Category Archives: outdoors

outdoors

stoves and some recipe plans

hiking/backpacking/camping, outdoors

Obviously a lot of my outdoor kit is now well over a decade old.

After a little hunting around where all my outdoor gear is stored. I eventually found my Bushbuddy wood burning stove.

Naturally I had to fire it up, which I did yesterday.

The Bushbuddy is a rather cool stove. It’s double walled, and creates this secondary combustion that makes it really efficient. I’m not sure about the lack of soot though from the flame. As my old pot I used with it will show otherwise.

Another cool feature of the Bushbuddy design is it has a heat shield in the base stopping it from scorching the ground. Very important when you practice leave no trace.

I have two new meth stoves! Yeah just what I needed (having 30 odd already). The first arrival was a Trangia burner (which I may of mentioned already). Which I can’t believe I never had. The second being a Goshawk Swirling Flame OP-100. That has a sealing cap. Which means like the Trangia it can still have fuel left in it after us.

In my setup or planned setup. I see the Trangia or Goshawk as back up stoves to a wood burning stove such as the Bushbuddy or Kelly Kettle.

I’ve also been thinking about food/menus for trips.

Obviously this thinking has involved looking at one or two YouTube videos. Some have been specific hiking channels, others bushcraft related. But it does get me how impractical some of these are on their suggestions. Cooking a full English fry up, or a beef stew and dumplings on a Trangia (2 hour cook time!)

My plan is to try and use my jazz style of cooking in the outdoors.

So using templates/formulas/ratios create food that cooks in under 30 minutes. In combo with once again making my own dehydrated meals.

I think one thing that is ideal for hiking is over night oats. The only tweak to my current recipe is to add powdered milk so that all you add is water and leave.

I’m not going to carry raw meat out to the middle of nowhere. My thinking is to go the vegan route and use dried soya mince (it does make a good spagbol) and slightly larger soya chunks.

It should be more than possible to make a really nice chili, curry, stew, and spagbol using dried ingredients from scratch that cook in less than the 30 mins time limit I want to aim for.

Now to develop those recipes!

So so tired

Fenland Gamers, game night, life, the universe, and everything, outdoors, still alive

After having three days off where I got to game with Jonathan. Which was the first time in a longtime. Plus attend a Fenland Gamers club night (something that is a rarity these days). At which I got to game with more friends I hadn’t played with in a while (hello Ben).

Games that saw the table in these two sessions were Dandelions, Can’t Stop, Senso: Battle for Japan, Macao, Ship Captain Crew, and Sea Salt & Pepper. Plus two games that Ben owned No Mercy, and Come Sail Away!

It was back to work and a pretty full on four days that were quite frankly draining. Especially after one shift I didn’t have any real recovery time because of union meetings I had to attend. I actually ended up having a snooze in the car between the last union meeting and the start of my shift.

The knock on effect was I was too tired to write anything about the gaming I mentioned above. Or get to mention that it came to light Jonathan has been playing trick taking games wrongly for a very long time. Basically the mistake was playing a trump card when you could follow suit. You have to follow suit. If you can’t then you can play a trump card (if you have any) or “dump” a card from another suit.

As I write this life update I have two much needed days off. Followed by a day back at work. Followed by four days off. What am I going to do in those days off? It’s not long enough to visit Nathan and give mum time to recover! Yes mum needs recovery time after I go away. I’ve factored it for UKGE for example. Apparently looking after Nico and Loki the two attack chihuahuas can be very taxing.

I’m in the process of buying a small dice masters collection. Which will help with the cube building. More on this once it happens.

Until the next big expansion for Marvel Champions Age of Apocalypse comes out (tomorrow/next week?) I now have a complete set of cards. I ordered the final three hero packs that I needed (Venom, Gamora, and Drax) that arrived at the start of the week. The nice thing about getting these older hero packs is the fact you don’t have to pay full price for them. They get nice reductions.

I just need to get the game to the table, get a storage solution, and sleeve the thousands of cards!

Having Tuesday as a dead game night at the moment is killing me. It was really cool that on a Tuesday those of us that liked ccg/tcg/lcg type games had a regular evening where we could play these style of games. I need to be more proactive in my efforts to find somewhere.

Oh I did get a quick chance yesterday to play around with my fire starting kit! I need to start playing around with this more. Get more confident in using it, and develop my fire starting skills.

So yesterday using a piece of fat wood (resin rich pine wood) I created some tinder to start a fire with. Then using a fero rod and striker to create sparks managed to get the tinder to light. This little exercise did not involve me building this into a roaring fire. Its aim was to get the tinder going. I followed this up with using the fero rod and striker to start a tinder wick. Which started first strike! Wow that was impressive.

My final little play with fire for the afternoon was to start a trangia burner with the fero rod and striker. Which worked really well. Why hadn’t I done this back when I was doing all the meth stove reviews?

My Kelly Kettle Trekker also arrived. Looks a lovely bit of kit. Although the pot and lid look too small to be of any practical use. I can’t see them being used at all, and replaced by one of my titanium pots.

