Camping and Caravan Club

Walking and Camping

I am backpacking today from outside Horncastle to the Camping and Caravan Club site near Woodhall Spa.

It is not a very long walk so I have one or two bits of extra gear with me as the pack weight is not critical. I have a 10Ah power supply for my iphone as I plan to watch a couple of videos tonight. I have a Chicken Chow Mein microwave meal with me so I have packed my larger Alpkit MiTiMug to cook it in as well as bringing my smaller titanium mug/cook pot.

For a change the weather is perfect – so I have packed extra water and one of my bottles contains an electrolyte drink.

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Walking to Woodhall Spa – Day Two

The weather was good when I was packing up – which was lucky as packing the new Golite Jam 2, did not go as easily as it did when I packed it at home. I had put the tent in the large outside pocket but this was a mistake as that pocket has to be packed before the main bag. Both pockets share the same volume – packing the main pocket reduces the size of the outside pocket. This means the tent needs to be packed first – when actually, when packing up, it is the last thing to go in the bag. This morning, I simply piled my gear up on a small tarp I had with me, took the tent down and then packed, but it was dry and sunny. So I need a new packing plan.

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I ended up meeting both Richards in Bardney – one had had walked there from Lincoln city centre the other drove – and we went for coffee. So that was the end of the walking, we got a lift home.

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At the Campsite

I camped in the same spot as I did a couple of months back – but with no ducks.

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I have added a wing nut handle to my mug lid – it has proved to awkward to lift the lid off with my Leatherman. The wing nut arrangement means the handle can come off for packing, with the wing nut being stored in the same neoprene case I keep my milk powder, tea bags and lighter in.

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To save washing up I made my instant custard in the packet, using the mug only to hold it in and to save burning my hands as I ate it.

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I really like Indian tea, but I like it with plenty of milk in (or better still made with condensed milk) – this means it uses a lot of my limited store of dried milk. Yesterday one of my clients gave me some milk sticks, for use this walk but they have all ended up in the same drink. I make the tea the all in way, milk, cold water, Indian tea bag and two brown sugars all in the mug and bring to the boil – then I take half the tea out to drink top up with more cold water and bring back to the boil. Excellent. However this adds to my washing up as the titanium mug/kettle is a mess when finished and it gets worse if it boils over as it did during my Scotish trip last month.

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This morning the weather is fine – with a nice sunrise right into my tent as I make some tea.

The bad weather did not materialise here, infect when I woke up there was no wind at all and my tent was perfectly still. However I have asked Diana to check the TV weather and call me.

Breakfast is simple here this morning, plenty of tea and granola bars – many walkers have bars for breakfast so I thought I would try it today.

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Walking to Woodhall Spa – Day One

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The pack weight is 11.4kgs – including all food and about 2.2l of water. This note is written after about two hours and the Golite pack is proving much more comfortable than the Karrimor I pushed into service.

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There were a few drops of rain as I approached the campsite but they did not come to anything, so I got the tent up in the dry. However the warden mentioned that later we may get some wind and rain, the leftovers of a hurricane!

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Found! WiFi in Dingwall

Since arriving at Dingwall campsite, last weekend we have been thinking about finding a WiFi cafe – there was not an obvious one in Dingwall and we went to a cafe in Ullapool where we got WiFi last year but they no longer offered a free connection. It is not so important as I have a really good 3G data deal from T-Mobile but WiFi mean’s catching up on some TV via BBC iPlayer and JSC wanted to FaceBook with his friends.

The Camping and Caravan Club sites have WiFi but when I looked into this in the past it was not very good value, especially when compared to my data bundle.

I went into Dingwall this afternoon and after buying some award winning black pudding from the local butchers I went to Grants Café Deli, in the High Street, where I got a cappuccino and they had a free 30 minutes of WiFi – however it was a BT Openzone access point, so I logged on using my account and had nearly an hour online. I watched Click, edited the blog, logged into a client’s server to check a problem out and updated eight apps on my iPhone.

The opening times at Grants are good; Mon to Wed 9am – 6pm, Thurs to Sat 9am – 8pm and Sun 10am – 4pm, as many Dingwall cafes stop serving at 4pm.

I got back to the site and put my iPhone in flight mode to charge it in the car, whilst we cooked and ate our award winning black pudding – which also got our seal of approval! After tea I got my phone out to update the blog and when I turned it on, the WiFi was still enabled and I have discovered there is a BT Openzone access point within range of us here – and I am now wondering if this is also part of the C and CC Site WiFi which means there would have been WiFi at Dunbar as well! I just never thought to check or ask because of previous costs and my current 3G deal. I will check in future.

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