Where to Practise Bushcraft in Wales
With its rolling mountain ranges and huge flowing forests, Wales has some of the best spots to practice bushcraft. It has three main mountain ranges and due to its shape, a massive amount of coastline and dozens of beaches, giving you a huge amount of choice in a reasonably small country. Wales has the same laws relating to bushcraft as England does and unfortunately doesn’t allow wild camping.
Snowdonia
Navigation, Endurance, Camping
Mount Snowdon is the highest mountain in Wales and stands at 1,085 meters tall. The Snowdonia mountain range contains many peaks, all of which are very well documented and have many maps based on them. Because this mountain is so popular you won’t have to go far to find a campsite, and apparently camping openly on some of the mountains is allowed as long as you get permission first.
This would be one of the best places to practice some navigation skills, especially trying to find nautical directions without a compass and experiencing the weather changes at such a high altitude. Unfortunately, it’s a very poor area when it comes to foraging, and most of the mountains contain very little forest and due to the limited plant types, there is next to no wild food.
Preseli Hills
Long-distance hiking
The Preseli hills aren’t the biggest set of bumps Wales has to offer, but their gentle slopes and flowing landscape make for an excellent hiking experience. Numerous Iron Age monuments scatter the hilltops and there are some excellent views of the countryside. The main downside to this area is that the hills are very bare, and in places, the ground can be very wet and marsh-like. Handy if you want to practice some water purifying but can be difficult to walk on.
There are a few isolated patches of pine forest and large areas of mountain marsh, but little in the way of wild food variation, though the Iron Age sites are worth a walk past. There isn’t much to see as they were all burial mounds consisting of piles of stacked stone, and each one was plundered long ago, but they still make an interesting sight.
Brecon Beacons
Foraging, Camping, Hiking, and navigational skills.
This is the place where the British S.A.S do part of their recruiting, with a horrific 16-mile run carrying heavy backpacks running up and down the slopes. This test is so hard that some of the people who tried out in the past have died from exhaustion or overheating. Fortunately, if you’re not trying out for one of the best special forces units in the world then this place can be a wonderful experience. The area covers well over 1000 square kilometers and has everything you could ever want to practice some bushcraft.
Forested mountainsides, numerous lakes and streams, and a decent amount of foraging make this one of the top choices. Snowdonia is bigger and more impressive, the Preseli hills make for much easier walking, but the Brecon Beacons really do have it all. The forests contain many types of mushrooms and edible leaves and fish can be caught in some of the bigger lakes, though make sure you have permission first. There are several campsites located around the area and it’s possible to spend a day hiking from one to another.
Clocaenog Forest
Foraging, camping, crafting
Wales doesn’t have any huge forests, and what it does have doesn’t even come into the top ten biggest in the UK. However, the closest thing would be Clocaenog Forest, which covers around 40 square miles and has a nice blend of pine and mixed trees. This is a great place to work on some crafting skills, as there are enough remote places to use your knife and axe without scaring the crap out of people. Just make sure you have permission from the landowner of whatever part of the forest you’re in.
There are campsites and several hotels and overnight places to stay in the area, but it would be difficult to find the owner of the piece of land you wanted to camp on, as most of the area is privately owned.
The Towy Esturey
Foraging
Llansteffan is a small village located on the mouth of the Towy estuary and is one of the best spots for seafood in all of Wales. There are huge commercial-sized cockle beds on the further out areas of the beach, and mussels can be found in isolated rock pools. There are several estuary rivers that all flow into the same opening, giving you the choice of which village you’d like to stay in, but Llansteffan offers the most variety when it comes to wild food. There is also a large marsh directly west of the village that has marsh samphire growing there, but be careful when moving around the very flat beach and its fast-moving tide.
The hill next to the beach with the castle on it is covered in wild garlic and a good selection of edible leaf plants and a few berries. There’s a place to camp in the village but nowhere to pitch a tent in the wild. The area is reasonably small but offers a huge amount of things to forage, and nothing beats fire cooking some freshly gathered cockles and mussels.
Where else to practise bushcraft in Wales?
There are many places in Wales that are quite remote, especially in the south-west of the country. Driving down some of the back roads will see you discover a mystical-looking forest or the perfect river spot, but because the country is so small you can’t really find anywhere that’s classed as wilderness.
I have learned something from personal experience about Wales when it comes to seeking land permission to camp or make a fire, or generally be on someone’s land doing something. If you are polite and simply ask, then as long as they don’t have livestock in the area then there’s a very high chance they’ll say yes. Be polite and be safe, and you’ll be surprised by all the areas that open up to you.
