Review

EUROHIKE
Backpacker 210TS

Description: Lightweight 2-man tunnel tent

My search for an ideal backpacking tent started early for the Wales 2004 trip. I tried out a cheap £19 dome tent from the camping shop in Stowmarket, but it was a nightmare. The poles were slightly too long, which meant that trying to pitch the tent was time-consuming and frustrating. It was so short that I had to sleep diagonally across the groundsheet. And perhaps worst of all, it was a single-skin design, so on waking up in the morning you're soaked with condensation.

The Eurohike Backpacker is far, far better. When packed in its compression sack, it is smaller than many sleeping bags and light enough to strap on your backpack and forget about. Pitching is a joy. The inner goes up first and is pegged out, followed by the outer. The whole process takes about five minues ... maybe ten if there's a strong wind. But the great thing about the sloped tunnel format is that it will deflect winds that would knock a dome tent flat.

There are two fibreglass poles, one longer than the other, which form the structure of the tent. The tunnel shape gives a surprising amount of space inside: it's a bit tight for two people plus gear, but for one man and his backpack, it is perfect. There's enough headroom at the entrance end to sit upright, and the door flap can be easily opened or closed from inside (this should be a no-brainer, but I've seen some pretty poor tents in my time). Additionally, it is easy to climb in and out of the tent without having to sit down on the wet grass outside, thanks to the angle of the door panel.

The flysheet is made from green polyester and, although moisture may bleed into the fabric after heavy rain (this is partially due to the shape of tunnel tents), it will not leak. It has adequate ventilation and a generous porch--ideal for storing your muddy boots, stove and fuel bottle. The inner skin is made from mesh and can be erected by itself in warm climates as a sort of free-standing mosquito net. Here in Britain, however, its main purpose is to keep you from coming into contact with the condensation on the inside of the flysheet.

Tent groundsheets are typically made from polypropylene or nylon, but the Backpacker's groundsheet is made from a sheet of woven polyester. This is largely for packing purposes. The polyester groundsheet is very flexible and light, and folds down just as easily as the flysheet ... but it is not completely waterproof. A typical Welsh downpour at Dôl Einion soon saw damp patches appearing on the groundsheet, and although no water actually seeped through, it's unpleasant to feel cold, damp material when you touch the floor of your tent. Since then, small amounts of water have gradually worked through the fabric in a few places. This groundsheet seems to require regular reproofing to keep it watertight: something to consider.

Things I love about this product

The sloped tunnel design; the compactness; the fluourescent orange guylines; the convenient and well-placed entrance.

Suggested improvements

Although the Backpacker includes flexible fibreglass poles, they're not strong enough. One split on the train journey to Wales--of course, we didn't discover this until we got to Brynmelin and tried to set up camp. I would like to see a set of high quality alloy poles included with this model. A better groundsheet would be welcome, too.

Verdict

All round, a crackling little tent, ideal for backpacking or lightweight camping ... but take a couple of spare pole sections along with you. And a can of Nikwax for treating the groundsheet.

Contact

Millets (UK only): www.millets.co.uk

Spring is coming!

After over two weeks of snow, ice and frost, the weather has finally started to warm up again. Night-time temperatures haven't dropped below zero for several days now. The weatherman predicts temperatures of almost 20 degrees Celsius by the weekend--too bad I'll be working!

With only seven weeks left to go until May the 3rd, when I leave for the Lakes, I'm now busy in the day-to-day task of preparing myself. A big part of this is, of course, training. I'm well used to walking long distances--21.7 miles in a day is still my personal record--but walking those kind of distances with a 65-litre pack, and over difficult terrain, is something else entirely. For the past couple of weeks I've been gradually building up the distance of hikes with my big backpack. This week I'm hoping to hit the 12 mile mark. By the time I leave in May, I should be able to do 20 miles, with the large pack, on consecutive days, without too many problems.

The major piece of "preparation" before I go is a small backpacking trip, scheduled on the 4th of April. The route is nothing new: I did this trek last year, but although it's a very familiar trail, I'm looking forward to doing it again. The idea is to walk the entire coast of the Sandlings region of Suffolk in three days. Day one is the South Coastal Route (from Ramsholt on the river Deben to Tangham campsite in Rendlesham Forest). Day two is the Orford Coastal Route (from Tangham across the forests to Sudbourne, then down to Orford, then up the coast past Orfordness to Iken). Day three is the North Coastal Route (Iken, Snape Bridge, the marshes and wildernesses north of the Iken Straits, Aldeburgh, then ten miles up the coast to Dunwich). On the fourth day, I'm using the opportunity of being at Dunwich to do some serious exploring in that area. Although Dunwich isn't too distant to be visited in one day from home, I never get the chance of staying there long and really exploring that fascinating region.

