A somewhat delayed post. I was delayed a few days, which spiralled out of control when I spent five days without internet access. Um, tragedy I guess...
As mentioned in the last post, so very long ago, I was contemplating tents and had been thoroughly won over by my introduction to the Hilleberg range. Unfortunately, I'd left the actual purchasing a little late to order from overseas and the full range isn't stocked in Australia. Some browsing of the interwebs discovered Moontrail, a site with reasonably priced express courier postage (really reasonable; that's normally prohibitively expensive) from the US. As an added bonus, their customer loyalty system meant I would be able to get a free Exped Synmat with my chosen tent. Since I needed both, the order was placed to arrive within a week. I went for a dark green tent as opposed to a red, because I hate climbing up from a campsite for the view and having the tents be so obtrusive that they ruin the whole view. Of course, any SAR volunteers reading this are probably wincing now. It's pretty hard for a rescue chopper to locate campsites, and they hate tents with natural colours for that reason. Thus I'm making a bright red groundsheet. If a rescue is required, that simply gets strung over the top of the tent instead of under it.
Food preparation continues, mostly basics this week. I have to start doing some serious cooking as well as drying now, so that there's enough whole meals made ready rather than assorted random ingredients. This week's challenges were kidney beans (alright, that wasn't a challenge but it did hog the drier for a while), guacamole and cheese.
I've concluded that my hopes for devising a way to dehydrate and rehydrate guacamole are best forgotten. There was a result, but it was almost completely inedible. We'll just have to cope without guacamole to accompany the chilli. Cheese though, cheese is another matter. It's heavy and anyone who has taken it walking in summer has probably seen what happens when it stays warm for a day or two. But there's a pasta meal on the rota, for which I'm determined that we will have cheese!
I've managed to produce something like the fake parmesan sprinkles you see in supermarkets, only based on real cheese and tastier. It weighs slightly under half the weight of the fresh cheese and is essentially cheese with its water and oil content removed. The process is slow, very slow, slower than any other dehydrating I've done. It also requires a dish to be put on the rack below. DO NOT LOOK IN THE DISH IF YOU ENJOY CHEESE! The end result is pretty potently flavoured. I've considered the possibility of making cottage cheese using powdered milk and combining this with the dried cheese for use in lunches, but this remains untested (and would use a reasonable amount of fuel).
I mentioned getting a satellite phone a while ago, a GSP1600 that I since discovered is a model far more common than its chargers. The easiest (and by far the cheapest) charger I encountered was one which came with three free sat phones and two extra chargers. It was a lucky find of someone replacing some old gear, and means I now have spare sat phones if anyone feels the need for one. Frankly, I don't need four of them.
I should probably point out here that I'm not being paid by any of the gear companies or shops I mention, in money or gear. So when I mention a name or expound upon a particular piece of gear, it's because I like it rather than because it's my job. That said, if anyone felt like bribing me to write said things by sending me nice free gear, I'd undoubtedly capitulate pretty easily (emphasis is on the nice gear. If anyone decided to bribe me with lame gear, my commentary would degenerate accordingly...).
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