Jetboil PCS review continued

A few blogs ago I wrote a quick review of the Jetboil Personal Cooking System. Well, I have used it a bit more and now have more to say about it!

I used it a couple of weekends ago whilst camping out in the woods - the weather was essentially dry but cold so first thing in the morning it was a bit damp. On the first morning I had left the Jetboil in the tent's porch overnight and the electronic ignition would not work! It lit with a match and then sparked OK after that. OK, thought I, must be the damp so I'll leave it in the tent with me overnight.

This I duly did. Next morning, tried the ignition and same thing happened. Once it had been used it would spark like a good 'un. So my conclusion is that it is susceptible to the damp. This in it's own right is not a problem as long as you are aware of it so you can keep another ignition source with you. Otherwise relying on its own ignitiion could make for some tealess times!

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Stormlite Ultralight mat review

First of all I would like to say that not all self-inflating airmats are made equal! I have had the Stormlite for about a year now and it is now not doing the job I bought it for. Let me explain.

This was the first self-inflating mat I had ever used. As a consequence I hadn't really noticed how well (or not) it worked because it was way better than my previous solutions! To cut a long story short, the last few times I have used it I have been cold. Now, some of this I put down to trying out a new sleeping bag (which I will review on another occassion) which was getting the blame for my cold, sleepless nights. Luckiliy someone suggested that it might be the sllep mat - so I put a blanket underneath the mat and ended up having a much better night's sleep.

Fantastic! Now this mat, in my opinion, is not up to scratch when used in late autumn. It seemed to be reasonably OK during the hottest months but even then I got chilly on some nights. I do run 'cold' most of the time. I have bought myself a Thermarest and will report on how it fairs when I get the chance to use it next.

So there you go - cheaper is not always better. The Stormlite was less than half price compared to the cheapest Thermarest and I now regret having been influenced by price rather than functionality. Lesson learnt!

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Soooo busy!

Hi everyone! I have been so busy these last 4 or 5 weeks that I have had very little time for anything blog-wise. We have been doing a lot more work on the house and garden which has been very tiring.

I have also spent about 9 days out of 10 out teaching tracking to different groups of people. Needless to say I got a bit tracked out. Having said that I have trialled a bit more kit (and used some of my newish kit a bit more) and will be writing about that in the near future.

So, I'm still here and will be back with a vengeance in the near future.

Polish Bushcraft

A big thank you to Sam for linking back to my blog from his site - Woodcraft in Poland.

Cheers mate!

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Fallow deer on Exmoor

A couple of weeks ago I was talking to a neighbour about local deer. It transpired that some people in the area thought that Fallow deer were not resident in the area. This upset me a little because I was certain I had Fallow tracks in the private woodland that I have access to. I started to chalk it up to experience as I'm not infallable when my nieghbour said he had seen them about 5 miles away.

To cut a long story short, I was with a client out in the woods recently and at one of our stops we saw, in the distance, 3 Fallow deer! They were about 350 yards away but we had great views of a male and two does. He had a lovely rack and they all looked very relaxed, having a lie down and chewing the cud. Unfortunately, they were on land that I don't have access to so I couldn't nip over there to track or stalk them. Never mind, eh. It was still very nice to get confirmation that they are in the area and that I was (probably) right about the tracks.

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