Lincolnshire – Page 49

Backpacking cookware – walking in the cold and rain – and lunch ‪@Alpkit‬

12 February 2017 / Walking / Alpkit, Alpkit Kraku, lightweight walking, Lincolnshire, outdoor gear, Photos 2017, walking

Time to try out some new backpacking cookware.

Having spent the morning working on Octagon time sheets, spread sheets and presentations, I headed off at lunch time for a walk across the Lincolnshire fields.

A couple of weeks back, I bought an Alpkit MytiPot 900 and thought I would give it a try out today. I packed a homemade ready meal (fresh pasta, homemade Italian tomato sauce with mushrooms), and my lightweight Alpkit cooking gear.

Kraku stove
MytiPot 900
MytiMug 400
SnapWire spoon

The walk was grey, wet, cold and muddy underfoot but it was away from my laptop. I took my mind off the weather with “The Girl who Played with Fire” audiobook on my iPod.

In a small wood near the village I found a fallen tree that made a good seat for lunch. I boiled the water for my coffee in the titanium mug first, then heated the pasta in the Alpkit MytiPot, stirring it well.

I carried the backpacking cookware in a Finnish gas mask bag

Titanium backpacking cookware is excellent if all you consider is the weight and strength. The problems come with the cost and cooking in a thin walled pot. Alpkit helps with the cost – their prices are lower than other suppliers and they have a comprehensive selection of backpacking cookware.

My top tip if you use your titanium backpacking cookware for more than just boiling water, is stir the food well… very well. The titanium conducts the heat efficiently, but hot spots easily form and then the food burns. I stirred my lunch constantly and moved the pot over the burner and still some food caught. You can see the results below, not a disaster, but if I had stopped stirring things could have gone very badly. If it burns too much is may also spoil the food.

Why did I buy more backpacking cookware?

Top of the list is that Diana and I are going camping together and I wanted a titanium “kettle” large enough to brew tea for two.
I want to do more cooking when lightweight camping – rather than just reheating food.
This size and shape of pot could be used as a bowl to eat out of or for washing up etc.

Backpacking cookware – walking in the cold and rain – and lunch ‪@Alpkit‬ Read More »

Thank you Alpkit – great customer service

13 November 2016 / Walking / Alpkit, Alpkit Kraku, backpacking food, backpacking gear, Geocaching, iPhone photography, lightweight backpacking, lightweight camping, lightweight stove, lightweight walking, Lincolnshire, outdoor gear, Photos 2016, walking

A couple of weeks ago, on a trip, I had a problem with my Aplkit Kraku ultra-light stove. When I got home I tested the stove again with a different gas bottle but the join was still leaking. It turned out that over time and use the seal washer had compressed and so was leaking. When I emailed Alpkit and explained the problem they quickly supplied a replacement and a spare washer. I have had the stove a couple of years and use it a lot – Alpkit’s customer service cannot be beaten.

Alpkit ultra-light titanium, pot/mug, stove and folding spoon – the recycled Coke bottle holds enough water for a mug of tea.

Out walking and geocaching on a sunny, late autumn Sunday morning.

Here are details of my lightweight cooking gear and the pouch of supplies in the photo.

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Practice

31 October 2016 / Lincolnshire / Lincolnshire, Photos 2016

Lincolnshire Fire Brigade were out practicing today.

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Paperless Geocaching Garmin etrex 10

23 October 2016 / Walking / Branston, Geocaching, iPhone photography, Lincoln Minster, Lincolnshire, outdoor gear, Photos 2016, walking

I recently bought a Garmin etrex 10 satnav for geocaching.

Geocaching around Branston – Garmin etrex 10

It was a fine autumn morning, a good chance to get out and test the new GPS. I bought the Garmin etrex 10 to supplement my iPhone 6S when geocaching. I expect it be a useful tool when backpacking and hiking.

This summer I have been struggling to find geocaches, as the GPS and Groundspeak app on the iPhone has not been accurate enough. Many people complement their smartphone with a dedicated satnav as they are more accurate. I did not want to spend too much and the Garmin etrex 10 from Blacks looked ideal.

It is a simple, compact, rugged design, with a clear screen and has software installed for “paperless geocaching”. I particularly liked the fact it uses two AA batteries – one less item to charge when camping.

It was easy to transfer geocaching GPX files to the Garmin from my PC. It was also straight forward to manually input a latitude and longitude and navigate to it – so even if I have not uploaded a geocache list to the GPS, I can look up the co-ordinates on the web and then key them in.

Maps

The etrex 10 came with a very simple world map installed on it. Another trip to the internet and I found out how to replace that with a better (but still quite simple) map. See the following links:

First you need Garmin’s Basecamp software to access the GPS – https://www.garmin.com/en-GB/shop/downloads/basecamp

I got the replacement maps from here – http://www.gmaptool.eu/en/content/europe

Before I did anything I connected the GPS to my laptop and backed up the installed software. If something went wrong I needed to be able to restore my newly purchased device. (A simple copy and paste backed things up.)

The storage is limited on the Garmin etrex 10, the Basecamp software gives the option to install selected sections of the larger maps. I balanced the installed map sections against the geocaching data.

Note – For the transferred map to display on the etrex 10, you must delete the base map, gmapbmap and rename the new map to gmapbmap.img.

Did it work better than my iPhone with the Groundspeak Geocaching app?

Yes it did. The iPhone 6S showed the cache was 4m away, the Garmin said 1m and it was right. The replacement maps were useful using Memory Map with 25k OS maps on my smartphone was essential for accurate navigation.

I configured the dashboard on the etrex 10 to display a pointer, to point at the Geocache location. This is far more accurate than the pointer in the Groundspeak app. Often when the app is being used to navigate to a cache it can be 180 degrees wrong! I then have to wander around for a while for it sorts the location out. The Garmin pointed right at the cache.

Overall the test today proved the Garmin etrex 10 to be a worthwhile purchase for Geocaching.

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The view whilst waiting for Francesca @TheBNLincoln @ImpsPremierPlus @OctagonT

20 October 2016 / Business / business, business networking, camera, IT Support for Lincolnshire, Lincoln, Lincoln Minster, Lincolnshire, Octagon Technology, Photos 2016

I was drinking coffee and working whilst I was waiting!

A box at Lincoln City Football Club is a great place to work from – helpful staff, hot drinks and excellent WiFi, installed, set up and secured by Octagon Technology.

Lincoln skyline