Hopefully I’ll get to try out the Kelly Kettle on one of my days off. Who knows I might even film my initial efforts with it!

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

gaming on the trail, gaming outdoors, hiking/backpacking/camping, life, the universe, and everything, outdoors, still alive

In a recent post I’ve said plans are forming to get back outdoors this year.

Wow how the online scene has changed since my days as one of the early UK “pioneer” bloggers on the trail.

Back then in 2008 the technology was very restrictive and it was just about possible to live blog as you hiked through the wilds of Scotland. Blogs were a lot more popular back then. YouTube was a thing, just not the monster it is now. Heck I even did stove reviews on YouTube.

Now there are so many YouTube channels for the outdoors covering bushcraft and backpacking.

There is some crossover between the two skills and equipment wise. But one thing that winds me up is the bushcraft tarp videos. And to be fair there are some outdoors videos that have the same fault. The bug bear is the pitching of the tarp. A good 90% of them are in woods/forests and use trees, and a ridge line. Something that being in remote locations you won’t have.

I also query just how far they hike with all the gear they have for a camp. Sometimes I suspect it’s not more than a few feet from the car. It’s obvious they have not hiked several hours with the kit, or done a multi day hike carrying it.

Oh and the formulaic videos, starting with the hiking montage. All meant to establish that they are in the outdoors, far from the beaten path. So staged. I almost want to say these montages are a cliche now.

Having said that there are bits of useful information I can use from these new sources. And I’ll discuss those bits in future posts.

Obviously there will be a gaming element to my return. Whether that involves just a pack of cards and some d6 dice, or maybe Pocket Hive for those social moments on the trail. But gaming options too are subject of a future post.

My favourite photo ever

outdoors

This is my favourite picture that I've taken ever. It is from an over night camp Strider and I did back in the Summer of 2010 on Holkham beach. The photo was taken around 4:30 in the morning on my iPhone. It's several pictures stitched together using a panoramic app. Sadly this app did a poor job and gives the photo it's major flaws. However it doesn't distract from the mood that the photo captures. I love the lighting, the primal feel, and captures Strider really well.

 

An Upcoming Wild Camping Podcast (possibly comedy)

comedy, humour, it's a JOKE, outdoors, parody

 

After a discussion with my fellow explorer of luxury accommodation Alan Sloman we have decided to do a series of podcasts about the luxury side of wild camping. So while Andy Howell and Podcast Bob are experiencing the lower end of wild camping, by cooking their own food, carrying their own stuff, the cold and rain. Myself and my fellow explorer will be under great duress and personnel suffering enduring luxury hotels, b&b's and all the nasty Michelin star food, king size beds with silk bedsheets, and spa treatments. It's possible we may even indulge in some wild swimming in a perfectly heated indoor pool, followed by a sauna. We will be doing this in the ultimate ultra light weight style possible by utilising door men and bell boys to carry our suitcases.

The plan is for us to go on our wild camps at the same time as Andy and Bob. You'll be able to listen to us suffer food that has only one Michelin star washed down by some cheap plonk probably a chateau Margaux 2009, and laugh as the wind and rain beat against the windows knowing some poor sods are out in the middle of nowhere in tarps and eating rehydrated food. You'll be able to enjoy our insightful witterings on current issues and solving the worlds problems over a Macallan 1926 and Cuban cigar, because the world hasn't heard enough from a couple of Middle aged slightly thicker round the middle than they should be men.

We'll bring you tips on how best to utilise the concierge to procure only the best escort services to help make slumming it in a luxury hotel with a one Michelin star restaurant bearable. There will be in depth discussion on our favourite spa treatments, you will find out which ones ended in disappointment and which ones had a happy ending. We will also be reviewing silk bedsheets and tell you have to identify the thread count of a silk sheet. There will also be survival advice as well, such as how to survive a cold spell when the central heating drops by a degree by sharing body heat with a female companion or three.

To compliment this new podcast there will also be a new website called SlackPackingLight. Which will deal with this fast growing sector of the outdoors world. This site will have indepth articles like just how many staff do you need to take with you on a luxury wild camp?, how many porters do you need to carry the picnic?, birthday suit or speedos when wild swimming? Which tree/bush is best for that all important campfire for toasting marshmallows? In camp entertainment beatbox, guitar or thrash metal band? There will also be the latest outdoors fashions tastefully displayed in lookbooks with the current cliched poses. Our two Michelin star chef will be bringing you the latest in camp fire recipes using molecular gastronomy techniques – some mores will never be the same. And to top it off our writers will be running an tips section with such great advice as save weight by using a stripper pole as a trekking pole.

Oh and we will have merchandise galore on the site, any old tatt that we can stick a logo on we will be selling. You thought KISS had a merchandising machine, we will be taking it to the next level. Who wouldn't want a condom with a silhouette of two middle aged men on it?

So I'm hoping you are excited about this new adventure/enterprise/chance to exploit the gullible as I am. I look forward to spending your money on my next luxury weekend away.