Was just sitting in front of the TV ( Watching Bear Grylls and Will Ferrel ) and got me thinking about our little trip and what we had done
Well this year very little other than a few overnighters with the next section of our great glen trip cut down to about 500 yards paddling to the island and back again , So in the last year we have achieved nothing distance wise, been difficult with work and family commitments, John and I also work in the same team again at work, Its a pretty small team so its been even more difficult to find time when we can both "escape" for a few days
But we have gained some useful experience , we are still carrying far to much equipment but we are probably 100 Kg lighter than our first trip out ( my bum doesnt get wet now from the canoe sitting so low in the water )
I am trying to figure out where the problem area's are and have come up with the following so far
Food
We buy enough food to feed 3 people plus extra snacks and other stuff we throw in the shopping basket. I think we justify this to ourselves in a "what if we get stuck" way and need extra food
The second problem is the choice of menu , its far too complex. I enjoy cooking at home but need to plan the food better to cut down on the weight , preparation and storage problems. Note I said I there , I do quite naturally fall into the mam role
I am my own worst enemy - I have spotted an outback oven - its basically a heat proof cover which works like an oven ( more even heating ) rather than the direct bottom heat of a normal stove - My finger has been over the "Buy" button a dozen times , WHY !!! am i really going to bake a cake or make yorkshire puddings , well if i could i probably would but its completely over the top.
The stew we cooked for about 4 hours on the island was fantastic but this could have been prepared at home and just heated through
We need to look for simple meals that just need water adding
Breakfast should be porridge made with boiling water not a full english
Lunch should be a dried soup mix with some bread
Evening meals need to be heated rather than prepared from scratch
Drink is another problem - This is supposed to be fun and relaxing as well as an acheivement. I do enjoy a drink when i am chilling out but we ( I) take far too much , its not like i am drunk or hungover for the entire duration but a couple of bottles of wine plus some vodka weighs a lot , of course i do my bit to reduce that weight as fast as possible.
The next problem is cooking equipment
Stoves - We like to have an open fire when we can and carry a grilliput ( small take down grill ) , I generally pick up a couple of large baking sheets as we can cook just about anything on one of those , plus they are cheap so we throw them away once we get home. This is always our prefered means of cooking. We are back to the "what if" senario's again , we are not the most proficient at lighting fires especially in wet conditions so also carry a jetboil stove which is great for boiling water plus an MSR pocket rocket with spare gas , again why !!! this is down to our experience. The jetboil can boil enough water for a meal for us both in about 4 minutes , so that should be breakfast and lunch sorted. A prepared meal could be cooked over an open fire or put inside the jetboil with a covering of water so there should be absolutely no reason why we need anything more than that
Pots , pans , mess tins
We seam to have things for cooking then different things for eating or drinking. With the right choice of foods there is no reason why one item should not cover all 3 purposes
Knives
Both John and I carry a small pocket knife plus we have a very large Gerber machette. It has a saw edge on the back and i even cook with it but is not an ideal tool for any job. The saw edge is too fine for anything other than small branches, The knife blade is to light to be effective as an axe. While we are trying to reduce bulk and weight it is just as important to make sure our kit is working for us , And the machette isnt. John found a folding bow saw which we have yet to try but it takes a standard bow saw blade so should have no problems with larger branches. I have bought a small hand axe for chopping those branches into useable fire wood. The weight will have gone up significantly but we can both now collect firewood and the result should be much quicker than before
I have mixed feelings about my hennessy hammock , I quite like the bottom entry but find that it takes too much effort if i need the toilet during the night , therefore spend hours lying there thinking i need to go but cant be bothered to get in and out. Some nights i sleep better than my bed at home , other nights i am awake half the night and cant figure out why. I have tried to find information on the various hammock forums to see how the heights of the hammock ropes affect a good or bad nights sleep , I have had the head end too high and woke up with my backside out of the entry slit. Could not find out anything useful other than its personal choice how high or low these should be and i cant find any way of making this consistant from site to site.
Time for another trip to get some more practice in I think