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 ;-(

Magnesium Fire Starter

Well my old flint and steel snapped about three years ago and since then I've been useing TG's Sweedish Firesteel.  So while I'm out here in Canada I decided to pick one up for myself, as I've been saying for the past few years...lol........but for a change and to make some comparisons I've picked up one of these magnesium fire starters, with a flame source of 5400F.  It should do the trick of replaceing my old flint and steel.

 

Looking at the ammount I've used so far for testing, it should provide me with sufficient shavings to start hundreds of fires.

 

Will be nice to set it against the sweedish one in a field test this winter when it's damp and frosty.

 

 

 

 

Hannah Stove

Heres my attempt at the Hannah (pressurised alcohol) Stove. This one includes my own devised internal heat exchanger which theoretically helps the alcohol vapourise better.... need to conduct some more tests to prove this. Burn time was 15 minutes using 20 x 1mm holes and 2 pence over the presure release hole (didn't explode!). You can see how hot this baby burned, it discoloured the aluminium!

Flashpackers, are you one ?

It dawned on me a few weeks ago when I was up in The Lake District, parked up in Penrith, as I fired up my iPod Touch so I could borrow wifi from some open router, bluetoothed this and that, started charging my mobile phone, neccessitating the use of an adaptor which happens to have a surge protector, and shuffling tunes I downloaded ealier onto the iPod, checking my email, typing this for the Blog, using the earphones I borrowed from my old JVC pocket radio because I left my noise-reducing headphones at home. Then I checked the weather for the rest of the week, logged into Messenger to say hello to the folks back home. Checked the time on my all dancing Casio Pro Trek compass watch, dropped some new batteries into the GPS and some for the camera........STOP I've completely gone over the edge...

Pop can meths stove

Ok I've made my first pop can meths stove and I'm more than impressed with its performance.

It's double skinned and made from the base of two pop cans.

I've bonded it together with 4 minute fast dry liquid steel.

My own little touch was to add four small nails to use as a pot stand.

The stability of the cooker with the nails added is great, better than I could of wished for.

I've not done any time trials for the boiling of water etc, but being a hardened Trangia meths burner user, I got the idea that it boiled just as fast and as hot as my Trangia, with the added advantage of weighing less.

 

Well I'm giving this cooker to "The Duck", as his Trangia diead a death for reasons that only he knows ;-)

He refutes our claims that he was intoxicated and stepped back onto it down the forest, thus crushing the poor thing.

 

Laptop or Ipod Touch !

Should us "Flashpackers" leave the bulky laptops at home and pack an Ipod Touch ?

Watch this space for my thoughts on this subject comming soon!

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Ok the verdicts in, the Ipod Touch wins.

With the Ipod and an open wifi connection, I can do emails, check the weather, use google earth, check maps and get directions, use it to find ATM's, toilets, petrol stations, check my calendar, make notes, play music and videos, check the traffic and the news.

The thing I can't do with the Ipod that I can do with my laptop is move photos from my camera, but with SDHC memory cards getting cheaper than a packet of smokes, the laptop will be staying at home from now on.

Apple will soon be releasing verion 3.0 of it's software, and that will be unlocking the Bluetooth chip that they've kept secret and disabled via software. I'm looking forward to Bluetoothing photos from my phone to the Ipod, then via wifi I can upload them to this Blog or email them to friends and family. That will realy kill the need for a laptop when traveling.

The Lake District April 2009

WOW........what a fantastic time spent in The Lake District.
Great weather, fantstic views, long walks, and some frightening drives over Hardknott and Wrynose Pass !

Click on the title above to view some of our photos...

Links to places we visited:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardknott_Pass
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ullswater
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur%27s_Pike
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windermere
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crow_Crag
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambleside
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardknott_Roman_Fort
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pooley_Bridge
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kendal

Water

Paul using the MSR Microworks to filter dirty water from one Platy through the filter and into the clean Platy.

Take your rubbish home !

While camped out in one of our favourite forests, myself and TG, came across a couple of camps that had been setup by strangers. The first camp we found was extremely sterile due to the guys removing almost every trace of a camp ever being there, it was only our keen eyes that spotted charring from a fire on the forest floor, but other than that you would never of known that anyone had camped there.........Then we come across this mess while out checking on some bird/deer hides, this camp had beer cans, tinfoil, candles, plastic bottles etc, just dumped in the nook of a fallen tree and most of it had already been dragged out by curious animals. The video did have sound but due to our disgust at this sensless act we had to remove it because our every second word began with "dirty idle f******, filthy b******s, take ya rubbish home d***heads.

We burnt what would burn then hauled out the rest with our own rubbish.........

THIS DOES NOTHING TO HELP US WILDERNESS CAMPERS WHEN THE FORESTRY GUYS COME CALLING !!!! SO DO US ALL A FAVOUR AND SMARTEN UP OR WE WILL PAY YOUR DIRTY CAMPS A VISIT WHILE YOU'RE SLEEPING, AND WE WONT BE COMING TO TUCK YOU IN !