Pillows

At home, I have a very nice (if a tad too large) memory foam pillow. This makes for very comfy sleeps. However, it is very impractical to bring such an object into the wilderness, thus a substitute needs to be found.

So far, I have tried many different objects to rest my head on: clothing “footballs” (see Patrolling s1e08 AWOL bag segment); cheap inflatable pillow and tried a camelbak last night. None of these provide the amount of support I am used to. Maybe I’m being too picky but I do find it affects my sleep while camping (wake up far too often, take ages to nod off and I always wake up far too early) so it is something I want to get sorted asap.

Suggestions?

R4nger5 meet in June

V has informed me that there will be a R4nger5 meet at Rough Hey Wood campsite over the third weekend in June (20/21st). Details are still to be worked out but I believe the usual procedure of turn up on the Thursday or Friday and leave on Sunday or Monday.

Usual activities of bushcraft, drinking and music will take place, hopefully with filming as well. Also, seeing as it is in June, the weather should be much better than last time.

I will be driving down as per usual, if anyone in the central belt of Scotland wants a lift, contact me.

Be there or be sane.

Getting my feet wet

Just back from my first swim in a few years. First time in the local pool for about a decade as well. It was good to get my body completely immersed an possibly scare a few folk with my unfit body (I will go for a run soon). Perth pool is pretty dull though, they have cut back a lot of the features like the water cannons and the rapids. The slides were a lot more violent than I remember, pushed from side to side.

Even without the cannons and rapids it was still pretty good. Got to chat with my friend Katie, discussed going round the Hermatage which should be a good walk. Also want to go camping again.

Trail Designs Caldera Stove for MSR Kettle

Warning: I can’t take decent pictures, expect blurryness and poor focus.

Last week I ordered a new stove system from Winwood Outdoor which arrived today. I am pretty surprised at how light the system is, the box weighed less than a box of cereal. Nice to see they recycle as well.

The MSR titan pot is nothing special in my opinion. Pretty standard affair for camping with the exception that it is made from titanium which makes it incredibly light.

The main part of the system packs down very small, fits in my hand.

Due to my lack of reading comprehension, I never noticed that the system came with a stove so I ordered another one by mistake. Not a huge deal, means I can loan/sell it to someone, plus a bit of redundancy in cooking is never a bad thing. Besides, its light (notice a theme here?). The extra stove also came with its own measuring cup which is a bonus.

The fuel bottle is pretty simple, squeezy plastic with a squirt nozzle. Apparently has enough capacity for a 5 day hike. Will have to test that at the upcoming R4nger5 meet.

The Caldera Cone itself surprised me a little. I assumed it came as 2 parts but it is only one. Also seems a bit flimsy to me. I initially thought that it was made of titanium but the manual says aluminium.

When the pot is inserted into the cone it becomes a lot more stable and the pot is pretty easy to insert/remove.

I got this system after reading Pig Monkey’s review on a similar system that he got. My system differs in that I have a different pot so the cone specs will be different, there are no pegs for wood burning (easily sorted) and it didn’t come with an esbit burner (again easily sorted, I have a surplus of aluminium in my garage).

I theorise that with some minor modification, the system could be made to work with a gas burner, increasing the eventual fuel options to 4 (wood, alcohol, esbit and gas).

Back – Updated with more photos

I have returned from the R4nger5 meet that took place over the weekend. Five folk including me showed up: V and Graafen (the organisers), Pippa and Jonathan. Had a pretty good time. Gathered wood, had a barbecue, split wood with an axe, played with various fire starting methods and music was played. I even had a few goes on V’s didgeredoo. Need more practice at that, managed to get about 20 seconds of droning over the course of 2 days.

There was also much hilarity. V is a really funny guy, we were all laughing pretty regularly at his jokes. More fun was had when a discarded chair was found and I sat in it only to discover the reason why it was discarded. The plastic weave on the bottom had ripped off at one side and I went straight through. Photos were taken, will try and grab them off the folk who took them. I did have my revenge when I got out some paracord and made a makeshift fix. Paracord is handy stuff, carry some around.

All of my photos are available on Flickr.

Now I can take the sink camping

My new backpack finally arrived yesterday. It is a full size British Army PLCE rucksack. The first thing that struck me was the size of it.  Can carry 120 litres of stuff which is probably more than I need. It has side pouches which are detachable and can be fixed to a yolk for carrying around 20 litres.

It is bloody huge. I probably could pack the kitchen sink and take it camping. The backpack will most likely be used to go camping with 5 minutes notice. The other main use will be if shit hits the fan and I need to get out of wherever I am. Call me paranoid if you want but it is a possibility that something really really bad may happen and I want to have a decent attempt at surviving it.

The only difficulty I see with this backpack is how to pack my sleeping bag. My sleeping bag is too bulky to fit in the main compartment. I will probably have to find some way of fixing it to the bottom of the backpack.