My brother will be joining me for three of the four days, as preparation for when he and I go backpacking in the Lakes in July. Although all the paths are familiar to me, this will be quite a challenge: the route is on cliffsides and riverwalls the whole way, and can be very exposed in bad weather. In addition, the total distance is something in the order of sixty miles. Not bad for four day's hike.

Until then, I'm trying to find as much spare time as I can to get some practice hikes under my belt. The problem these days isn't so much deciding which areas to explore--it's trying to find areas I haven't walked through a dozen times already.

A star is born?

Every month, TRAIL magazine has a feature called Tent Face, in which three pictures of TRAIL readers are displayed. They usually show campers waking up in their tents, bleary-eyed, with a sort of "leave me alone" expression on their face. The best one (read: least flattering to the subject) is awarded a prize.

While rooting through my files yesterday, I found a gorgeous picture of Amber (our dog) asleep in one of the tents. The picture was taken the year before last in the Lake District, and is just typical of Amber: asleep in every spare moment, silly grin on her face, a picture of laziness. And I immediately thought of the Tent Face section. Traditionally they've only shown pictures of human campers, but who knows?--maybe Amber's mugshot will persuade them to break the trend.

On a similar note, my gear is now almost ready for the May trek. I've repaired the tent poles, and put the tent up to air for a day (even though I had to take it down again in a hurry to stop it from getting a wetting). I've obtained a fleece sleeping bag liner. Since my sleeping bag is only a one-season, 5 degree bag, this will help if it happens to be cold in the Lakes this May. All that remains now is to get the public transport details hammered out.

Review

GARMIN
eTrex

Description: 12-channel GPS receiver

There was a time, not so long ago, when I would have scoffed at the idea of using a GPS. After all, I learned to read maps many years ago, and can fluently interpret the landscape from a glance at any 1:25,000 OS map. Why bother with a GPS unit when you know what kind of terrain is in front of you? I didn't see the point.

But after playing around with my dad's Garmin 12XL, I changed my mind. GPS wasn't just about pinpointing your position--it was also about keeping track of the miles you've walked, calculating ETA and distance to an objective, navigating cross-country without the aid of a compass, and much, much more. I became hooked, and obtained my own GPS unit--the bright little yellow eTrex--as a Christmas present a year ago.

The eTrex is a little elderly now, but when it first came out, it was little short of revolutionary. Its user-friendly layout, long battery life and rugged design were aimed specifically at outdoor enthusiasts. With the eTrex, available at just over a hundred pounds, any walker could access the GPS network from anywhere in the world. And the eTrex was designed to be hiker-friendly, too: it's a tough little unit, and will stand up to being dropped, shaken, subjected to sheer or stretching forces, and is waterproof to a depth of several metres. After a year of hard use, my eTrex is still chugging along just fine, and I feel no urge to replace it with a newer model.

Garmin has since developed the eTrex into an entire range of compact, water-resistant navigational devices--and although the eTrex's younger brothers sport barometric altimeters, magnetic compasses, colour screens and large memories, the basic eTrex remains the best selling GPS receiver in Britain. On many of our long-distance trails, or up any mountain in England, Wales or Scotland, you'll see hikers with little yellow things on lanyards around their necks. The eTrex has become a classic.

Things I love about this product

The exceptional battery life; the durability and waterproofness; the bright yellow finish; the five large, glove-friendly buttons used to operate the unit; the icon-based operating system.

Suggested improvements

The eTrex limits you to just one saved route, with can be a pain, and has no built-in map to aid navigation. Its compass is GPS-controlled, which means you have to be moving for it to work ... a magnetic compass would be better. But, honestly, if you need these features, why not fork out a bit more for an eTrex Vista?

Verdict

The best navigational system I've ever used.

Contact

Garmin: www.garmin.com

A blast from the past

I attended a concert at Snape Maltings concert hall last night. My brother, who plays the clarinet in the Thomas Mills Second Orchestra, was performing. After the first few features went by (performed by other schools), the Thomas Mills conductor led the orchestra up onto the stage. They seated themselves, with the usual shifting around and turning over of music pages. I saw my brother sit down between two clarinettists, a girl and a boy. The conductor raised his hands.

And, suddenly, I was assaulted by the most vivid flashback I have ever experienced. It's been so long since I've played in an orchestra that I'd forgotten what it was like. But that moment of silence before the piece begins, when every musician has his or her instrument poised and ready, when the blend of tension and anticipation spreads over both performers and audience ... it's one of those perfect, unforgettable moments of time. I hadn't forgotten.

