In which Firebox are awesome

I've been meaning to buy a portable BBQ for a while, and it occurred to me late last night that I really should have organised it before I went camping for Easter weekend. Lo' and behold, this morning, Firebox send me an email shot which has a link to a portable, flatpack BBQ for the princely sum of £21.99. Add same day (yes, same day) delivery, and it's another £12.50. This is still less than just about every other one I've seen, and has the added bonus that I can order it online, go out for the day, then sit at home between 6pm and 11pm waiting for it to arrive. I'd be at home then anyway, frantically packing for the weekend away. Thus far, a plan with absolutely no drawbacks! Sure enough, about 10.15 this evening, the courier brings me a package. It's even more cool than I expected, which given my love affair with all things Firebox (and ThinkGeek) is saying quite a lot.

It came in a cardboard sleeve. That's a standard 8" (20cm) chef's knife for scale: I had to use something to get the packaging open...


Out of the sleeve it looks like this:


The black panels are held together halfway down the short sides, so it opens out into an X-shape. Two triangular side panels fold out to brace, revealing a charcoal grill which you slide out from parallel with the side and insert as a cross-brace, further stabilising the X:


The silver grill you could see in the second photo is a three-way fold which opens out to form the actual BBQ area for food and adds yet more bracing to the X to make sure it hold its shape. And there are you are, ready to go:


And just to prove I could do it in almost no time at all, here it is repacked and ready to take away with me:


I'll be honest, the build quality is not quite up to the standards I expect from Firebox, but this only needs to survive two or three camping trips to pay for itself in money I won't spend on on-site caterers. I have 7 or 8 trips planned this year, so even if I end up ditching it at the end of the summer, it's been a very worthwhile investment.

Not quite Two Moors Way Update #2

I really am bad at this regular updates lark. The real part #2 of the Two Moors Way trip should go up later this week.

In brief news - my Marmot Grid tent was awesome. The Primus spider stove was awesome, and had what seemed to be a never-ending gas cartridge. My old, old hiking boots were sadly not up to the job though. After 10 years, 4 continents and well into 4-digits of miles, they are unequivocably Past It. The rolling sole rolls no longer, and has a depressed ball of the foot tread instead of a raised one, making walking less efficient than with an normal shoe, instead of more. There's zero cushioning left in the soles, so every rock and rough surface can be felt on the feet: think the princess and the pea. They rubbed in brand new and interesting places, making for judicious use of tape as the week wore on. Finally, I tried some brand-new-out-of-the-box boots on Friday, and they were more comfortable than my old broken-in (=beat up) ones.

Time for some new boots before I go to Jordan in October!

Tents

I'm in the market for a new tent. I have a 2-man fair weather one I acquired while backpacking around New Zealand in 2003. I was collecting a hire car, and the couple dropping one off at the same time had a tent they didn't want cart home with them. They refused payment and were glad to be rid of it, whereas I was glad of a tent. Several years of experience with this tent have taught me several things.

My tent is a square, no porch, with telescoping poles which are clipped to the inner and tied to the outer. It has a door, and one guy rope on each panel to the side of the one with the door. It goes up inner first.

Firstly, the British weather requires more than 2 guy ropes. I'm quietly amazed it took until last summer to prove this, but that might be due to my fair-weather camping preferences! Anyway, pitched up on an Atlantic headland last August, my tent bowed so far in the wind and rain that I had less than half the floorspace usable. With one person and a week's worth of beach holiday kit, this was clearly Not Working. Additionally, another member of the party had a fiberglass pole snap in his tent that night while acting as a windbreak for the rest of the party's tents. So, tents for the UK need guy ropes on each corner and at regular points along panels.

Going up inner first. I've always known this was a bad plan but my last trip proved it. After a weekend of sunshine and a night of torrential rain, I'd hoped to get most of my tent down dry: I knew the groundsheet was a lost cause from the rain. As I got to the tent to strike camp, it started to hail. I dived inside, waited out the shower then cleared up other things for an hour while the tent dried. Literally as I got back to try again, it started to rain. With an outer-first tent, you can pitch or strike and keep the inner dry, whereas with mine, if it's raining.and you're pitching or striking, everything gets wet. And it did this time! Next tent must be outer-first!

Not having a porch. Porches are good for putting wet and muddy kit in and allowing you to keep the inside sleeping bit for dry kit and sleeping. Not having a porch means wet and muddy kit shares your sleeping space and everything else getting cold and muddy.

Clipping and tying tent to poles. On the one hand, I like this because there's no faffing around with telescoping poles and fabric sleeves with poles coming part inside them. That said, there is a knack to the sleeve-pole combination and it doesn't require the manual dexterity, which can be a lacking in cold and wet conditions!

Finally, weight. I wasn't too bothered about weight with the old tent (and don't look a gift horse in the mouth!) but for the Two Moors Way hike, packed weight is crucial. Modern 1-2 man tents can weigh in at under 1kg, and mine is considerably heavier than that.

So, in summary, my new tent must:
1) be robust enough to handle the worst of the British weather;
2) go up outer first. This also means the outer can double-up as an emergency shelter if needed;
3) have a porch;
4) have a sleeve system for the poles, although this is fairly standard for outer-first designs;
5) be as light as possible.

These pretty much sum up the Force10 Helium, which builds on the success of Vango's original Force10 design. So subject to an in person inspection, I guess thus is what I'll be buying in the next few weeks.