Camping in a River Valley - The Rain is HERE! | Ep 3

Description

I spent the last few days of my Lake District trip camping in a river valley surrounded by Mountains. I wake up at 4:30am to go hiking to try and get a photo and learn beginner photography tips from landscape photographer and fellow youtuber Thomas Heaton. Tom has customised his van to suit his photography needs, he's sure got the van life nailed! Tom gives a tour of his awesome van conversion and we plan a route for the ideal photograph to take given the weather conditions. This is the final episode of my 4 day wild camping trip, where I went camping in a tent on a ridge, did an overnight solo camp in my truck, went swimming in a lake, fishing and much more! Thank you for watching.

EPISODE 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIoKl3ZYui8&t=2s

EPISODE 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlY7-xom6G4&t=233s

Tom's Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfhW84xfA6gEc4hDK90rR1Q

OFFICIAL TA OUTDOORS MERCH: https://taofficial.com

TA OUTDOORS PATCHES: https://www.taoutdoors.com/shop/

Wild Coast Tents Sundog X: https://www.wildcoasttents.com/sun-dog-x.html

INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/taoutdoorofficial

FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/totallyawesomeoutdoors

TWITTER: https://twitter.com/OutdoorsTa

BEGINNER BUSHCRAFT GEAR: https://www.taoutdoors.com/bushcraft-gear/

INTERMEDIATE BUSHCRAFT GEAR: https://www.taoutdoors.com/intermediate-gear/

ADVANCED BUSHCRAFT GEAR: https://www.taoutdoors.com/advanced-gear/

OTHER YOUTUBE CHANNEL: https://www.youtube.com/tafishing

#camping #lakedistrict #taoutdoors

Tags: camping,river,lake district,mountains,photography,wild camping,van,van life,van conversion,custom van,campervan,landscape photography,landscape photography tips,ta outdoors,outdoors,thomas heaton,overnight,overnight camping,solo,solo camping,solo overnight,bushcraft,survival,lake,swimming,roof top tent,truck,off road,car camping,truck camping

Video Transcription

I spent four days in the Lake District National Park I hiked up hills camped on mountain ridges caught fish in a lake went swimming and spent a night in the woods on the top of my truck but now my adventure is drawing to an end I Drive an hour further east to spend the last two days of my trip with a friend and fellow youtuber join me now for episode 3 the final part of my Lake District adventure

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so it's half seven I've driven an hour now to a completely different spot the rooftop tent is all packed away I'm gonna be folding it out in a minute I'm in a stunning location and I'm here we've missed the Tom Heaton Tom how you doing oh I'm good I'm good Tom is just setting up his slider here which we've done we've already done a film together which you need to go and check out it's on Tom's channel so I'll pop a link in the description to that go and watch that film it's really really fun wasn't it we did some sort of casual stuff with a bit of bushcraft and photography mixed them together but what we did we're gonna do is a couple of kind of arty shots at the moment get the drones out do a couple of flyovers and stay tuned on this videos because Tom's gonna give us some tips on basic beginner photography for you know your landscape photography and just setting up shots and things like that so stay tuned some on the way down to this reservoir we've had no rain for the last two months really and the reservoir is thomson is the lowest he's ever seen and you can actually see them the line where there's just no where the waters just dried up look at this so where all that green is there that's where water is meant to be but we and this is the Lake District where it rains a lot there's just no there's no water there it's all the way back there and tom is actually down there at the moment I think he's probably doing some photography but we're gonna go down there catch up with Tom try and see what we're gonna do for the evening planned evening I want to show you Tom's insane photography van which is just awesome you guys gonna love it especially those of you who are into van conversions and the off-grid van life and things like that Tom's got really cool VAT and say I'm looking forward to showing you that and Tom's gonna run through it but look at this scenery look at it I'm so pleased to be here it's nice to see some hills not the flat flat woodlands all the time I love the woods but you know it's good to be out I'm getting tired this is obviously day 3 of the trip I don't know shower start to smell that swim was nice and refreshing but it's beautiful it's so peaceful I'll wait to bring you guys along on this adventure it's gonna be fun I'm gonna set the tents up in a bit we're gonna compare the tent with the van

although Tom's van will easily win but it's awesome let's go have fun let's have an adventure guys [Music]