The flashback took me back nearly five years to a performance in West Road Concert Hall, Cambridge--the first of many at that venue. I, too, played the clarinet. During the course of the past year I'd struck up a relationship with the girl who sat next to me in the orchestra, and although I was nearly fifteen at the time, it was a strange kind of relationship: it never extended beyond the orchestra sessions. It was a sort of unspoken but unshakeable love. It seems very strange now, looking back, but at the time it just felt right. I stayed in the orchestra largely because of that girl.

Anyway, the time up until our performance was spent in the large rehearsal room backstage. It's a room I remember very well, both from my time in the Holiday Orchestra (which I began about six years ago) and from the concerts the school orchestra took part in. Nuala (the girl) and I were sitting on a pile of ... memory fails, but it was a pile of something or other with a cloth thrown over. We were tuning our instruments, checking the reeds, and both feeling very nervous at the upcoming performance. But we needn't have been. Our trust in each other helped us through quite a few concerts.

The performance itself was, like all the others, special. West Road is a tremendous concert hall: vast, with a huge sloping auditorium, and acoustics that would make a sound technician gibber. And that moment before the piece began was as magic as always ... except that in those days, I was on the stage, and the audience was up there, on the sloping auditorium, or in the balconies. I could see my parents in the balcony up to my left.

The piece was performed and ended. After tremendous applause, we left the stage. As we went back into the rehearsal room to wait out the rest of the concert, Nuala suggested we find ourselves a balcony and watch the other orchestras play. There was a twinkle in her eye that suggested something new was up ... maybe the time had come for our relationship to extend beyond the rather strange orbit it had occupied until now. So I followed her.

What happened next was ironic. She chose, innocently of course, the balcony right below the one my parents were occupying. They could see us clearly. And although I didn't know what Nuala had in mind, I wussed out. I didn't want my parents seeing me with the girl from the orchestra.

Isn't that pathetic? It ended after that concert. She left the orchestra, and although we went to the same school, she was in the year below me and I never saw her again. All because of one of those silly, ironic moments where the choice you make is easier than the choice you really want to make.

The flashback ended as the piece began on stage, but it left me breathless. I had forgotten what it was like to be part of an orchestra. Not just the music, but the people: the web of friendships, relationships and rivalries that inevitably form. As I looked down on my brother's orchestra starting to play, I realised that the same processes were continuing there right now. I gave up the clarinet a couple of years ago because I no longer had the time I needed to devote to it. And although I will miss the emotion of performance, I have accepted my decision as the best one.

But I hope my brother doesn't give up. I want him to experience the same things that I have, even if they bring pain with them--because that pain, the pain of missed opportunities and old regrets, is what makes us who we are.

More preparations

I just sent off for some information from the Ambleside Tourist Information Centre, in the Lake District. Some of my information regarding campsites in the area was contradictory and confusing, so I wanted to make sure I knew the facts before making any further plans. Guess what? It turns out that of the two campsites I was looking at in Torver, one of them no longer exists, and the other requires that all campers carry chemical toilets with them. So I will be forced to stay at Coniston Hall ... which isn't such a bad site, except that it gets very, very crowded.

And the site in Hawkshead I was looking at? That won't be any good, either. So I'll have to stay at The Croft (another very busy site) for the first night.

The good news is that the campsites in Langdale and Wasdale appear pretty much perfect. They charge nominal fees (how's £2 per night for you?) and offer basic facilities "ideally situated for a day on the fells". I'm especially excited about the Barn Door Shop campsite at Wasdale Head, since it is clearly visible on WasdaleWeb's Pillar webcam, which updates every ten minutes. So I'll be able to stand at the east fence of the campsite and give my family back home a wave.

If you want to see the campsite at Wasdale Head, here is the URL of Pillar Cam (for best results, visit at approximately 11:00 AM GMT): http://www.wasdaleweb.co.uk/mdlarge.html

(Oh, and the weblog has now received 4,444 visits since March the 4th, 2004!)

Review

EUROHIKE
Wilderness Trilogy 65

Description: 65 litre rucksack

I've had my rickety old backpack for years, ever since my days in the Scouts, and as it just kept on working I saw no reason to replace it. Until, that is, my brother bought a new 'sack: the Wilderness Trilogy 65. He used it during our backpacking trip to Wales last year, and even carrying full loads for long periods of time, he never complained about the weight--in fact, he said on several occasions how comfortable it was. And yet my pack felt heavier every time I put it on.

