JO DYSON: Hello and welcome to the National Trust podcast. I'm

Jo Dyson Adventure enthusiast and Communications manager at

the National Trust. Today, I'm in Poole Harbour on the

southwest coast of England. And I'm heading to a little island

renowned for its rare species, to learn all there is to know

about a great British pastime - camping.

I've loved camping since I was a child, but I'm no expert. So

joining me on this adventure is Sian Lewis. As well as being a

very experienced camper. Sian is also the author of the National

Trust's book, Wild Escapes, which showcases 40 of Britain's

wildest locations including where I'm headed - Brownsea

Island.

Thanks to a group of adventure loving boys in 1907, Brownsea

Island became the birthplace of scouting, and is where history

and the great outdoors merge to create a unique camping

experience.

Just strolling along the harbor front. It is a hive of activity,

more industrial than I thought actually, you can see lots of

cranes in the background, and this must be the cafe where I

said I would meet Sian.

Sian.

SIAN LEWIS: Hey, lovely to meet you.

JO DYSON: I've long followed your outdoor adventures on

Instagram. So I'm so excited that we're going to be going on

an adventure of our own. Should we go and get that boat then?

SIAN LEWIS: Yeah, let's do it.

GENERIC: Brownsea? Brownsea?

JO DYSON: So the ferry has just set off from Poole Harbour -

It's already becoming a slight dot in the distance and it's

pretty calm today, there's just little waves and the light is

really glistening off the top of them. What got you into all the

sort of adventures and travel?

SIAN LEWIS: I've been into camping and swimming since I was

little. I still think I love to just head off with a tent and a

swimsuit and, and go exploring, especially in the UK. We've got

some really amazing wild corners to discover.

JO DYSON: What are some of your sort of favourite places in the

UK?

SIAN LEWIS: Probably my favourites are the islands

because they're just so special and they really give you that

feeling of escaping from real life. So there's Brownsea which

we're going to today, there's also the Isles Of Scilly off the

Cornish Coast and there's also Eilean Shona, in Scotland in the

Inner Hebrides, which is where J M Barry was inspired to create

Neverland where Peter Pan lives and it really does feel like a

Neverland. So I think probably the islands are my, are my

secret favourites.

JO DYSON: To really get away from it all.

SIAN LEWIS: Yeah.

JO DYSON: That was so quick. I feel like we've only just got on

the boat and we're here already and it just seems worlds away,

doesn't it? From the busyness of Poole Harbour, and now we're

presented with this really sort of serene landscape.

SIAN LEWIS: Yeah so you can also kayak straight to the island, or

get the ferry which only takes 20 minutes. So it's actually

pretty close to the mainland even though it really feels like

a different world.

GEORGIA SIMPKIN: Jo! Sian! Hi!

JO DYSON: Oh, hello. You must be Georgia?

GEORGIA SIMPKIN: Yes Welcome to Brownsea Island. I am, I'm

Georgia. I'm the outdoor holidays manager.

JO DYSON: So we're surrounded by turreted buildings, presumably

we're not camping right here?

GEORGIA SIMPKIN: That's correct. So this is, just the entrance to

the island. The campsite is around a 20 minute walk from

here. But on normal occasion, we run our luggage runs. So you

would put all your gear in at one of our trailers and then we

would take it up to the campsite for you. But on this occasion,

we do have a vehicle.

JO DYSON: Right shall we get going then?

SIAN LEWIS: Yeah, let's go.

GEORGIA SIMPKIN: Here we are! We've arrived at the campsite.

JO DYSON: What a beautiful spot with sea views. What are all

these signs?

GEORGIA SIMPKIN: So, these are all from scouts and guides that

have come to camp and stay on the island all the way from

Australia to South America, so from all over the place.

JO DYSON: I love the fact that they're all unique.

SIAN LEWIS: Some from the 1990s and earlier so they're grown ups

now.

GEORGIA SIMPKIN: Absolutely and we do get them return as well.

SIAN LEWIS: How many scouts do you have here camping a year?

GEORGIA SIMPKIN: At the moment We've got over 1000 booked in

for this year. So it's just growing each year. So we've

actually got some scouts just around the corner that we can go

and meet at the trading post.

So this is Alex and Lucy who are part of LilIiput Sea scouts.

JO DYSON: Nice to meet you. So Sea scouts? not just any old

Scout!

ALEX: There's also land scouts and air scouts.

JO DYSON: The neckerchiefs around your neck, what's the

sort of knots around that?

ALEX: We've got a woggle land scouts and other scouts normally

have a leather one, but just because we're more affiliated

with the Sea, we've got a rope on which we tied ourselves.

JO DYSON: But Lucy, you've got, you've got something metal in

your woggle of your neckerchief.

LUCY: So this is the bosun's pipe.

JO DYSON: Can I hear what it sounds like?

