More about Wilderness Survival Skills courses, workshops, location and instructor
Joe O'Leary is the author of the popular survival and outdoor skills book, The Wilderness Survival Guide.
He teaches a wide variety of fun and informative courses combining up to date training and knowledge with traditional skills and crafts.
This mix of outdoors know-how provides a total package for anyone wishing to increase their confidence on the trail or learn more about natural history and traditional crafts.
All courses are run from a base camp hidden in the heart of a 2500 acre woodland surrounded by rolling hills and downland, near the village of Tisbury in Wiltshire.
These ancient woodlands are inspiring; a mix of old hazel coppice, twisted moss-covered oaks and silver birch with never ending views across the Wylye valley and beyond.
Workshops, training courses and private tuition are available for most of the year, ranging from introductory wilderness survival and bushcraft days, longer survival challenges (even in the Winter months), wild food and foraging days, advanced training in the most fundamental outdoor survival skills and woodland crafts, including wood carving, green woodworking, traditional hide working, bark crafts, basket weaving and even crafting your own soft soled moccasins or leather boots!
Traditional crafts tie in perfectly with bushcraft and survival training and should be viewed as a valuable extension to your knowledge; the next level of an existing foundation of skills.
Following the same principles as bushcraft, many traditional crafts utilise natural and renewable resources as their raw materials and can be achieved using simple hand tools, helping to complete the jigsaw and develop a genuine depth to your knowledge of nature and bushcraft.
Day workshops and courses generally run between 9am and 5pm and are spent entirely outdoors, however there are plenty of covered areas within the woods to enable lessons to carry on regardless of weather conditions. For the sharp eyed visitor, close neighbours will be Roe and Muntjac deer, foxes, hare, badgers and buzzards.
Those attending a multi-day course or workshop may appreciate the comfort of a local B&B or hotel, however camping overnight in the woods can also be arranged. Overnight survival and bushcraft courses often include their own free accommodation - a leafy bed in a shelter you have made from the woodlands around you, warmth and light provided by a crackling campfire!