Since then, I've bought a Wilderness 65 for myself. I was instantly impressed by the simple yet brilliant design. It's a basic backpacking rucksack, finished in slate grey, with built-in compression straps for gear and a generous number of external pockets. The bottom section is completely sealed off from the main compartment which makes it ideal for storing your spare clothes and sleeping bag. A clever pair of compression straps in the lower quarter provide a perfect place to stow your tent, and it comes with trekking pole loops as standard.

The back system is adjustable, but the mechanism relies on a strap of ripstop nylon and a velcro pad. It looks just a shade on the flimsy side. It's also quite complicated to figure out, and it would be dangerously easy to feed the strap into the wrong slot ... resulting in the pack slumping back the moment you put it on your shoulders. The waist and shoulder pads are, however, large and very well-padded, and make the Wilderness 65 a very comfortable pack to wear.

Things I love about this product

Firstly, the price. I bought it for £39.99, and at that price, you can't go wrong. This pack isn't suitable for alpine mountaineering or scrambling, but if you're looking for a rucksack for moderate to rough hill trails or general backpacking, look no further. I was also very impressed by a detail on the chest strap: a small whistle built into the buckle, ideal for emergency use.

Suggested improvements

In my opinion, the back system needs to be easier to use and a little more sturdy. The included raincover, while spacious and easily packed, cannot be used if you have a roll mat or tent attached to the outside of the 'sack ... and since the Wilderness 65 is not waterproof, this is potentially a problem.

Verdict

A damn good piece of kit for a damn good price.

Contact

Millets (UK only): www.millets.co.uk

And the "writer's restlessness" strikes again

Something--I'm not sure quite what--has precipitated a minor crisis. I read about the writing progress of others and wonder why I'm not making similar progress. I see WIP meters going up and up and reflect on the static nature of my own. But most affecting of all, I remember what it feels like to create, rather than hammer an existing creation into shape, and I really miss that.

I think it is time I realised that not all things in life should be hurried. For much of my writing "career" I have worked at frantic speed, rushing off manuscript after manuscript then turning to something new and sparkly, but ultimately just as transient. Project Cold Witness is the one and only novel that has held my attention span long enough to grow into something really worthwhile. And although I am gratified to know that I'm working through the final stages of its life-cycle as a manuscript (rather than as a product), I feel that I wasn't made for this--I wasn't meant to worry and sweat over how the story is constructed, or about how I can mutilate my dream to make it more saleable.

Don't get me wrong. I understand as well as anybody how important this "mutilation" is: it's the process that changes a dream into something you can submit and maybe publish. But I'm just tired. I'm tired with the story, I'm tired with going over the same ground again and again, and I'm tired with the process. I want, need, a change. I have to be creating again.

But I can't work on Project Silent Falcon. It's linked too closely to PCW, and as long as the core plot of that novel remains fluid and changeable, it will be impossible for me to pin down a story to its sequel. I have to break away for a while--maybe just a short while--and work on something totally different. Maybe something I've never tried before. I've always wanted to experiment with first person POV, after all.

Ideas are starting to grow. I want to write something about real people this time. Real people trying to live normal lives. Forget the fantasy and science fiction angles--just this once--and try to make something different. I know I can do it. If I can write for myself for just one month, without worrying about publishability or future intentions, I'm certain I can go back to Cold Witness and give it the attention it needs and deserves.

An extraordinary discovery

I found an old copy of my father's autobiographical book, Honey Hill House, on my computer this morning. It's essentially a "written-up" version of the diary he has been compiling for over twenty years now. Some time ago, he transferred a copy of it over to our computer for spell-checking and backup purposes ... and we have it still. It's in an old file format, and some of the data is corrupted, but I've managed to retrieve a fair amount of it.

Strangely, I have never read it before now, but the use of my father's point of view in describing events in my own life is extraordinary. It makes fascinating reading. Some things could almost be taken for portents of things to come. For example:

“You know how much you like to have stories read to you, well, those stories have all been written into books by someone after they have made up the stories, just like you make up stories. But your stories are lost because you can’t write. If you could write down your stories other people could read them. Wouldn’t you like that?”

He looked quite interested in the idea, but then said, very sadly, “Well, yes, but I’m going to be a palaeontologist.”

I was about three years old at the time. Maybe, even then, the spirit of a writer was within me--even if I hadn't yet learned how to write. This is also backed up by an early comparison between myself and my brother:

In practically every respect he [James] was much more advanced than the two year old Alexander had been but, while he was intelligent, he lacked his brother’s gift for words, seldom using more than two together and often mutilating them. Although it was still early days we suspected that he lacked Alexander’s overheated imagination.

And this, too, I read with great interest.