LUCY: Yes, of course.

JO DYSON: Oh, that's brilliant.

SIAN LEWIS: And the colours of your neckerchief are your Scout

group?

ALEX: That's our Scout group so we've got red and white and red

and yellow, but other Scout groups have got different. So if

we have a look inside the trading post, whenever a Scout

group comes and camps on the island, they'll leave a

neckerchief as memorabilia.

So we've got some from Sri Lanka, some from Australia on

the roof. So there's hundreds of them just hanging.

JO DYSON: Oh my gosh. There are so many and there's so much

memorabilia as well around the shop. Look at all these

beautiful old photos.

LUCY: And here you're looking at the first Scout camp which

happened in 1907. Lord Baden-Powell came over to the

island for the first Scout experimental camp.

KEVIN PHILLIPS: The story starts a little bit earlier in 1900

Baden-Powell had returned from the siege of Mafeking. He was

very much a war hero. He'd already written a book on the

subject of scouting to use by non commissioned officers and

men.

I'm Kevin Phillips, chairman of the Brownsea Island Scout and

Guide heritage Trust.

While on a fishing holiday, he met Charles and Florence van

Raalte. They had a home in London and on Brownsea Island on

hearing about Baden-Powell's ideas, they invited him to use

their island for his experimental camp and so on the

first of August 1907, Baden-Powell brought 20 boys to

Brownsea.

He formed them into four patrols each with a patrol leader. And

then over the next 10 days, they were introduced to a range of

activities which would form the chapters of his planned book "

Scouting for Boys".

The association aims to provide fun, adventure, skills for life

and have the opportunity to reach their full potential.

Today, there are 57 million scouts in 175 national Scout

organizations worldwide.

JO DYSON: All these badges that you have - I noticed quite a few

sort of sailing boats on...

ALEX: When you're doing the activities in scouts, you often

get badges for it. So I've got a sailing badge, arts and crafts,

and pioneering. I quite like my navigation skill because it

means outside of scouts, there's no one there to support you when

you're on your own. I can go out with my friends, go camping and

I can navigate, and you feel safe because you know your

skills.

LUCY: I joined the sea scouts, not having many friends. Now,

I've got like lifetime friends forever.

JO DYSON: Too many friends.

SIAN LEWIS: It's amazing that you can still camp on the same

site today. Really cool.

LUCY: However, it used to be just for scouts and guides and

then after lockdown after we reopened again, they opened it

to the public.

JO DYSON: Oh, amazing, so we're about to have a very unique

experience!

ALEX: Enjoy your camp!

JO DYSON: Thank you so much.

Oh, it's a beautiful spot, Georgia. I love how it's

surrounded by trees, but then we're so close to the shoreline

as well.

GEORGIA SIMPKIN: So you'll probably notice we've got no

designated spots, so we don't have marked out pitches or

anything like that. As long as you leave a 6m distance between

yourself and any other tent, there's also really good beach

access from here so you can go off and have a swim in the

evening. If you see that flag pole over there? This actually

marks the spot where Baden-Powell pitched his first

experimental camp. so if you do want to, you can pitch in that

spot and you'll be reliving history.

JO DYSON: Great. Well, should we go and pitch our tent?

SIAN LEWIS: Yeah. Sounds brilliant.

GEORGIA SIMPKIN: Lovely, I'll say goodbye guys. Enjoy your

night.

JO DYSON: Thank you. Thanks, Georgia.

So how do we know where the perfect place to pitch is?

SIAN LEWIS: Yeah so normally what you're looking for is a

nice, generously sized, flattish area or on a very slight slope

if it is going to rain because then you know, the water's going

to drain away. And you want to avoid anything directly under a

tree or a rock face just in case anything wants to tumble down

onto your tent.

JO DYSON: I remember waking up on a slight incline once and

having the blood rush to my head, so if we are on a slight

slope-

SIAN LEWIS: yes head at the top of the slope!

JO DYSON: Right Sian so before we pitch, what sort of kit do we

always need on a camping trip?

SIAN LEWIS: So, obviously you do need some sort of tent. The real

basics that I think are, the real essentials are a nice comfy

sleeping bag. And you also need a camping mat that will keep you

better insulated if it's a bit chilly as well. You always want

to pack lots of water and then it's also really handy to have

some sort of little light for the evenings like a head torch.

JO DYSON: How do you know what sort of tent?

SIAN LEWIS: There is a big range so it is worth picking a tent

that suits the kind of camping you've got in mind. So you can

go from everything from a basic kind of little pop up tents

which are brilliant for festivals, then you can get

quite lightweight one and two man tents which are often called

backpacking tents, then you're looking at family friendly tents

and one technological innovation that's really helped with bigger

tents is air beam technology, which essentially means that

instead of big unwieldy metal poles, you're using air instead

to fill the poles of your tent. It actually makes for a really

sturdy, solid structure so it's going to be windproof and

weather proof as well. And that's what we're going to try

out today! So we've actually got Vango Brecon Air 450 air tent.

