'Sherlock Holmes of Nature' - Tristan Gooley visits Christ's Hospital School
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On 18 November 2025, “natural navigation” expert Tristan Gooley - renowned by the BBC as the 'Sherlock Holmes of Nature' delivered an informative, hands-on outdoor workshop to 40 students from Christ’s Hospital’s Expeditionary Education Society.
The engaging workshop started off with students having to use only small maps and compasses to find different letter clues around the wooded area the workshop took place in.
After 10 minutes of dedicated searching – and intense map-reading skills – the first group collected all of the clues to figure out the final anagram.
Of course, it was navigation!
After discovering how relatively easy it can be to navigate in the wild when you have all services to hand – for example, a map and a compass – the Christ’s Hospital students were then posed a question by Tristan.
How easy would it be to navigate from one place in nature to another, with nothing but your senses?
With this question in the student’s minds, Tristan then went on to describe how quite literally anything and everything; subtle or obvious; in the natural world can be used to paint a visual map of the things around you, and can help you in any situation you may be in – may that even be in the city!
He explains that “nature is always making a map for us,” and that “everything outdoors is a clue and a sign.”
Tristan’s first example was the thing that is right above our heads for almost 8 hours each day at this time of year – the sun.
He described that the first step to any natural navigation is working out where the sun rises, and where the sun falls, and then creating a visual compass in your head with the sun in the sky at that time.
He informed us that the sun rises due East and sets due West at the Equinoxes (March and September) and then shifts just slightly from this in the months surrounding.
His next incredibly notable way to navigation in the wild is to look at the way the way plants and trees act.
A tree is always asymmetrical, and it’s branches always seem to grow more on the Southern side, to reach the most sunlight.
The same goes for a plant’s leaves, where they always seem to grow as more of a droop to the Southern side – as to absorb the most sunlight to help them grow – and as more of a spike on the Northern side – in search of any sunlight on that darker side.
These tips are just the start of the immensely extensive knowledge Tristan holds within natural navigation, on anything from the way water moves to the stars are aligned – all of which can be read about in one of his many books.
Tristan briefly spoke about some of the most remarkable adventures he has embarked on, including walking with the Dayak people in Borneo, and being the only living person to have both solo-sailed and solo-flew across the Atlantic!
These missions proved as awe-inspiring examples of how natural navigation is not just something that should be trivial knowledge - it can help you with some of the most dangerous journeys on Earth!
Tristan rounded up the workshop by urging everyone – that includes you reading this article – to have some sort of knowledge on natural navigation.
It's a skill that really can set you apart in this world of technological distractions.
