andygates | The jet-propelled NAAFI flies again

Badger's take on Ratty's line: "Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing, absolutely nothing, half so much worth doing as simply messing around with gear."
I love me some fettling. I'll admit up front that I enjoy planning and preparing and tinkering just as much - sometimes more - than actually going on adventures. So I'm as happy as Larry going through my camp gear, getting it all back in peak performance.

The jet-propelled laser guided NAAFI is my beloved Coleman stove, an Army-green box which gives off in equal proportion roaring flames, the stink of petrol and cups of tea: "A self-contained missile capable of carrying eighty-two staff, ten NAAFI pianos, sixty thousand gallons of tea and twelve tons of buttered crumpets, being shot six thousand miles up and set fully operative at the point of impact in sixteen seconds." (So say the Goons)

It's been used and abused and the poor lad was sulking: spiders in the hinges, soot on the burners, and poor, poor performance. This, palpably, Would Not Do. Tonight the NAAFI got the fettling treatment, and I remembered why ten years go I bought a Coleman. You can take it all apart with basic tools, clean every bit with wire-wool and polish (and it takes a lovely patina after heating/cooling/corrosion), and then reassemble the whole shooting match to get a clean hissing burn and a four-minute boil. And if anything was damaged, every part can be ordered, and every part number is included in the blurb.

Right now, after a happy hour of fettling, it's cooling, I have a cuppa (milk, two sugars: NAFFI standard issue), and the stove is full of promise - swift brews in laybys, surf road trip bacon butties on clifftop campsites, 5am double espressos before a race (mist curling off the lake in the dawn as the elites set up, almost-silent freewheels ticking as their carbon bikes ghost by), hot spicy foil-packed glop shovelled hungrily in drumming rain during downtime in the zombie apocalypse.

Now, I just need to have a look at the bikes...

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Alas, I don't have that stove yet, because there was only so much room in the Element for camping gear, chihuahuas, two kids, and clothing. I had to be able to sit in the driver's seat, after all! With a van, you can probably take more stuff, provided you don't take too many bikes with you.

Anyway, that stove looks very much like the one I'm hoping to get this year.

Fiddling with it all was fun, but I must admit I enjoyed packing the most. I like to look at empty spaces like puzzles, and fit as much as humanly possible into them in the most cubic way available.

What do you put into your foil-packages to make your glop?

It's a grand car/basecamp thing; useless in a backpack. Packing is evil; I fettle, someone else packs. It's why I have a camper van, so I don't have to. It's also why the van usually looks like a shed on wheels...

As for glop, I just get vac-pac camping food. Lasts for about four years, tastes pretty good (anything tastes good outdoors). And there's always noodles - all praise to Momufuku Ando for the spicy slippery breakfast of delight.

Ah- astronaut food! I was thinking it was like what I make; foil pouches with potato slices, fish, veggies...things like that. I can only get away with noodles so many times if I am going to continue keeping certain parts of me healthy. It's a shame, too, because the damn things are addictive. I'm also rather fond of Pop-Tarts on the go, but there again we come 'round to poor nutrition. Good for carb-loading, though!

We can't all like packing, or have a list of lists.

I don't have that stove yet, because there was only so much room in the Element for camping gear, chihuahuas, two kids, and clothing.

I can't help noticing that none of those things brew tea, and thus that you had prioritized incorrectly.

Umm, I had a device for that, too. Also? A propane-powered, portable hot-water generator, because I'm spoiled and didn't want to smell stinky, unwashed teen as we crossed the plains. ;)

I had a friend who did a lot of camping, and if it wasn't Coleman, she didn't buy it, period.

I like my titanium pocket rocket!

There's nothing quite so satisfying as turning up on a bike with panniers at a pagan camp where everyone else has turned up in a minvan with trailer in tow, having everyone say "Where's your stuff?" only to have a full camp set up 15 minutes later and a brew on the go.

"How did you get all that on a bike? And cycle 50 miles to get here?"

The joys of modern materials dear heart. That's why the dwarves came up with titanium mess gear and gore-tex.

I agree entirely - tools for the job. The NAAFI is bloody useless for bike camping but brilliant to live in the chipfat camper for all eternity as a stash of ad-hoc brew-up goodness. And in case I need to bug out when the zombies come.

For carrying on bike or back, mithril is the only way to fly.

When I went to a SCA event, my Coleman stuff seemed to get looked down upon. They were all into this very.expensive brand that I can't remember the name of, as I'd never heard of it before. (It wasn't Kelty, REI, or North Face.) The only Coleman item I had that they wanted was the hot water heater, but the fact that I wanted a shower after two days was apparently a rather sissy thing.

I CAN'T HELP THAT I ITCH IF I DON'T SHOWER AT LEAST EVERY TWO DAYS! (Issues, what issues?)

Probably the MSR Dragonfly or the delicious Primus Omnifuel... or the lovely titanum Japaneseness (Nipponicity?) of Snow Peak. Odd, my re-enactment days were all spent around Trangia fetishists: low-tech, slow, bulky, but cheap as anything and very reliable.

Munky!

What would we do if I came down to see you? I have 27 days of leave still to book, and I've already used 20!

We could surf... :) Or we could go to a museum exhibit on hats. Or do something silly with bicycles and your pocket rocket..?

The jet-propelled NAAFI flies again

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject