Our session leaders are experienced SEND professionals, and our camps aim to give every child the opportunity to spend quality time in nature. We aim to give as many children as we can a wonderful experience that they will remember for the rest of their lives.

Available Dates:

19th-22nd August (7-16 years)

Our four day programmes generally run as follows:

• Monday (10am-3pm): Meeting with the children at Treacle Valley for some fun outdoor games, and some sensory activities to switch on our senses and learn about some of the creatures we might find in the outdoors. Lunch is our special bannock bread, cooked by the children over the campfire!
• Tuesday (10am-3pm): Exploring the woods and taking part part in environmental activities and games, with some creative and artistic activities thrown in as the day goes on. Today is pancake day, don’t miss the spectacle of Rich attempting to toss a pancake without either burning it or flipping it into the fire.
• Wednesday/Thursday (5pm-midday, overnight camp): What an experience! Sunset games, fireside storytelling, a walk in the woods at night, marshmallows, breakfast around the campfire. For many children this is their first experience of camping and being away from home and they are always so excited and happy to join us. Children are accommodated in our giant bell tents and will only need minimal camping equipment – a sleeping bag and a torch – everything else is provided.

The format for young people aged 11-16 is similar but the activities are more mature and have a bushcraft/conservation focus. We generally include activities such as firefighting, knife and axe work and tracking with this age group.

The full programme costs £120 per child for the full four days. We can offer sibling discounts if you are booking places for more than one child. Our holiday clubs run at a small loss each year and we do not currently receive any external funding to provide them, but we want to be able to offer these experiences to as many children as possible. We understand that times are tough for lots of families, so if you would like your child to join our Treacle Valley Adventures but cost is an issue, then please let us know and although we can’t promise we will see what we can do.

For more information, please contact Rich at rich@taleblazers.org.uk or to book a place please complete the Microsoft Form below.

We have also ‘twinned’ our new toilet with a toilet in Nepal through Tearfund’s Toilet Twinning scheme, so a Nepali village has also benefitted from the installation of our loo! Rich and Elaine have a soft spot for Nepal, having spent some time out there in the early 2000s, so we loved to be able to support this brilliant scheme.

However, we intend to be running Taleblazers for a very long time! This means that DSRT could be waiting a long time before sharing any financial success. We have therefore decided to make a donation of £250 as a New Year’s gift to DSRT, as a kind of interim statement of our ongoing investment in the community and our desire for other organisations we love to benefit from our success.

Dartmoor Search and Rescue Team are a voluntary charity who help the emergency services to search for and rescue lost, missing, injured and vulnerable people. We most frequently associate them with finding lost walkers on the moors but they are also active in helping to find vulnerable people such as people with dementia, children and people experiencing mental health crises. Over 90% of their income is from donations and we are delighted to be in a position to support them.

At the same time, we have also decided to donate £100 to one of our favourite charities, the John Muir Trust, who conserve, protect and restore wild places across the UK. We share their passion for wild places and their John Muir Award programmes are central to our education work.

The big task of the day was the tarp line and Karl and I arrived early to get the rope in place. We harvested some saplings from the newly-levelled car park area and the team got to work sharpening these into points to use as stakes. Chris meanwhile was salvaging some boards to build a raised fire pit, removing old nails and screws and working with Hollie to cut them to size. It was an amazing team effort with everyone chipping in and showing the children how to use the knives!

The results are fantastic, I can’t believe that this overgrown patch of woodland has become such a wonderful space in such a short space of time and I am so grateful to everyone for all their efforts.

Our modern world simply doesn’t require the study of basic survival knowledge; knowledge that was once essential to our ancestors. Yet this understanding of the world around us equips us not only with ways to survive, but it gives us a sense of the interconnectedness of all things, and their mutual interdependence. It starts by learning the name of things, and then the whereabouts of those things, and then the properties of those things. What they might thrive near to. What they might need to grow. And gradually, a relationship develops along with an understanding.

Bramble can be used for cordage.  King Alfred’s Cakes can be used to keep an ember. Dried fern is good to catch the first light of a fire.    

This is where bushcraft comes in – a set of skills and techniques that enables individuals to live and survive in the wilderness, using only natural resources.

Bushcraft also offers numerous benefits to our students and young people, from building confidence and self-reliance to developing leadership skills and fostering a sense of community. So, what are some of the other benefits that we have seen from facilitating bushcraft skills?

Developing Self-Reliance and Problem-Solving Skills

Learning bushcraft skills encourages young people to think critically and develop their problem-solving skills. For instance, they might learn how to find and identify the right of wood to use for a fire, how to start and maintain a fire safely, and how to build a shelter using natural materials.

These skills require a deeper understanding of the natural environment and the resources available. By learning how to work with what nature provides, young people develop self-reliance and the ability to solve problems creatively, which can be applied in many areas of life.

Building Confidence and Resilience

Bushcraft can be challenging and requires determination and perseverance. As young people overcome obstacles and master new skills, they build confidence and resilience, which can help them to tackle challenges in other areas of their lives.

Bushcraft activities also require teamwork and communication, which helps to build social skills and a sense of community. Young people learn to work together to achieve common goals, which is a valuable lesson in any setting.

Connecting with Nature and Learning Environmental Stewardship

Bushcraft provides an opportunity for young people to connect with the natural world and to learn environmental stewardship. As they learn about the plants, animals, and resources in their environment, they develop an appreciation for the natural world and often cultivate a desire to protect it.

This connection with nature can also have positive effects on mental health, reducing stress and anxiety and promoting overall well-being. Once students understand more about a wild place, they often begin to feel a sense of safety there.

“In every walk with nature, one receives far more than he seeks” – John Muir

Developing Leadership Skills Outdoors

Bushcraft requires young people to take responsibility for their own safety and well-being, which helps to develop leadership skills. By learning to navigate the natural environment and work together as a team, young people can develop the confidence and skills to lead and direct others.

By developing self-reliance, problem-solving skills, confidence, and resilience, young people are better equipped to face the challenges of life. By connecting with nature and learning environmental stewardship, they can develop a greater appreciation for the natural world and become better stewards of the environment. And by developing leadership skills, they can become better equipped to lead others in any setting.

To find out more about our Bushcraft programmes, please get in touch.

Time – dating objects

The second session in January focussed on the theme; time. We learnt how we can date rocks using relative dating by comparing the rock to other rocks in order to decide if it is older or younger. Another method we learnt was ‘absolute dating’ where we measure the physical properties such as radioactive isotopes (radiocarbon dating, K-Ar, uranium) of the object itself and use these measurements to calculate it’s age. If you want to read into this more please visit; https://archaeology.ncdcr.gov/blog/2021-04-14/relative-absolute-dating

Below you can watch one of the videos from the session, which will take you through time by showing you the movements of the plate tectonics from 540Ma to the Modern time.

Life – Charles Darwin’s Finches

Last weekend the focus was on ‘life’ and with enthusiasm, Rich talked about Charles Darwin’s Finches. Charles didn’t realize it at the time, but the most important specimens that he brought back from the Galapagos were finches. Once back in England ornithologists John Gould examined the finches and discovered that Charles had brought back 13 different species of finch, and they were all unique to the Galapagos. This realization played a significant role in Darwin’s formulation of his theory of evolution. The most important differences between the finches were their beaks – some were small whilst others were large. The common theme was the availability to catch food. Their distinctive beaks being an adaptation to distinct natural habitats or environmental niches.

If you are intrigued and want to find out more about Charles Darwin’s Finches, why don’t you head over to this website to read some more; https://www.princeton.edu/news/2017/11/27/study-darwins-finches-reveals-new-species-can-develop-little-two-generations

If you are interested and would like to find out more about our course, please visit our website below.

Let me start by making this very clear: I do not love to write. Well, at least not mechanically.  

Being a comorbid dyspraxic has meant my life has been a constant struggle to get down the words in my head and transfer them to a physical medium, I cannot touch-type, my handwriting is almost illegible, 98% of it in block capitals and contains more misspelt words than you would expect from a gentleman with my erudition and vocabulary – sometimes the frustration and embarrassment of my condition is such that it will styme my efforts from the start and I regularly go months without writing at all. 

However, occasionally the mood will take me (or a deadline approaches and I find I can procrastinate no longer) and I pick up a Red and Black A4 notebook, one of my beloved Parker Jotters (black ink, never blue) and start scribbling down my nonsense. 

Whether it’s a ballad, a workshop plan, RPG scenario, a letter to a friend or just something completely silly, it all goes into my notebooks, some of it eventually gets transferred to a Word .doc but not much – mostly it stays in those A4 books, they get filled and filed into the bottom of my wardrobe and now at 45 years of age I have a small tower of them, 30 or more years of stories, ideas, poems, doodles and observations. 

Now I’m here writing my first Blog post.  

Blogging is one of those things that simply hasn’t ever appealed – the idea that strangers might enjoy reading my writing or be interested in what I have to say is laughable to me, having said that I hope someone does enjoy the effort – you should know that it took a lot longer than you’d imagine. Here I go… 

Autumn has well and truly descended upon us and with it all the colors, smells and traditions of the season. Reluctantly I return my shorts to the back of the wardrobe and pull forward the thicker, warmer clothes for Winter. Yet I am not miserable because with the colder weather comes Halloween, Bonfire Night and off in the distance there is the Winter Solstice and Christmas soon to come.   

As much as I love summer, this time of the year is my favourite, I have incredibly fond memories of bonfire nights at the Marshal’s family home as a child (I was the only one of my peers deemed sensible enough to light some of the fireworks) and Halloween has, at least in more recent years, been my preferred holiday. I enjoy the cold and crisp evenings and welcome the opportunity to sit out under a clear sky next to a flickering fire and tell ghost stories. 

I vividly remember the first ghost story I was told – it is a classic from the 80’s – Young lovers in their car drive into the woods. During the evening a thick mist descends, and the radio reports the recent escape of a brutal manic from an asylum in the local area. At one point the boyfriend has to leave the car, he insists his young lady opens the car door only when he knocks on the roof three times. Much later and with the woman in a state of high anxiety she is relieved to hear a knock on the roof and is about to open the door when the knock continues, well past three consecutive times, the knocking carries on all night and all through the night she remains huddled in terror within the automobile. Until finally, daylight arrives, the women gathers her courage and exits the vehicle…to find the severed head of her beau bouncing atop the car, suspended by a rope of intestines hung from a tree above. 

Hardly a subtle psychological thriller but I remember the shiver it gave me and the way it stayed with me long after the tale was told. I have enjoyed ghost stories ever since. 

So when Kate at Torre Abbey asked if Taleblazers wanted to put on a guided tour of the Abbey, focusing on the more spooky and supernatural stories that have grown up around the site we jumped at the chance and “The Terrible Tales of Torre Abbey” was born (Cue flash of lightning and roll of thunder). 

The remit: A 45 minute tour around the site for 2 nights tours, 3 tours per night, spooky but family friendly. 

Kate and Matt provided me with a whole heap of information including accounts of ghostly goings on stretching back through the Abbey’s 800-year history. There were regular sightings of apparitions, reports of poltergeist activity, horrible tales from the past and a few observations and feelings claimed to have been experienced by psychics on the occasions where they were allowed to survey the site. 

A lot of the information was very useful, I immediately saw potential in several of the accounts and fables but I found the psychic stuff left me cold – It might come as something of a surprise to hear that I am a sceptic…I don’t really believe in an afterlife, an immortal soul or the notion that the dead can communicate with the living. However, I am fascinated by the paranormal and further to that I enjoy stories, folk tales and mythology from all around the world – many of these things require you to suspend your disbelief and just roll with it for the sake of the story, something I am more than happy to do. 

I decided I wanted to include as much as I could that would complement the activities we already do with the fine folks at Torre Abbey, so I made sure I wrote sections that covered the Spanish Armada of 1558 and the Siege of the Abbey in 1351 – the two workshops we currently have available running at the site – and linked those into the ghost sightings. There was a wonderfully grisly tale of a fellow called William Anning who had his leg amputated in the Cary dining room, some various other reports of ethereal figures and I ended the tour in the Undercroft with a straight up Ghost Story that I wrote many years ago called “Blood and Gold” It has no basis in fact nor does it contain anything remotely historically accurate but it’s a great yarn in my opinion and well tested as I have been telling it for more than 15 years. 

I heartily enjoyed the two nights and the event bought in some lovely people (many who dressed up for extra spookiness) – we have some email addresses and hope to send out a little questionnaire later this month, all in all a great success, many thanks to the Torre Abbey crew and everyone who attended – I hope we can do it again next year, bigger and even scarier.