silly old Mike didn't bring his windsock dead cat whatever you want to call it so nice one sorry about the wind noise everywhere where I am here at the moment this was all once a village which they leveled den I went in the Tom na socati where it was this that they then flooded this obviously to make a reservoir we've had no rain you can actually see the remains of the village itself which is awesome let me show you this should all be well under water where where I am but it's not it's even pretty dry to be fair you can you can see it's pretty dry so we just had a little walk checked out the ruined village down the valley very nice the light starting to open actually the clouds are breaking a bit but it's the moment you've all been waiting for we're gonna check out Tom's awesome van it's all converted its kind of Tom's got it all designed for him for his photography so I'm taking away right well let's start let's start with the inside this is my my landscape photography van this is where I go to get away from everything this is where I go to do my office work when things do hectic at home and where I come and sleep and which allows me to wake up on location and get those sunrise and sunset photographs oh yeah it's pretty cool 2015 Ford Transit custom and I've had it designed to my specification for my needs and talk you through some of it that's it right all right first things first ourselves we'll start down here so I carry a lot of expensive gear cameras drones lenses laptops you know I can be away for days sometimes weeks at a time and so I need my laptop for continuing to upload to YouTube etcetera so security the one that security is an issue for me was an issue it's a concern as always a concern so I've had this Yale's hardened-steel safe installed it's bolted through the floor to the chassis so there is no way that this safe is coming out and that holds my laptop drone camera lenses wallet passport everything

so yeah that's a pretty cool and item that was a bit of a necessity I can storage covered here it's just got like tools before I show you were any more I am gonna put the roof up because otherwise I'm gonna bang my head is this for me was an absolute must because having a pop top roof on this van not only allows for comfort in terms of being able to stand up which is great for cooking and just generally puttering around but it also means this van goes from being able to sleep two people to comfortably sleeping four people so now can comfortably stand up which is nice because when you spend more than a couple of days in this van especially if it's raining so you stuck in the van you know you don't want to be hunched down all the time it's nice to just be able to stand up but it has actually inside of this roof tent has a second platform which pops up and that houses a double bed that is awesome serious stuff look at that with the ve it's a good sized bed as well super comfortable and there's Springs and stuff at all yeah this fan hasn't got anything that different to any other vans out there I've got a twin hob burner and a sink minute and yeah I have a standard fridge which runs off a solar panel actually runs off the ledger battery which is hooked up to my alternator

and the solar panel so power is never a problem I had a diesel heater installed so this it's a little heater that's connected some diesel tank so it burns the fuel in the diesel tank and it uses hardly any desert or you can keep it running all night and not see a depletion in fuel but it keeps your van all this fun super warm which means it's a van that can be used for four seasons and you can run this in winter and it'll be toasty warm all night when softer a step and it just keeps pumping in hot air to maintain the temperature these cupboards should be nice and organized but they're not I've got fresh water waste water most importantly tidy Tom's out everyone yeah general junk and storage well that cupboard goes all the way back round so there is actually lots of hidden storage yeah let's talk about power because I'm a photographer power is essential this fan is a work van it's a photography van yeah I need a lot of power to charge laptops camera batteries drones lamp all sorts of bits and pieces mainly camera batteries to be fair so I've got 13 amps suck it in a 12 volt socket only active when hooked up to electric at a campsite or something however I have two USB ports here which all my batteries you can charge from usb with the exception of my laptop USB have also got some USB ports inside here now the reason USB ports are inside this cupboard is so I can stealth charge which means I can charge camera batteries and then leave the van on attended any nosey Parker's look through the window and see also some kind of batteries charged in there you might know there's a camera in here I want to break in but because they're charging in this cupboard out of sight and that's just something I wanted I'm very paranoid

