Northern Ireland Outdoors Forum - Hiking, camping and more
Information => Introductions => Topic started by: Adamski on August 14, 2010
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Hi folks
What a great forum! Cant believe I havent discovered it before now.
My 6 year old son and I are planning our first wild camp on Trostan. We live in the Glens so it is handy for us. I have been up Trostan many times and have wild camped a fair bit but not at Trostan. My son does a lot of low level walking round and about. He's a great wee walker and has me tortured since ne was 4 to take him "up the mountains" I told him I would when he was 6 so here we go!
The missus will drop us at Essathohan Bridge and we will go up from there by way of the forest perimeter.
Now for the questions!
Can anyone reccommend a camp site? I cant recall any obvious ones. Would the top be suitable, or too exposed? We plan to go within the next couple of weeks.
Has anyone any experience of "toileting" a six year old boy in the wild? Without being too indelicate, I'm a bit concerned about his ability to squat unsupported!!
Any other tips would be most welcome.
Thanks
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Hello and welcome mate.
There are plenty of good spots along the ulster way section of troston to camp.
With regards to the toilet put his back against a tree/wall and go for it.
It works for 4 year old.
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Hi Adamski,
Good to see your youngster taking such an interest in getting out, trostan is to exposed only an edjit would want to camp on top of it. Stick to the forest tree line that you come out of when heading up there it will be much better for your young fella. Toileting is easy show him how to squat with his back against a tree, make a small depression beside the tree trunk for his doings to drop in. Use large foxglove leaves as toilet paper nice and soft better than dock theres less smearing and more wiping! (bit graphic for some im sure).
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Hi and welcome :-)
I have a 2 boys 4,5 year old when it comes to the first wild poo they talked more about it to there mother than the camping :-) I brought wipes with me for the clean up then buried , they now both are able to go on their own and leave no trace on the ground or on the bum . Once the first one is done it's plane sailing .
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Welcome to the forum Adamski
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Hi Adamski, welcome to the forum.
Speaking of outdoor toileting, the last time we went up Trostan from Glenariff we came across a random toilet on a section of foresty track. It was a proper flushing toilet with some fencing around it to make a small cubicle. Seemed like a bit of open air outdoor luxury!
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:D Thank you all very much. Never thought of the tree support. Great idea.
Adamski
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Welcome Adamski.
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I'd potentially agree with some of the posters above - the Trostan summit could be windy. Walk the path up through the forest and poke your nose out and if it's nice and calm then summit-bivi the life out of that bad boy, if it's breezy just duck back into the forest and camp there. Toileting wise, outdoors pooing is suprisingly natural (evolutionarily speaking toilets are pretty recent). Just teach him how to pick a good spot that has nothing stingy about but at 6 he's probably too young to get overly technical about it. Just keep it simple.