Walking in Lincolnshire
Today’s walk was around Branston – and included a stop for a brew of fresh coffee.
…and as with all good walking trips it involved an English breakfast and a mug of tea.
Walking in Lincolnshire Read More »
Today’s walk was around Branston – and included a stop for a brew of fresh coffee.
…and as with all good walking trips it involved an English breakfast and a mug of tea.
Walking in Lincolnshire Read More »
1 Aluminium foil wind shield – wraps in close around the stove for really windy weather
2 Stove board/stand – it protects the grass and makes a stable base for the stove.
3 Half aluminium wind shield – I bought a wind shield, cut it in half and removed a panel to make it fit better around this stove and mug
4 Vargo Triad XE Alcohol / Fuel Tab Titanium Stove with a copper mug support
5 MSR Titanium mug – mug and cooking pot
6 Aluminium lid for the mug
7 & 8 Small Beaker with lid – second mug when the titanium mug is being used as a pot. The lid makes it a useful storage jar and it is just big enough to rehydrate a 65g pack of noodles in.
9 Small Brew Kit
10 Army style tin opener
11 25ml bottle of dried milk
12 Refillable gas lighter – it has a stronger flame than a disposable lighter
13 2x fuel tablets – emergency fuel
14 Methylated spirits- in a clearly marked bottle – packed in a ziplock bag to protect the other equipment from leaks.
15 Washing up and Hygiene
– Alcohol hand cleaner – hygiene is essential when camp cooking
– 20ml Multi-purpose bio-degradable soap – for washing up, cleaning clothes or person. I decant some into a shampoo bottle that I got from a hotel
– 1/4 Pot sponge
– Hi absorbent cloth – for drying up
– Kitchen cloth
16 Plastic Cutting board – this is made from a plastic wall tile cut in half – 5cms x 12cms. Some kind of chopping board is often overlooked, having something to cut on saves other bits of kit, lids or plates getting damaged. I have several of these tiles in my camp box when one gets too badly scratched up I will replace it.
17 Victorinox Camper SAK – cooking knife, tin and bottle opener as well as an all round camp tool.
18 Paper towels in a small ziplock bag
19 Small LMF spork – this is a double ended utensil with a real fork at one end and a real spoon at the other. A true spork is not very good at getting the last drops of gravy out of a bowl or for hooking up a forkful of noodles.
20 Camp folding spoon and knife
21 Three section spice pot/shaker
22 GSI pot lifter
23 LMF ferro rod and striker
24 Spare gas lighter
25 1oz Single Malt Whisky
26 Stuff sack that holds most of this equipment
27 1l roll up water bottle with sports top for easy pouring
28 Selection of small pots and bottles to carry, dried milk, peanut butter etc
29 Coffee maker/tea strainer
30 Air tight canister for fresh coffee
31 600ml bowl with a clip on lid – this is large enough for the meals I make, but it also serves as a container for transporting more fragile food whilst walking.
32 1m square lightweight tarp – for putting on the ground and making a clean cooking area
Not shown in the photograph
Annotated Kit Photograph Read More »
Inflatable Pillow
I’ll start with the failure – the inflatable pillow. It started off alright, it was comfortable, but that soon decreased as the air slowly leaked out from the valve. Luckily it only cost me a pound. I dumped it in the bin before leaving the campsite – however I will be looking for a better quality inflatable pillow as the idea was good.
Peanut Butter
I have seen in other backpacking blogs that in the US peanut butter, in single portion packets, is easily available in supermarkets – I have found it online in the UK but not for a price that makes it a viable purchase here.
I have been on the lookout for some small containers to portion jam, honey and peanut butter in to, and last week I found these in Boyes, in Lincoln at 89p a pack of four.
The pots have a very secure high thread so they can be filled to the brim. I filled two with peanut butter for this weekend and found one pot was enough for four crackers at lunchtime.
So these are a success.
Beaker or bowl
I have swapped the screw top beaker for a 600ml bowl with a snap top lid.
It is much larger which was needed to make the sausage and mash dinner.
