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 !

Greenheat Gelfuel

The Gelfuel is an alternative fuel source to methylated spirits. It is made from Ethanol which is derived from sugar cane and other renewable agricultural sources.

Benefits they say

The benefits of Gel over Meths are:

Safe

• The fuel is a gel & therefore does not spill
• It's safe if you spill water on it
• The gel is non flare, non explosive, non splash, non toxic

Clean

• The gel burns clean & odourless - only very low CO2 emissions & water vapour are emitted.
• It can be used indoors & near children & pets as it does not pollute the air
• No black soot or smoke is emitted, pots & pans stay clean

Efficient

• Fuel can be extinguished & reused

Eco Friendly

• The gel is made from renewable agricultural sources rather than fossil fuels/deforestation
• It burns clean (ie CO2 neutral)

Our Initial Burn Test

Myself and TG, tested the Gel against a brand new out the wrapper Trangia burner.

For:
It boiled water at the same speed as the Trangia Meths burner. It's good that you can knock it over and just stand it back up. Clean pots, no soot on them. Comes with a clip on lid so you can close it up when not in use.
It burns direct from it's own container, you don't need to make a cooker fo it. A 200g tin that will burn for 120 mins and gets a thumbs up. it smells like Brandy ;-)

Against:
It's taller than the Trangia burner, but does come with a spring loaded wire ring that lets you lower and raise it in a Trangia cook set. For me it made it to tall for my Hobo Stove and would mean that for us "make you own stove people", we would have to knock up a new stove to accommodate it.

My thoughts:
I'm happy with my Meths, becuase when I run out of Meths I can throw twigs into my Hobo Stove, and although our first test proved that it boiled up water as fast as the Meths burner, I'm still not convinced that it would make it into my pack as a replacement for my trusty Meths burner.

I will toss my tin into my daysack and take it as a hand warmer for those nasty cold day hikes or treks up places like Ben Nevis, for those times where you have to take your gloves off and can't seem to get your hands warm after putting them back on.
It will also double as a fire paste for starting wood fires, just scoop some out and light it.

Half Ass Expeditions

Check out our good friends from over the pond, read stories of true winter survival......days of deforestation.....hot toddies, the Thwam Thwacker, and if they still have it, a picture of a naked JB !!!

Half Ass Expeditions (HAE) started back in the '80s as a joke among four guys who go winter mountaineering in Northern New England. It is more or less a reflection of their camping style, which has developed over the years into a peripatetic, rambling, seat-of-the-pants modus operandi. So HAE is unencumbered by elitism and sundry attitudes that characterize high-altitude fraternities and primadonnas who want to be famous. They're certainly not looking to gain celebrity status among the world's alpine cognoscenti with their own radical style of climbing, even if their exploits have earned them notoriety of local renown.

Half Ass Expeditions
http://www.halfassexpeditions.com/

Uffmoor Wood - GPS Tracklog - 22/11/2008

Well last Saturdays walk around Uffmoor Wood was a cold and damp 3.44miles with no sign of wildlife apart form the odd Robin and the rustle of animals in the woods. I pulled into the car park a bit late for a walk and well aware that it would be dark or getting dark as I got back to the car and had visions of the gate being locked and me haveing to bolt cutter my way out of there, not that I've had to do this before ;-)

It was a pleasant walk and would have made for some nice pictures if it had been frosty, but sadly it was just grey and wet without the hope of a few rays of sunshine. Anyway the dogs loved it and were more than happy to bounce off into the trees trying to flush out the Sheep and Deer with very little success, while the owners flip and panic and try to calm them down. Well It's that time of the year when all of the wild field mint has been muched down by the animals and only the wild Garlic remains by the one footbridge, maybe that's due to the steepness of the banks that surround the stream. I did manage to spot a couple of Frogs down by the almost completly overgrown pond. The rest of the walk was mud mud mud and plenty of slip slideing and a couple of stream crossings to add to the chances of getting a dunking. After that it was a pretty straightforward walk back up through the woods, over a couple of small footbridges in a very boggy area, then back around the edge of the woods and join the path that takes me back to the car.

I sat at the one very fast flowing water source and scooped out some water for a coffee when an old couple stopped for a chat, telling me about there walk and how much they love the woods etc etc.....when the old chap mentioned the name of the stream that I was getting my water from, turns out that it's fed by the River Stour, which starts in Stourport and is in turn fed by the River Severn, so that was a usefull piece of knowledge gathered from a friendly local :)

Well the darkness beats me and the last leg of the walk is a dark one with me wondering about the sign that says they lock the car park gate at dusk. Back at the car, muddy and happy that the gate is still open.

All in all Uffmoor Wood is a great place for a walk, it's not that big but has plenty for a ramble about for a couple of hours and in the past we've spotted an abundance of wildlife. It's also well liked by the dog walking brigade, so that hinders your chances of spotting any wildlife. I give Uffmoor Wood a thumbs up for a place to spend a couple of hours mooching about.

Topgears 24hr Ration Pack version 1

A picture I took of Topgears ration pack before he went testing.

I'm interested to hear how you got on with your home made ration packs that you took away last weekend. Also what cooker did you take and what sort of pots did you use ?
I can see that you have some boil in the bag stuff but also a packet of curry, did you cook the curry in a pot or did you stand it in a pan of water ?

I'm just getting together mine to try out when we do that night in the woods to test your new sleep system. When I get it done I will post a picture and contents list.