He would pick up a book - any book - as though he was reading from it and recount a long and involved story. As none of these stories were ones we had read to him, we were forced to conclude that he was the author. It was a great pity that he could not write them down, and we could not record them.

The way my dad describes the haunting presence in our old house is very frightening. Reading his words, I can remember the sense of unease, the horrible sense of watchfulness, the sense of dread at what might happen next. I was very sensitive to the "presence" at that early age. I'm thankful that now, as an adult, I no longer have to live in that house.

One evening, an event occurred which made my hair stand on end. I had taken the cellophane wrapper off the new pack of cards which I had bought that lunch time and had put the unwrapped pack on the table in front of me. I was lifting off the blank cards one by one, printing the words and laying the word cards on another pile. A dozen or so had been done when I lifted the next card off the pristine pack, then stopped as I saw a till receipt was uncovered. Mystified, I examined it. It was perfectly clean and uncreased. I saw that it was from Halfords, dated one month previously, and I recognised it as being for new plugs for Anita’s car. I clearly remembered having scrumpled it into my pocket with the change, subsequently throwing it into my office waste paper bin. Even if I was wrong about throwing it away, it was completely impossible for it to turn up in immaculate condition in the middle of a sealed pack of cards from W.H.’s. And yet it did - and I could feel the hair crawl on the back of my neck. I felt that our resident ghost was trying to prove her presence.

Some parts are also quite funny.

By the New Year, Alexander appeared to understand everything that was said to him and was capable of giving a rational reply when asked a question. Such as when Anita heard a bumping noise coming from his bedroom. She called out, “Are you doing something naughty?”

“Yes,” he replied.

“Should you be doing it?”

“No.” But the bumping did not stop.

And just listen to this:

He [Alex] taught me that logic is probably not an instinct, but has to be learnt. If it is an instinct, some of his pronouncements indicated a very odd sense of logic. Looking at puddles on a road, “Those puggles will make it rain.” Seeing a flag flying, “There’s a flag making the wind go away.” Noticing a tiny patch of blue amongst the clouds, “Oh. There’s a bit of sky missing.”

Events that I remember very well are also portrayed vividly, and it's nostalgic to see how things have changed since then. This quote is particularly poignant.

Christmas was approaching and, on the last Friday of the school term, Alexander made his debut on the stage as a hedgehog in Wind In The Willows. According to Alexander, a hedgehog ‘lives in a hedge and hogs’. All the children threw themselves into the play with great gusto and it gave us a very odd feeling to see Alexander in his almost anonymous disguise amongst all these other children. All of them individuals, all forming a web of relationships that had nothing to do with their parents, all starting to reach for their own independence and yet all of them interdependent on each other. All of them surging with optimism and a belief that the world is good. They nearly broke my heart.

All material (C) Ian Roddie 1983 - 2005

Computer woes

My iBook is up the creek again--not, this time, due to a faulty display chip. A CD has stuck in the drive and makes hideous grating noises whenever the computer tries to mount the disk. The drive will eject only about 10mm, and I'm forced to keep it in this position to prevent further damage.

At the moment I'm using our external CD burner as a disk drive. Luckily this isn't a problem which has to be fixed immediately. I think I shall send it off to repairs as and when it becomes a greater problem--say, if I hear ominous rattling noises when I turn the computer over.

We've also ordered a new computer (a luxury I can now afford, since I'm earning about £100 per week and spending it on very little). The Mac Mini, released by Apple about a month ago, has caught my eye as being ideal for us. It's inexpensive at £339, and although the 256MB of RAM it comes with is a little sparse, more can be bought with the computer. We've opted for the 1.25GHz model with 512MB RAM, and an 80MB hard disk. It'll be perfect to use with the existing monitor, keyboard and mouse setup we have from the old Windows machine that now resides in the loft.

My brother wants a new computer to store his digital photos on. He's using an iMac G3 with a 20GB hard disk that is almost full. Perhaps the logical thing would be to buy a new external hard disk, but I pointed out that the iMac isn't going to last forever, and for only a bit more money you can now buy a fully-featured Mac ... one which will hopefully last us for many years.

The great thing about Apple machines is how long they last. We've had the iMac for nearly five years now, and it hasn't had to be repaired once. The only upgrades it has required were extra memory and a more up-to-date operating system. My iBook is over a year old, and although I'll admit the logic board has failed twice (and the CD drive jammed), it's a good little machine. Hell, my dad's still running a PowerBook 190 (ten years old) that we bought second-hand ages ago. They just seem to keep on working.

But the Windows machine ... let's just say it seems to be rather fragile, with regards both to hardware and software, compared to the Macs. I would never rely on a Windows computer.