Re: Handy stuff to have in your camping kit
Posted: 14 May 2020, 5:50pm
* Waterproof panniers (after my last non-waterproof pair literally filled up with rain water on my way to Land’s End. How the stuff got in faster than it could run out, I have no idea...
* Plus one for string - very useful stuff!! Theres no end to the things you can do & fix with string.
* compact binoculars - I was surprised how often I use them. Didn’t think I would.
* Oh and a Kindle...
I get around the whole prepping, cooking, washing-up thing by cycle-touring almost exclusively in France (or used to...
) where good food is all around me. I think my records are: 3 croissants in one morning and 5 tartes aux fruits in one day, although of course as every self-respecting cyclist will know, the intake of food on any one day, is directly proportional to the number of miles covered. Its as simple as that.
I treated myself to a Leatherman Wave a couple of years ago and have never used it, inspite of it having, effectively, a neat little socket set on it... tell a lie! I have used the tiny eyeglass screwdriver a couple of times, but of course I could readily make alternative, much lighter & more compact, arrangements to cover that one. I remain anxious when crossing the UK / French borders with it tho'. Both UK & French customs seem oblivious to my various Opinels. Maybe I just look suitably harmless.
I think the lastest aquisition that's promising to be a Big Hit is a pair of eye-shades with a special construction, so that a plain-vanilla tinted blade sits in front of a pair of light, transparent-plastic-framed prescription varifocals. They felt a bit odd in the local opticians, when I tried them on and even out walking, they feel slightly strange, but for cycling, they're totally brill. I've gone back to having good distance, mid and close-up vision again - Thank God!! Not camping kit, per se, but I don't think I'll be cycle-touring without them now.
And one last embarressment - I sat down one day and made up a super-light first aid kit, with everything in it I could remember having needed in three decades of buggering about outdoors, and then a couple of weeks later, a chum tumbled down a bank, broke his wrist and where was my triangular bandage?? In the first aid kit, on my bench, at my house... that's where!
* Plus one for string - very useful stuff!! Theres no end to the things you can do & fix with string.
* compact binoculars - I was surprised how often I use them. Didn’t think I would.
* Oh and a Kindle...
I get around the whole prepping, cooking, washing-up thing by cycle-touring almost exclusively in France (or used to...
) where good food is all around me. I think my records are: 3 croissants in one morning and 5 tartes aux fruits in one day, although of course as every self-respecting cyclist will know, the intake of food on any one day, is directly proportional to the number of miles covered. Its as simple as that.I treated myself to a Leatherman Wave a couple of years ago and have never used it, inspite of it having, effectively, a neat little socket set on it... tell a lie! I have used the tiny eyeglass screwdriver a couple of times, but of course I could readily make alternative, much lighter & more compact, arrangements to cover that one. I remain anxious when crossing the UK / French borders with it tho'. Both UK & French customs seem oblivious to my various Opinels. Maybe I just look suitably harmless.
I think the lastest aquisition that's promising to be a Big Hit is a pair of eye-shades with a special construction, so that a plain-vanilla tinted blade sits in front of a pair of light, transparent-plastic-framed prescription varifocals. They felt a bit odd in the local opticians, when I tried them on and even out walking, they feel slightly strange, but for cycling, they're totally brill. I've gone back to having good distance, mid and close-up vision again - Thank God!! Not camping kit, per se, but I don't think I'll be cycle-touring without them now.
And one last embarressment - I sat down one day and made up a super-light first aid kit, with everything in it I could remember having needed in three decades of buggering about outdoors, and then a couple of weeks later, a chum tumbled down a bank, broke his wrist and where was my triangular bandage?? In the first aid kit, on my bench, at my house... that's where!
