Description
A guided foray exploring the delicious, healthy and surprising range of edible plants around the woods, coast and hedgerow of Ardkinglas Estate on Loch Fyne, Argyll (1 hr drive from Glasgow). Enjoy a wild food picnic, wild flower champagne and foraged cocktails on the loch side afterwards.
May is an exciting time for foragers, with many wild greens and blossoms in their prime. On this guided walk you will be introduced to a vibrant array of spring woodland, hedgerow and coastal herbs, their traditional and modern uses and how to considerately and safely harvest and use them. You will enjoy a wild food tasting picnic and wildcrafted drinks with views over Loch Fyne afterwards.
As with all Galloway Wild Foods events, this walk is guided by Mark Williams who has been teaching about foraging for over 30 years, specialising in making foraging fun, accessible and delicious.
“A massive thank you to you for the coastal foraging event. I’ve been on a few forages and this was way the best one. I loved your enthusiasm, your generosity with sharing information, the fact that you gave us food and drink from the moment we started, throughout the event and a wonderful picnic at the end. It really was absolutely delicious. It was absolutely wonderful afternoon, and I felt on quite a high afterwards … I’ve been telling all my friends…”– Danielle, Coastal Foraging Walk attendee
Image ©GallowayWildFoods.com
Location: Ardkinglas House, Cairndow, Argyll, PA26 8BG (See map tab). Ticket holders will be emailed detailed instructions of our meeting place in the week before the event. Our venue is a stunning country estate on the banks of Loch Fyne, with a wonderfully diverse range of plants to explore.
Expect: Gentle walking on well made paths over 3 hours (maximum 1.5 miles easy walking), followed by a wild food tasting picnic. There will be wild treats and tasters to enjoy throughout.
Learn:
- Spring woodland, hedgerow and coastal plants, and a few seaweeds*
- How to sustainably tap birch and sycamore trees for sap (though the sap rise may be finished by this time of year)
- Finding, identification, poisonous lookalikes
- Mindful, considerable and sustainable harvesting
- Expert foraging tips
- Folklore/traditional uses of wild plants
- Modern gourmet and medicinal uses of wild plants
- Nutrition from wild plants
- Processing, recipes, cooking tips for a wide range of spring shoots and blossoms.
- Inevitably, the wider politics around foraging and food will come up too
- When time and weather allow, we lay out and label our finds to serve as a souvenir and aide-memoire of the afternoon’s discoveries.
*Please note, although part of this walk is coastal with lots of fascinating maritime plants, Argyll’s sea lochs don’t tend to offer a big range of tasty seaweeds. We will explore what seaweeds are on show, and I will bring along some more for us to taste and learn from, but this is not a major focus of the coastal element of this walk.
Eat/drink: I think it is important to bring the wild foods we encounter to life by not just talking about them, but by eating and drinking them. To this end, the afternoon includes a wild food tasting picnic, and I carry a very hefty bagful of lovingly prepared treats, tasters and tipples to share during the walk. These are both delicious and educational, and the walk is more like guided grazing, a gentle imbibing of the landscape, than a route march! All dietary requirements can be catered for, provided you let me know when you book. Below is a typical wild bento box from a spring foray.
Wild bento box, served on Galloway Wild Foods events. Typically these include 30 to 40 different locally foraged ingredients that illuminate what we have explored on the guided walk.
Bring: Stout footwear, waterproofs, water. Your learning and enjoyment may also benefit from bringing camera, notebook, field guide (plants), small basket/cloth bag. If you make any foraged delights you wish to share with the group, please bring them along!
Places are limited and events usually sell out fast – booking is essential.
Foraging Gift Vouchers
If you already have a gift voucher it can be used to pay for this event (in whole or in part) at the checkout.
Wild Salad
Please read the following information before booking a Galloway Wild Foods event.
EVENT LOCATION
The general event location is provided in the event description, and in your booking confirmation. This location is usually an approximate location (eg. “Within 30 minutes drive of XXX”), so that you can consider and plan the area you need to get to prior to booking.