I have powerpoints everywhere and of course you have all the power that you get up front in the driver's cab more cupboards general food whiskey hey could use those as shelves for power cables tools battery power banks bits and pieces that I always seem to need when working on the go this is the control panel for the van from here you can check the state of your leisure battery to make sure it's not pulling too much power and then it's not going to go flat you can also check your van battery to make sure that's fully charged as well and then you're not gonna try and start the vehicle and nothing's gonna happen I also control your water pumped I switched it on and off and this is the main power source for lights however you also have two lights which is here which control different lights above the lights which we have this is the thermostat which controls the heater we switch this on set your temperature and then he all kick in and fire up and you'll have a lovely warm van for the night but we don't need that it's lovely warm already so when I was having the van built I had two choices for a bed I could have a rock and roll bed which is the more traditional sort of classic bed if you like that you expect to see in the types of T 5 T Falls that kind of thing or I could get a RHIB bed and the choice for a RHIB bed it's more expensive and it's bigger but the main benefit of a RHIB bed is it's a lot more comfortable and it gives you more options for storage which I can show you've really seen the front we can get right underneath and I'll turn it into a bed because this simple kind of so that there is the bottom end of the bed that can support full weight no problem middle section drops down and then there's the bed that back section will come up which gives me like a nice lounge which is my favorite seating position and yeah it sits comfortably it looks you know there's a bit the gap here and stuff but there's always a compromising any fans and actually what I tend to do is that either sleep upstairs if I can't sleep upstairs is it's too windy or I don't want to draw attention to myself I'll actually pull down the memory foam mattress from upstairs put it across this bed and it's truly truly comfortable just one just like my double bed at home I've also had a rotating base attached to the front seat so the passenger seat actually rotates around so you can sit into the van it's more social oh I need to show you it switch sides under here is the storage for my dining table the dining-table comes out of there and it just hooks onto that car yeah sooo Fafi to put it up now but it's a really clever solution for storing the table because most tables are stored at the end of the kitchen unit but if that was the case in this firm the table would be really small and it would be neither use nor ornament so I wanted a good sized table so I can work on my laptop and eat dinner and all that kind of thing and I was worried there wasn't gonna be anywhere to store it and then I had the ingenious idea of putting it underneath a yoga mat a bright yellow yoga mat as sort of padding so it doesn't rattle around when I'm driving well yeah that's solid absolutely solid and doesn't rattle another thing with this one as well I've got these black cap curtains these basically come around and they shut off the front of the cap so people outside can't see in I didn't want one of those window covers that you've got to put on the outside of the van because the whole idea with this is I wanted to be everything to be nice and easy very quick and simple and if it didn't want to get out of the van I didn't have to oh yeah these privacy curtains that wrap all the way around the front of the cab are excellent and I'd definitely recommend anybody with a van fit these outside I have a tule um mr. awning this is great for when it's raining grateful when it's sunny and it just allows you gives you that extra space if you want to set up an outdoor table and have some dinner or if you want to take photographs and it's raining you want to keep your camera gear dry this extends out a good sort of six to eight feet and it's fantastic absolutely fantastic on the back I'm a tow bar fitted with electric hookups that's mainly for carrying my mountain bike sport you girls are fish storage box on there for carry an extra gear if you're going on a longer trip

