight. I may have to lift this up a bit. I was getting it up in a bit of a hurry. I didn't think about the height and the height of what the hammock will be. Yeah you'll be worried about fire and being out there. But I'm gonna have to do some firewood prep in a moment anyway. I'm not going to put the hammock up just yet. I want more sort of space under here just for and it looks like he had some wood left over from the last camp so he'll take advantage of it. This patch of moss looks pretty surprised. Come under the tarp because it's raining a lot harder now. I think I've got a lot of rain on the lens there. I think I've got enough big bits of wood. I just need to process them down a bit which I can do under the tarp here. I haven't got an axe with me today but I've got something more fun. If it clears up a bit this evening, I don't mind it raining overnight. I've got my Hudson Bay knife for processing down the wood. This is my when I don't want to carry As you can see, I've just been splitting the longer pieces I sawed rather than sawing them down into smaller bits. It saves some energy and some of them are pretty big. That knife is a very good battening tool. I might do this one again. It's pretty knotty this. I'm back under the tarp. It did pick up a bit but it's calming a little bit now. I'm glad I brought a tarp. I knew it was going to be raining so I wanted to be under a tarp and have some space for working and chilling out. The Amok was perfect really. The stuff sacks are small enough to fit in the pannier bags on the bike. You've got the Amok, the tarp and the mat as well. I wanted to use it because it's been a while. I've not used it since our Scandinavia trip and it's one of the things you can get out of the habit of using. There's a few tricks to getting in and out and things like that. That was real trial by fire taking that. Loved it though, worked out perfectly. I've lifted up the tarp another foot or so now so I should be swinging happy now. I got bored and processed some more of that wood. I should have quite a lot now. This is the Himiway Cruiser. I can't talk too much on it at the moment because I've pushed it more than I've ridden it to be honest. It's a fat boy tyre kind of mounting bike type thing. Not as specialised as the last e-bike I used on the channel, the Ranger. This one's got mud flaps. It's just a bit more livable for everyday use. Cheaper too. I'll have more of a play with it before I talk about it more. I've got some pannier bags with it. I bought a handlebar bag and I bought this dry bag that goes on top here as well. Just playing around with kit and stuff and seeing what I can do. I've got the same down top quilt as I used in Scandinavia. Just works well a top quilt with this because getting into a sleeping bag while trying to keep your centre of gravity can be a little tricky. But yeah, a top quilt. Just pull over yourself and I've got the winter light mat which is really warm. Just works well. What am I doing here? And when you, oh no, I've got an under quilt. Picked up the wrong bag. They don't have the name on them. Well, it's gonna have to do. And on the gear line inside I can put my lantern for when I'm in the hammock. Well, I'm all set up. Just a bit of a chill now, which is nice. I've got an hour before dusk I think. Just not really looking forward to dragging the bike out tomorrow. One good thing about it, it's got like a walking assist on it setting so you twist the throttle and you can actually walk it under power so it's doing a lot of the work which is good because I'm going over logs and through the mud and everything. Back wheel spinning getting over some of the logs. But it definitely helped. It definitely helped and it didn't get away from me or anything. Chilling down a little bit. It's not too bad. Weather's definitely starting to get a bit warmer and wetter. I think we got our April showers early. Like a week till clocks change as well. Heading into spring. Okay, there's no messing around today. Just a lighter and some fire lighters. There's the slightly soggy twigs I've collected. They're gonna smoke a bit. Then some small bits that I've battened down. It's all pretty damp. Though it's only spitting at the moment. It's such a drizzly day. Would bloody rain as soon as I light the fire. Seems to be doing okay. Oh no, it's getting worked. Getting a little heat off that now and it's spitting and dripping out the trees. But it's not too bad. Hopefully I hold off for a couple of hours so I can cook. I don't mind getting under the tarp after that. Got a pogo to start the night off. Cheers everyone. Oh it's such a good beer. I've actually got two more. I'm not just starting the night off with one. I'll have to get my Pusan chicken on soon. I don't think it's raining. I think that's just coming out of the trees. I think we've got a bit of a break. Yeah, I'm just gonna spit roast it on a TJM Metalworks mini spit which I've got with me. I was thinking lightweight and small things to pack. So here she is and the spit. storing meat when you're camping. This little Pusan, it's not super cold so it was in the fridge last night and I got up at six this morning, put it in the freezer and then left about nine half nine and it was, you know, not totally frozen. But I knew it'd be okay to use this evening. In the summer obviously that's very different. But you don't necessarily have to go out so early in the summer if you're doing a one-nighter because you actually have daylight like we will have in a week. It's actually quite a nice chilled camp. It was a bit of a struggle to get in but now I'm here it's quite nice and I'm quite liking the drizzle really. I don't think it's stopping all night and tomorrow morning so it's going to keep me company tonight on the tarp. In that simple theme I've got some ready-made rice, microwave rice, whatever you want to call it. I'm just going to heat up in my cup. A little bit of water in there. I've got some Dijon mustard, some vinegar and some honey here. Chicken's done so I'm just going to give it a good basting. Oh look at that, beautiful. Oh here we go, start with a leg I guess. Oh it's so juicy when cooked like this. Well that was delicious. I think I've got every last bit of meat off there so I'm just going to put a carcass on the fire. Get this fire built back up. I'll take these out as well. Well dinner was delicious. That honey mustard sauce, I'm so glad I did that. So a little while ago I ate dinner and now I've been sat here chilling by the fire for a bit, letting my dinner go down. I didn't film myself eating because I forgot my cutlery because I didn't bring my normal bag and I was filling up the bags on the bike. I got them out, I just didn't pack them for some reason so I ended up eating the chicken with my hands and the rice with the lid to my cup like a shovel. Not particularly elegant, adapt and overcome. I'm just going to chill out for a little while longer and make myself a hot drink I think. I'm quite looking forward to getting in the hammock actually, That water boiled almost instantly when it hit the coals. Oh that's what I need. Oh it's been a nice evening like I almost predicted. I just need it to rain when I get in the hammock now for the perfect night. It says there's going to be rain or you know 70-80 chance or whatever so we should do. Only thing's morning, I'll see what's going on then. Good morning. You know it's not rained in the last hour or so that I've been awake. The second I come out from under that tarp it starts. It's kind of a misty spitting at the moment. It lashed it down when I went to bed. It really did for three, four hours and then just the dripping out of the trees but I was pretty asleep by then just when I woke up to turn over or whatever. Slept pretty well, pretty well. You do what I find in a hammock I wake up when I need to turn over or something because I don't know if it's in your mind that you know because you have to keep your centre of gravity. It's easier to hold on while you do it. I've got to get this fire started, Well fire's lit. Just saw a buzzard fly over which was nice and yeah it's just this misty spitting rain soaking the camera. I'm going to get some breakfast on and it is sausages. Well it really doesn't look like much now but I was thinking of something that'd go on the spit so this and packed away I'm going to head out of here in a different direction or kind of swing around and try and find a track, a bigger track and hopefully there's less fallen trees. I might be able to give the bike a proper run but I'm not that hopeful because of all the rain last night and it was already pretty muddy so we'll see maybe I'll do a Simon and into the dirt. Yeah just looking forward to these two sausages. It's just a small breakfast today. Sorry to disappoint. While we're here I may as well do the wet weather test on the bike. Well I didn't have my helmet on. No need to remind me. I had the action camera around my head on the head strap. Anyway I'm getting close to the edge of the woodland now carefully. No more falls. I'll see you on the next one. Thanks for watching. Goodbye.