For general information on visiting Galloway for events, including recommended accommodation, see here.
Detailed event information, including exact meeting place, will be sent to the email address you provide on booking in the week prior to the event. This allows me to account for the often fickle nature of wild plants and fungi and select the optimum location for our walk – which can be especially important for fungi forays.
It is important that you add mark@gallowaywildfoods.com and markleewilliams@googlemail.com to your email contacts/whitelist or the information email may get caught in your spam filters. This is extremely important if you have a .hotmail email account as they are notorious for having very sensitive spam filters.
The detailed event information email will be sent in the week before the event – sometimes as little as 3 days prior to the event. There is no need to badger me for it – I will send it! If you haven’t received it by within 3 days of the event, check your spam folders. If it isn’t there drop me an email – mark@gallowaywildfoods.com.
CANCELLATION POLICY
Any cancellation must be sent by email to mark@gallowaywildfoods.com, quoting the event title, date and order number (viewable on your booking confirmation.
Galloway Wild Foods is under no obligation to refund, rebook or reinstate vouchers for no-shows or cancellations within 14 days of the event. If I can refill the place at short notice, I will pay a full refund less 10% to cover admin & PayPal fees, or send a voucher to the full value of the tickets. Please state your preference in your cancellation email.
If you cancel or amend a booking giving 14 days or more notice, you will receive a full refund less 5% to cover Paypal fees, or a Gift Voucher to the full value of your booking.Please state your preference in your cancellation email. Information on using gift vouchers is here.
In the unlikely event that an event is cancelled by GWF you will receive full refund, exchange or voucher.
Galloway Wild Foods is not liable for any travel, accommodation or other costs you might incur if an event has to be cancelled. We recommend that you take out travel insurance if your financial commitment to travel/accommodation is substantial.
The only weather that causes events to be cancelled is dangerous wind. In these instances you will be notified as early as possible.
INFORMATION YOU PROVIDE ON BOOKING
Please provide the following information for all members of your party in the “Additional Information” box on the payment page :
- Relevant medical conditions
- Mobility issues
- Eating restrictions – differentiating between preferences (e.g. vegetarian), intolerances (e.g. gluten intolerance) and serious allergies (e.g. peanut allergy), and clearly stating if an allergy is potentially life-threatening. All requirements can usually be catered for, but these differentiations are required for risk assessments.
It is your responsibility to provide accurate information about all members of your party. If you write “None” in the additional information box, I will assume all attendees are omnivorous and have no relevant medical conditions or mobility issues.
All information is kept private, securely, and in line with GDPR – more information on this here.
WHAT TO BRING ON A WALK
Please ensure that all members of your party come suitably dressed for the weather, season and event.
On all walks, for your comfort and safety, walking boots/wellies, waterproofs and spare clothes are necessary. I always recommend wellies for coastal foraging events – you are likely to get wet feet if you don’t have them!
Please bring your own drinking water.
Your learning and enjoyment may also benefit from bringing a camera, notebook, field guide, small basket/cloth bag. Feel free to bring along any of your own wild food preparations to share and talk about.
DOGS
Most GWF events are suitable for one dog on a lead.
Even on walks that are suitable for dogs on leads, because we tend to move very slowly as we learn and forage, dogs often get bored/agitated/cold by the slow pace. One thing we absolutely can’t have is an unhappy noisy dog on an event.
Where events are suitable for dogs, I restrict it to one per event as there is no way of knowing whether dogs will get on with one another. Dog places are offered on a first-come-first-served basis.
With all this in mind, if you would like to bring a dog, please note this on the booking form in the “Additional Information” box (along with human dietary, mobility, medical info) and I will get contact you to let you know suitability and availability.
If being able to bring your dog is a deal-breaker for you, please email me before you book.
FURTHER INFORMATION
Further information on Galloway Wild Foods Terms and Conditions can be found here.
If you have specific questions that are not answered here, please contact mark on mark@gallowaywildfoods.com, or if you are running late on the day.
