Weekend # 11: It's gear time

The time has come at last to stop browsing reviews, haunting outdoor stores and drooling over descriptions of tents. With just over a month to go, I set about selecting the last few pieces of gear.

• An ongoing issue mentioned a couple of times is the matter of keeping everything charger. I've mentioned this once or twice along the way and actually came to a decision fairly early on but wanted to make sure the solar panel would work with the chosen charger. In the end, I went for a slightly more powerful module than I'd originally planned. The weight difference is negligible and it should still be able to run the charger on cloudy days. It'll be four weeks during a Tasmanian summer so there are  at least 50% odds of getting a sunny day, but could we charge everything on that one sunny day? Probably not. A 12W panel is now on its way from the factory in Germany.
• For the sake of comfort, I'm sticking with the Exped sleeping mats. A few years using one of these makes it nigh on impossible to even contemplate returning to the old thermarest, let alone a closed-cell foam slab. This wasn't so much a decision to be made as a procrastination. The advice I had from the start was to get a Downmat 7 or Synmat 7, avoiding the less durable fabric in the UL series mats. While I had heard that this fabric would be up to the job, I've done a trip before with a sleeping mat that had started leaking beyond repair and had no intention of repeating the experiment. The added comfort of not needing to worry about condensation getting into the mat eventually sold me on the Synmat over the Downmat.
• I had been looking seriously at a few tents. Exped actually had a few that had made the contended list, vying against MSR, Macpac, Mountain Hardware and Black Diamond. I had almost come to a decision and was on the verge of placing an order when a discussion with Jess, another of the walkers-to-be, brought me to a crashing halt. She made a single comment in passing, "[I] have been totally sold on Hillebergs... but they aren't sold in Australia ..." that caused me to cast aside half my research in disgust. Somehow, I had read every review, browsed every forum thread and searched through every product catalogue that didn't mention these tents. I gave their site a cursory glance, and threw out all my research in disgust. Three of their tents immediately entered the top five list. They ranked reasonably highly in pricing as well, but weren't the most expensive I was looking at and certainly outstripped the shortlisted models of equivalent price in terms of quality. After a Sierra Designs tent our family used to use, I've had something of a soft spot for geodesic tents, tempered only by their lack of ventilation for summer use. On discovery of a high-quality, reasonably lightweight two-person four-season semi-geodesic tent with good ventilation allowing for summer use, I was sold. Some intensive research followed as I sought fault with the tent of choice, but the only design fault that I came across is that the poles are susceptible to damage in extreme gales. Sounds bad, until you realise that none of the hiking-weight tents you'd want to spend more than a night or two in could withstand those windspeeds unscathed. Also, if you are expecting winds at those speeds, there are a few ways to compensate with the Hilleberg tents so that they can withstand them. Yes, thoroughly sold.