Cooking and Sleeping

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Cooking and Sleeping.

We had quite a lot of cooking and general camping gear. For this trip though we invested in some new stuff.

Sleeping bags: We plumped for some cheapish synthetic sleeping bags with a tiny pack volume and very light weight. They claimed a comfort zone of +8 degrees. We made a very important discovery from the first evening in Norway. Stan in a cheapie sleeping bag and a cotton inner liner = warm happy bunny. Damae in same sleeping bag = ice queen. So a hit and a miss. Incidently Damae now has a very good down sleeping bag supposedly good to -8'c which keeps her warm enough (in summer and with a microfibre inner liner ;o)

We also bought two Thermarest mats from the Prolite range. They are very good lightweight and pack up really small. We discovered this year that there is a slightly better insulated version of the Prolite range which we bought for Damae in the quest to keep her warm at night. It gives a little extra cushioning as well, which is appreciated by Damae.

We decided to take a couple of small alcohol burners to Norway, a Trangia mini and a homebrew mini stove on based on a Trangia burner. These worked quite well, however we discovered that CampingGaz canisters are at least as widely available than fuel alcohol. We could find Rød Sprit in most petrol stations (ethanol so lots of soot, which can be reduced to reasonable levels by adding up to 10% water) and found a much better product calld Fin Fyr in one place. Niether is as cheap as the methanol we can buy here in the Netherlands although the Fin Fyr is almost as clean a fuel.

We had a set of very cheap aluminium pans and various cutlery and 'crockery'. We discovered the joys of folding cups and plates. The plates and bowls from Orikaso are amazingly durable. We expected them to give up the ghost after a couple of uses but they are still going strong and in use every night we camp. They are also exceedingly lightweight and versatile (see cool stuff for pics).

Another item we regard as indespensable is the Platypus 6 litre water bag. This is also very light and seems to be very durable considering the thinness of the plastic. We had used large 1 litre bidons for getting water at campsites but the Platypus weighs less than one of those bidons and holds much more.

Another rather useful item was the Ortlieb washing up 'bowl'. These are made from the same material as the Roller-Classic panniers, don't weigh much and fold up into a small space. One problem with living in a tent is that things seem to always end up in a different place. A large bowl is handy for putting things in.

Page created 20/6/06