So I'm going to get it out and show you. You can inflate it

using a hand pump, which makes using a bigger tent a little bit

more accessible.

JO DYSON: Ok so I'm just rolling it out now.

SIAN LEWIS: That's definitely the ground sheet this darker

grey so if we lay that out flat, we'll see the shape of our tent.

JO DYSON: Oh, wow, this is huge.

SIAN LEWIS: It is.

So we've got the shape of our tent now so what we want to do

is peg out the four corners so it's nice and tight. And

something that I find really helps with that is, if we're at

opposite corners of the tent right now so if we pull those

corners tight and peg them out, it gives you a nice taut ground

sheet.

JO DYSON: Excellent idea.

It's like it's coming alive.

SIAN LEWIS: So you want to inflate it fully so it feels

nice and sturdy, it's getting there. And when you start to

feel resistance in the pump we'll stop.

JO DYSON: Yeah, I mean, I can now.

SIAN LEWIS: Brilliant. And then we'll do the next one.

JO DYSON: That probably only took a few seconds to blow up?

Didn't it? that one beam.

SIAN LEWIS: A lot of air tents only take 10 minutes. It's

definitely easier when you've done it once and you know what

you're doing.

Using guy ropes and pegs to secure the tent in place, makes

it much sturdier and is especially key if it's a really

windy day.

JO DYSON: Well, I think that's the last peg now, isn't it Sian?

SIAN LEWIS: Yeah, it was pretty quick. Well done.

JO DYSON: This is going to be such a memorable camping trip

for me, I mean, you must have so many memorable trips?

SIAN LEWIS: So probably the most memorable night I spent out in

the wild is doing something called Cliff camping.

JO DYSON: Cliff camping?

SIAN LEWIS: I don't know if you've ever seen any photos of

pro climbers where they'll climb a section of a big wall and then

they'll camp out on these little platforms which are called

Porter Ledges, which are literally hanging on to the

cliffside and you abseil down to a platform that's suspended from

the cliffs and you're harnessed in for the whole night and then

you just sleep out in the wild and you've got the Sea far below

you and you've got the wild birds kind of circling around

you and it is pretty scary, but also really magical.

JO DYSON: I mean did you actually get any sleep or were

you just petrified?

SIAN LEWIS: It's probably not much fun if you're really scared

of heights, but you do relax and as it gets dark it's, it's

actually surprisingly peaceful.

JO DYSON: Yeah, I can't imagine sleeping suspended in the air.

SIAN LEWIS: Well, actually I've got a little bit of a surprise

for you tonight! You're not actually going to join me in

this tent.

JO DYSON: Oh, right. You just got me to help you put it up.

SIAN LEWIS: I did because Brownsea Island offers something

slightly different, called a tree tent. And I thought you

might want to check that out tonight instead. Should we go

and have a look?

JO DYSON: Yes!

Oh my Gosh! I've never seen anything like it.

SIAN LEWIS: Yeah so what you've got is a triangular structure

that's pulled really tightly, kind of like slack lines if you

ever had a go on them? So they're attached to three trees

so you get a taut triangle and you can just see under here and

that basically becomes your ground sheet so that's what

you're going to sleep on. And if you give it a feel it's actually

pretty solid!

JO DYSON: Oh gosh it's really taut!

SIAN LEWIS: And then on top you have a traditional tent

structure, so it's a dome and this is your outer fly sheet,

which is going to keep you dry and then underneath you've got a

little bonus, you've got a little hammock to hang out in as

well.

JO DYSON: And I have a sea view from my hammock!

SIAN LEWIS: And a sea view!

JO DYSON: This is amazing. I mean, I, I will be sleeping

suspended what sort of a meter and a half in the air would you

say?

SIAN LEWIS: Yeah.

JO DYSON: Oh my gosh. I mean, this is an absolute first for

me.

SIAN LEWIS: Well, we'll call this Cliff camping for beginners

and you can see if you like it. So if you want to pop your stuff

inside the tent, now, we've got a few hours of downtime before

our next adventure, which is a night safari with the island

ranger. So maybe we could go for a little swim?

JO DYSON: I would absolutely love to go for a swim.

Sian, it's been such a brilliant day and actually it's just so

peaceful now, isn't it that all the day trippers to the island

have gone? And now it seems like it's pretty much just us and the

peacocks.

BEN BEACHAM: Hello.

JO DYSON: Oh, Ben! Great to meet you, I'm Jo.

SIAN LEWIS: I'm Sian. Nice to meet you.

BEN BEACHAM: You too. So, the plan this evening, we're gonna

go and see if we can look for some nightjar. I think we're

gonna start, we'll just have a look around some of the habitats

we've got on the island and then we'll see what we can see on the

way.