this is the back of the van this is where I keep all sorts really this is my little toilet this works a charm just a small chemical toilet general storage down here underneath this is what I mean about the ribbed bed you have this huge rear parcel shelf I mean the beds down at the minute but when this middle sections when the backrest is up you can see how much space you have here and how much space you have underneath as well you don't get that with a rock and roll but say the problem with the rib bed is that as a seat sits it's very high so your feet barely touch the floor that's one of the compromises with this bed oh underneath in the back and have a separate sort of false floor if you like and that is for storing my picnic table this is just a van Gogh table and camping table chairs just fold out where the chairs are meet camping chairs living this custom-built well cubby hole and you know I had all these details built in cutters things with a camper van it brings you know makes the outdoors so much more accessible and I wanted to make sure that if I want to have the option I could spend as much time outdoors as possible so I've got it's a little table and chairs and the awning means I can see outside do my work eat lunch just generally enjoy being outside rather than just stuck in the van gas which controls the cookers obviously there this is my Mary Poppins all little cupboard it looks like there's nothing in there but when you reach in all manner of things in here have my tripod photography this is an inflatable back chair see them at festivals all the time it's a huge basically a huge bag you open up fill it with air and you've got an inflatable sofa so that's really just for when I'm on a campsite and I want to sleep after getting up at 4:00 in the morning to shoot sunrise oh yeah I mean I'm not saying it's the most practical but it's definitely handy storage walking pot oh yes this back covered this has got three Spears yes priorities disc golf I know how much Americans love their disc golf I enjoy it too yeah little figs like Gators that can just shove them on if it's wet I've got maps in here but gloves I've got hat general bits and pieces that you might need or you might not realize you need until you get out of the van you feel always a bit cold I need a hat well it's all in there just general storage in this little cubby hole at the back is a USB socket which means when you sleep in the night time you can charge your phone and you can put your phone inside this little cubby hole it's out of the way it's not gonna fall down the side or get in the way when you're sleeping just the neat little feature that I quite like we've got oodles of storage in here with your clothing camera bags towels my nice manly pillow wash bag travel wine a toilet there's just so much stories you can get in there and it just comes very handy plastic roll on the top of the van on the roof is a solar panel it's a 100 watt solar panel I was gonna get two of them was gonna get 200 watt but I was assured that one would be enough and one is enough the solar panel feeds my leisure battery and my leisure battery is also fed by the alternator so combined with sunshine and driving for you know half an hour a day or whatever from A to B the leisure battery is always full I've have never ever been concerned about the leisure battery on this van charging phones charging cameras you know all little bits and pieces of electrical equipment that constantly need topping up it's never an issue and that is a combination of the alternator and that solar panel so I've got these curtains fitted which are quite nice because they are blackout which means with this van it's funny because I actually sleep more in this van during the day than at nighttime because usually my photography means I'm up really early and the more I need to stay out late so I tend to nap during the day and by closing these blinds and fastening them off it essentially just completely blacks out the van especially when I had the cab curtains drawn close no light gets through there no one can see in pitch-black and I kind of a nice nap during the midday hours so the rooftop tent is set up you can't see it you might just about see it in the silhouetted in the light there but that's all set up we're in obviously we're in Toms van here which is a lot more convenient and we surprisingly the food that I was eating last night if you want to see last night's episode there's a link up here somewhere that was a solo one the food I was eating myself and Tom I've got the exact same meal today and it's a what do we get for pasta spicy sauce it's just what are the chances that we both have the same one so yeah Tom's good on the cooking set up there all is good

we even have ourselves a couple of fine ales

that's the I'm on the sink Jules scotch ale and I've got one of the Thomas Royds on the kazakh bitter so yeah we're keeping it just the single ale tonight and plan is to just chill out relax in the van and then we get some filming done hope you get some good photos tomorrow I've already done three nights least half an hour hike whack on the next isn't actually gonna reach the fellow man I can't say I'm looking forward to that after after doing a few nights out here but it can be done it's got to be done after it has to be done not regret it exactly this is what life's all about people right let's get this food on it's now 11:00

o'clock at night I could chat with Tom in the band that's some good food enjoy the beer and I'm back in the tent I've got one of the skylights opened because it's very starry night tonight which is awesome so hopefully we can hope you'll get some sleep because if we've got to get up at 4:30 kind of glad in a way that I'm not a landscape photographer but at the same time I'm super excited to be getting up at that time to go on this little hike to find the right spot and hopefully just get some general landscape photography tips from Tom the scenery here it's amazing the noise you can hear in the background is actually a waterfall rushing noises Awards for which is really cool so yeah hopefully I'll get some sleep catch up with you guys in the morning where I'll probably be very tired and very groggy see you later well I'm awake didn't get much sleep it's just gone 4:30 and we're gonna head off about a two minute drive and get out I've been jumping Tom's van leave the tent here then we're gonna get out do a bit of hiking get to the spot you see it's pretty much pitch back still and then hopefully I mean it's really overcast which is annoying but hopefully we can get some sort of photo anyway

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it's fairly windy at the moment Tom's just over here scouting out certain areas what he does with photography he's been back and forward back forward she's checking

