Inside Freezone Festival
Well, well, well! What an incredible weekend.
The Bushcraft Bus parked up for 4 days in the beautiful grounds of Gaunts House, where we delivered our first ever festival experience! This blog will run through the festival, what we got up to and what else was going on while we were there.
About Freezone
Freezone Festival is described as a mega-conscious event, hosting a huge array of mindful, meditative, wholesome workshops and experiences to help people connect, heal and grow, whilst supporting the important work of the Freezone Retreat charity, established to help people in abstinence based recovery. More information can be found here: https://freezonefestival.co.uk/
Freezone
The event was full of incredibly kind and welcoming people, from the wonderful volunteers greeting us on the gate and topping up the loo roll (a very important job I’ve experienced at another event in the past!!) to the workshop hosts, musicians and attendees. Lot’s of families attended, and an entire field was dedicated to keeping the kids entertained, engaged and educated. Which is where the Bushcraft Bus was in its element 😀
What We Got Up To
Bushcraft Bus Session at Freezone Festival
Each day we ran 2-3 sessions for excited young people from the ages of 5 to 16, as we worked our way through different fire lighting methods, attempting solar, chemical, friction and making lots of sparks! We used man-made tinders, as well as accelerants and coal extenders available in the wild, teaching kids how to identify, safely harvest and process. Topping the days off with a group fire build, using fatwood to ignite the fire, and roasting pineapples over the embers.
Tom Chops Pineapple for Roasting
We foraged in the hedgerows, made linden tea using lime leaves (very popular - with one kid yelling “this is the BEST THING I'VE EVER DRANK!) and challenged them to find and identify 16 trees from the leaves we collected around the site. We even built a tripod, tied paracord around it to form a giant spider's web and decorated it with twigs, cones, leaves and flowers we found on the woodland floor.
What Else Was There?
The days were packed with tons of workshops and performances for everyone. Music highlights on the Monastery of Sound stage included Mobius Loop and Bob Hillary. There were many spectacular performances though, and it was a shame we couldn't catch all of them.
One of the tents during a yoga session
We were extremely impressed with the work ethic and quality of both The Flying Seagull Project and the lovely Lewis and Lola’s circus skills and slackline workshops. Both of these groups were out in the roaring sun performing at 100% for hours and hours.
The Flying Seagulls are an inspiration - delivering community, fun and learning across the world to the people who need it most! Check them out here: https://www.theflyingseagullproject.com/
Flying Seagulls
And if you ever need a couple who are kind, patient and skilled at slacklining and circus wizardry, please check out Lewis and Lola https://www.airbnb.co.uk/experiences/3545302
We managed to catch a couple of the workshops too - foraging with Jack from Forage for Knowledge who blew us away with his plant knowledge, enthusiasm and delivery.
As well as a heart-warming and thought provoking men’s circle in the woods with Layne from Arising Man. His calm and collected manner, and honest approach to talking about his own experiences and the things we can do in our life to improve our well being, connection and place, was fantastic. https://www.arisingman.com/
We also squeezed a yoga session in with Yoga with Kamini - absolute pleasure to meet her!
Food-wise, there was a modest offering, well priced and very tasty! We devoured the vegan chili. The caterers did a great job, were friendly and clear with communication. We took our own plates and cutlery which saved us some money too!
We must also give a shout-out to Bri’s Chai! Brian is one of the guys behind the event, and in his travels has learned to craft a traditional Chai tea recipe which was quality. Again, with a vegan option, the freshness of the ingredients packed the exact punch I miss most from India!
Conclusion
We loved it!! And both really hope we can return next year…. maybe see you there!
Bushcraft Bus with Jim and Tom