JO DYSON: Wonderful.

BEN BEACHAM: Let's go.

JO DYSON: So, Ben, it's a different sort of landscape up

here slightly, isn't it?

BEN BEACHAM: So, the island's predominantly woodland, so it's

pine woodland. We've got Scots and maritime pine and then we've

got the area that we're just coming up to now is our sort of

only bit of open heath.

JO DYSON: This is so beautiful.

BEN BEACHAM: So, at the moment we've got the, the bell heathers

just coming into flower.

JO DYSON: It's a really bright, vivid purple, isn't it?

SIAN LEWIS: So, is this quite rare heathland?

BEN BEACHAM: Yeah. So, in Dorset over the last couple of

centuries we've lost up to sort of 80% of our heathland. So, the

bits that we do have are very important and because we have

the squirrels on the island rather than reverting everything

to heathland, we're reversing it to wooded heath.

SIAN LEWIS: Can you tell us more about the red squirrels on

Brownsea? Because it's something quite special about the island,

isn't it?

BEN BEACHAM: Yeah, it is. Yeah, it's, one of only two places in

Southern England that you can find them. So here and in the

Isle Of Wight. But, yeah, we've got a population of between 200

to 250. We're very happy that they're here.

Yeah, this area where we're stood now actually is probably

richest area for sort of rare species. Last year we had a pair

of Dartford Warbler nesting in a patch of gorse just over there.

We also have sand lizards. So the males are bright green this

time of year and they bathe in the sun on the edge of the path.

So, we're going to go and see if we can look for some nightjar.

I don't know whether you know much about nightjar?

SIAN LEWIS: No I don't!

BEN BEACHAM: So they're a very difficult bird to see during the

daytime. They're ground nesters and they're cryptically

camouflaged. So they look like bark, so they look like a tree

or the ground. So the only really easy way to, to find them

is listening for their calls. And that their calls are

mechanical, it doesn't sound like any other type of bird. It

sounds possibly more like a frog or something like that. So,

yeah, you'll definitely know what it is when you, when you

hear it.

JO DYSON: What was that?

BEN BEACHAM: There's a nightjar. Can you hear? There it is, over

here somewhere. There, there it is!

So the, the songs are territorial. They're attracting

a mate and they're warding off other males and then they will

come out and they will display and then they'll probably go off

and start foraging.

JO DYSON: And when you say they do a display, what does that

look like?

BEN BEACHAM: So, the males have, white tips to the end of their

wings and the, the end of their tail feathers and they fly,

they'll fly around the territory trying to attract a mate. They

clap their wings sort of above their head. Makes quite a loud

noise.

Yeah, there's one.

So he's definitely come to have a look at us there.

SIAN LEWIS: His movements so interesting. It's like an

animatronic bird.

BEN BEACHAM: Like a string puppet.

SIAN LEWIS: Yeah exactly!

BEN BEACHAM: So if you put your hands like next to your ears it,

it'll amplify the sound.

JO DYSON: It does.

BEN BEACHAM: Yeah, looks cool as well, doesn't it?

JO DYSON: Oh, yeah.

BEN BEACHAM: So, yeah, I think we might leave them to it now.

SIAN LEWIS: It was really special.

JO DYSON: Right. So, we head back to the campsite then?

SIAN LEWIS: Yeah.

JO DYSON: What a view! That is just beautiful. Looking up

through the trees that my tent has been tied to and beyond the

branches, I can see the sea. This is such a serene place to

wake up to.

Let's see what Sian's up to.

Morning Sian! That smells delicious!

SIAN LEWIS: Yeah, I've got some coffee on the go and I'm making

us some breakfast. I'm doing some porridge and some

caramelized nuts to go on top.

JO DYSON: Oh, my gosh, that sounds incredible.

SIAN LEWIS: How did you sleep?

JO DYSON: Surprisingly well! Actually, once I've managed to

climb into the tree tent, I felt really quite supported. And

actually the hammock feeling just sort of makes you feel

cocooned.

SIAN LEWIS: Was it nice to wake up on the peaceful island?

JO DYSON: It was, it just feels that we're a million miles away

from the mainland.

SIAN LEWIS: It is such a wonderful place to be. And I

think, you know, you only have to be here for a day or two and

you really relax because there's no cars. It's a haven for

nature. It just feels like a really special place to escape

to.

JO DYSON: Where should we go for our next wild escape?

SIAN LEWIS: Should we graduate to Cliff camping next?

JO DYSON: I don't know about that! One step at a time.

Thank you for listening to the National Trust podcast. If you'd

like to book a stay on Brownsea Island, there's information in

this episode's show notes along with a link to the Wild Escapes

book where you can read about other amazing places to stay.

For now from me, Jo Dyson, goodbye.