Turn Your Water Bottle Into A Solar-Powered Lamp

Now this looks like a great Idea, and something that I fancy giving a blast, however I'm not going to pay £8, soooo I've got my eyes on butchering one of my solar garden lights and have already found myself a donor bottle for this project. Coming soon, BG's homemade bottle light ;)

Read this guys review.......

The LightCap 200 turns any of those ubiquitous wide-mouth water bottles from Nalgene or Camelbak into a solar lantern. The LightCap is, as its name implies, a replacement cap for a water bottle, but with four bright LED lights on the underside and a small solar panel on top. Fully charged (about 12 hours in direct light), the LightCap 200 will yield an amazing eight hours of light, which is more than enough to sustain most camping trips or outlast a power outage. More on my time with the SolLight LightCap 200 after the jump.

I've often cursed the waste, and weight, of fuel or battery-powered lanterns. So, I was thrilled to try out the LightCap 200 on a recent backpacking trip. It weighs next to nothing on its own, and since I had to carry full water bottles in my pack anyway, I had no extra weight in the form of batteries, fuel, or lantern. Since the LightCap 200 is waterproof, there's no problem screwing the cap onto a full water bottle. However, I strapped the LightCap 200 to the top of my pack for the hike in, to give it some time to charge in full light.

After using the light on the first night, I only had to leave it in the sun on Day Two and it was charged up and ready to go the next night. Due to the LEDs, the light is rather focused, rather than diffused like a regular lantern, but it provided ample light for food prep and a card game. Even better, I had no fumes or fire hazard to contend with while reading in the tent at night.

Click on the tittle of this post to see a video of the lightcap in action.....

Survival Playing Cards

Jans mom gave me a usefull pack of playing cards while I was over in Canada.

 

Each card gives strategies and tips on surviving out in the wild.

No deed to take a pocket survival guide and a pack of playing cards now ;)

Categories include:

* How to survive a forest fire.
* How to survive an avalanche.
* How to fend off a black bear attack.
* How to avoid snake bites.
* River safety.
* hunting for survival.
* Finding water.
* Useful knots.
* First aid kit.
* Drowning.
* Plus 42 other categories!

The Big Guy Returns

I'm back in Blighty after seven weeks in Canadas Newfoundland wilderness, just me, the mrs, the bears, the moose and the whales.

It was a trip of a lifetime, fantastic scenery, great people, stunning locations, splendid food, and more wilderness than you can shake a stick at.

Click on the picture above to see the moooooooose......

Rise of the Hammock

Hammock Central

Last weekend was spent in the forest with the Mad Crew, unfortunately the Big Guy has disappeared off to Canada and obviously couldn't make it, he must have found those real mountains and endless miles of forest far too appealing, I expect he is waiting for the snow to arrive to he can go joy riding in a Skidoo :-)

This was the first expedition where everyone was sleeping in a hammock. Is this start of something new for the crew? Sleeping in a hammock is fun and you don't have to worry too much about what is on the ground, especially during the warmer weather when the floor is alive with bugs! Getting into your sleeping bag with a hammock is fun, the trick is to get into your bag while standing on the ground, pull it up over your head as far as it will go, then carefully sit in the centre of the hammock and swivel yourself in. Falling off just adds to the entertainment!

Tom look at a Sparassus Crispus

Find of the weekend has to be this Cauliflower fungus (Sparassus Crispus), first time any of us had seen one, probably because we are usually mooching around the forest out of season for this Fungi, it was certainly a fine looking fungus, apparently it's edible to. There where plenty of Toads to be seen and we also found the cutest little Pond Froglet you've ever seen, unfortunately I didn't have my camera with me a the time ;-(