I have gone back to carrying the lightweight beaker that fits inside my titanium mug, so I can have tea whilst cooking. The titanium mug with a lid still makes an excellent “one person kettle” and a mug. I can use the titanium mug almost straight from the stove – I have a GSI pot lifter to hold the handles in when I lift it from the stove (and to handle the lid and wind shield when hot) but by the time I make my tea or coffee in the mug the handles and mug lip are cool enough to hold and drink from.
Gear that worked – Gear that didn’t Read More »
Today’s photo is actually a photo of someone else’s photo!
I have been on a site visit today with one of the server engineers Octagon uses and during the coffee break he showed me some photos from his recent holiday to Las Vegas.
I could not resist sharing this.
I used Camera+ to get the image off his monitor – which gave a dark, high contrast result and then I used the Clarify function in Camera+ the give a useable image. I often use this process, when at work, when recording site data – it gives a result for screen photos.
I want to get plenty of overnight backpacking trips in the year, as practice for some future longer trips – The Speyside Way this summer and the Southern Upland Way summer 2013.
So whilst I have been sorting out the food this week for a trip with Jeremy next weekend I have put together a pack of food for a short solo overnighter, so if I decide to go at the last minute the food will be ready.
As I think the food pack will spend several weeks on the shelf the food had to have a good storage life – so no sausage or salami and the crackers have been double wrapped in cling film.
Menu
Trail Food
Spice and fruit oat cakes, white coffee and dried fruit and nuts
Dinner
Tuna in tomato and onion sauce, crackers, packet of noodles, tomato soup, sesame dessert, apple flakes, tea.
Supper
Hot Chocolate and biscuits
Breakfast
Tea and biscuits
Breakfast biscuits and portion of jam, 2x cereal bars, tea
Trail Food
Honey Chrysanthemum Tea and oat cakes and jam
Extra
Bag of Aldi chocolate buttons
The individual meals are packed in small ziplock bags and then these are packed in a larger ziplock bag.
The only things I need to add to this will be the tea bags and dried milk in my small brewkit – and it is ready to go.
The case is an mp3 case bought at a pound shop.
Update
I have added an “army style” can opener to this pouch – as I have removed the Bantam SAK from my backpacking kitchen, so there is no longer a tin opener in the stuff sack.
I have been finishing this post, whilst waiting to go to a supplier to look at their Cloud Computing solutions, and looking out of the window here the weather is grey, wet and overcast so the above image may well be today’s “Photo of the Day”!
I am backpacking this weekend with two friends – it is a try out hike before we go on a planned wild camp trip to the Lake District next month. It is only a short walk with an overnight stay so we need an evening meal and breakfast.
So it is noodles with smoked sausage and chocolate chip cake and custard for dinner, cereal bars, crackers and jam with fresh brewed coffee for breakfast.
Weekend Trip to Woodhall Spa and day two here
When I got my Golite Jam pack I had planned to carry my sleeping mat inside – however my new sleeping bag does not compress as much as the previous one – so the sleeping mat had to be fixed to the outside.
I used the top lid strap to hold the mat roll onto the pack and for extra security I clipped the elastic straps on the mat to the upper compression straps.
Before my next trip in mid April I am going to experiment with pacling the bag as I really wanted to travel with everything inside the pack.
I am also going to try and find a better (lightweight) compression sack for the sleeping bag and clothes.
The food for the weekend weighed 1.2kgs – of that the high calories/fatty foods made up – 150g sausages, 120g tinned sardines and 135g salted cashew nuts.
Saturday Mid-morning
Saturday Lunch
Canned Italian sardines in lemon olive oil – plenty of calories. With these I had crackers, chocolate oatcakes and tomato soup – I stored the complete meal in a ziplock bag and kept it in the pack’s external pocket so it was easy to get at.
Saturday Evening Meal
When I arrived at the campsite I bought two bars of chocolate – so when it came to the evening meal I did not want the custard desert.
The small ziplock contains instant peach tea. I had two of the sausages that evening and saved two for Sunday.
Sunday Morning
The first thing I had was tea and biscuits whilst watching the sunrise from my sleeping bag – see here.
The plastic bag contains a measure of Columbian roast ground coffee.
Sunday Trail Snacks
I had the last sausage for lunch.
Resupply
I have bought in some supplies this week for my next trip.
Backpacking Trip – Last Weekend Read More »