You have lost the trail that you were banking on to get you back to camp before dark. The prospect of spending a night alone in the bush is not a rosy one.
What is the next step…?
You decide that you need to choose a direction and stick to it. You think that when you left camp, you were going in a southerly direction. You remember the sun shining on your left side, but after a couple of hours, it was on your back, so you must have veered west. Maybe the change in direction was where you lost the trail. If you are right about those assumptions, then you want to find north and stick to that heading. But how do you find a direction and stick to it? You don’t have a compass or a GPS. You glance at the sun, but it is still far too high in the sky to be of any help. That could be a small blessing because it means that you might still get to camp before it sets. You stare around you, but there is no inspiration. You feel that familiar panic rising.
There are several ways to tell direction when you are in the bush—both during the day and at night. When the sun is high in the sky, and it is difficult to see which way it is travelling, there is a very simple way to find direction. Even though you can’t tell in which direction the sun is moving, it is moving all the time—or at least the earth is rotating from west to east at a constant speed. All you need to do is find a stick, or in the unlikely absence of sticks, a stone or a pen—anything that will cast a shadow—and put it into the ground. Mark the end of the shadow with a small pebble and wait for twenty or thirty minutes, then mark where the shadow has moved to. Your first mark is west, and the second is east. If the sun is directly overhead, you might have to wait a bit longer to get a distinct line, but once you have that west-east line, you can stand with west to your left, and you are facing north.
To ensure that you are keeping to the right direction, pick three distant objects that line up with the direction that you want to go. They will typically be trees, but it could be a rock, a pan, a hill—anything that won’t move. Keep them in line until you reach the first point and then find another one beyond the remaining two. Repeat this, and you should hold your direction, but it would be wise to double-check with the stick trick from time to time. Also, take note of which direction the wind is blowing from. Although it can change, the chances are that it is the prevailing wind and can help confirm that you are still going in the right direction.
There are other ways to confirm direction. If you have a watch, take it off and hold it horizontally, dial up. Point the hour hand towards the sun. The point exactly halfway between the hour hand and 12 o’clock is the north-south line. If you have a phone, you can use the time to draw an analogue watch in the sand.
Airplanes are often a good indicator of direction if the majority are heading towards or away from a specific town or city, as is the case with Maun in the Okavango Delta.
Birds such as white-browed sparrow-weavers and buffalo weavers tend to build their nests on the western side of a tree because, like pilots, they like to land into the wind. Be careful with this, however, because if the chosen tree is leafless, it makes no difference as to which side they build their nests, as the nest is accessible by flying through the bare branches.
If you are outside of the tropics, the tree trunks are darker on the side that receives less sun and may also have moss growing on the side away from the sun. Some euphorbias and termite mounds tend to point in a particular direction. Work out which way they are leaning and use them as a confirmation that you are still on track.
At night, there are constellations that can help you find direction.
In the southern hemisphere, the Southern Cross will always show you where south is—if you are not too far north to see it, which happens in the summer months. Locate the five stars (one off-centre) that make up the cross and its two pointers, which point towards the cross. Mentally extend the long axis of the cross towards the horizon and bisect the pointers. Where these two imaginary lines meet, drop from that point to the horizon, and you have south.
In the northern hemisphere, the North Star, or Polaris, is over the North Pole, so it is always due north of you. How do you find it? Locating Polaris is easy on any clear night. Just find the Big Dipper. The two stars on the end of the Dipper’s “cup” point the way to Polaris.
A waxing or waning moon can also help find direction. If the moon is high in the sky at sunrise, the lit-up round part will point east, and at sunset, it points west.
The Milky Way moves as a collective from east to west, just as the sun does, so by keeping an eye on it, you can determine direction where there is no moon or telltale stars.
You have ascertained north and set off, double checking all the time with the various clues that nature provides. Are you going the right way? Will you make it before dark or will you have to face the terrors of spending the night alone with nocturnal predators on the prowl?