I guess the direction of the light and how he wants to you know shot composition and compose the shot but you can see there's rain all in this valley behind us which is now actually coming over so we're gonna get wet I think either way there's only a short hike up but at 4:30 in the morning it's not it's not something you want to do every day put it that way this few stunning I really like that that rain in the valley over there I can imagine that tom was saying this time in autumn is it's awesome and all the colors come out in the trees and I could definitely picture that but the truck and the van is right down there in that corner it's just a single road all the way go and that's it just that little car park at the end I really love this sort Peninsula of coniferous trees here I'm always drawn towards those connect forest trees it's very symbolic with the kind of woodsman and there's this tiny island but this is a being a reservoir actually this is this is really low there's water I've seen that yesterday and you can see the sea island and this completely exposed down here now and I'm going to see all the sediment and the different layers from where it's dried each time it's dropped so it's on we're up here this is our kind of view yeah why why this spot well I mean if you look at it not know in great detail but this island down here in the water most of the time almost all the time you can only see a small ground island with trees because water levels so low this island this this familiar Island has taken on this whole new shape and I just find that fascinating the whole reservoirs taking on this new look so I wanted to come up reasonably high to see if I could get a good vantage point and photograph it and then when you look at the look at the question in more detail so why we're here and not up there or over there or anywhere is when practicing landscape photography it pays to just roam around those differences in your position whether it's a few meters or half a mile or even a few inches in some cases makes a big difference your composition so this spot here gives us a good overview of the island the outcrop of trees and it's quite a sharp drop-off we can get a clean shot of the reservoir without loads of just boring foreground that's not not adding to the image in any way shape or form and with full exposure to the wind and rain which is how we like it here what many people might not understand is how much work Tom actually goes through to get his picture not only as he tried to compose a shot for a still photograph but he is also having to film this process for his YouTube channel essentially he is having to deal with two cameras and two tripods whilst battling against the elements so beauty of being up here is it's you know the hard work is getting up here finding the compositions incredibly simple I mean what I'm photographing isn't clever and it's you know it's very straightforward I want a lovely shot of these this island this Peninsula the low water levels and all of that weather all of that weather coming in it's very atmospheric in a minute so in terms of framing it all up it's just making sure that the key elements are balanced within the frame and nothing is too far right nothing is too far left there's not too much sky and there's not too much foreground so just paying attention to the edges of my frame and that's it really it's it's it's a very straightforward shot compositionally it's all about this rain/drizzle mood and drama which actually I need to capture now because this guy's starting to clear up and we actually don't want that to happen the rain has stopped briefly it's good and bad because you really want to photograph the rain so because the the sky is so much brighter than the foreground it's it's not always possible to capture all of the detail in the bright sky and all of the detail in the darker shadows so I've just dropped in a filter which is essentially like putting a pair of sunglasses on your camera but you're only putting a pair of sunglasses on the top half and I've dropped doing what's called a to stop neutral density soft edge graduated filter and essentially all that does is it as you drop in the filter it darkens down your sky it means you get all of the detail in the cloud whilst maintaining the detail in the shadows in the foreground and it just gives more of a dynamic image more detail all around gives it more drama and yeah I mean not everybody uses filters some people take two or three photographs and blend them in Photoshop afterwards but I prefer to get everything right in camera on site that's definitely my preferred way of doing things my my standard settings for landscape photography generally I shoot an aperture of f9 f10 f11 that gives you good depth of field and good image quality and my shutter speed is irrelevant it is what it is ISO base ISO of 100 and yeah the the shutter speed thing is that's always the least important decision I make because most of my images have in one hundredth of a second shutter speed or a 10 second shutter speed doesn't really fit the image too much unless there's motion in the image like breaking waves or fast-moving clouds then the shutter speed becomes more important but this morning just the speed was irrelevant and I took a couple of images as the light was changing and the rain was passing through and they were between one second and half a second and but yeah then I go to settings are generally f11 focused to infinity iso 100 and let the show speed do its thing and here is the final product a dark and moody shop the distant rains sweeping down the valley clouds clinging to the hilltops if you look closely you can still make out the foundations of the old village ruins in the foreground of the picture now that we had our photo it was time to hike back down to Tom's van to dry off the gear and have a warm drink [Music]

oh she wished yesterday's episode or the last episode I put up on the channel I was in the lake doing a bit of wild swimming and I had this soya filter the one bag the one gallon bag so now we're actually using it because Thomas said he's not got enough water in the van at the moment so we need to use it for some coffee because we've just been up and taking the photograph so just that's how it works you just screw the mini filter on there

fill the filler caps there and it's just nice and easy also the caps on at the moment they're nice and easy to filter water for a coffee which is pretty important right now because the weather is getting chilly and we're pretty dumb camping hiking fishing swimming my four-day trip to the Lake District National Park has come to an end thank you for joining me on this adventure I hope you enjoyed it and I'll see you again in the next video [Music]

you

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