Gear Reviews

Always good to have reviews of kit that has been reviewed in the field, so if you have any reviews of kit that you have personally used, send them over to us.

Here are a few short reviews of Kit From my scant few years of experience.

bushbuddy-ultra-800

Bush Buddy Stove

I got this as a surprise xmas present this year, and have been fortunate enough to get to use it 3 or 4 times. At only 5 or so ounces, it is really lightweight, and at first glance seems expensive for what it is.

Essentially, it is a double-skinned cylinder with intake holes along the bottom of the outer skin and a similar set at the top of the inner skin. These holes allow for heated air to feed across the top of the wood fire inside to ignite any as-yet unburned wood gasses. The effect of this ‘afterburner’ system is to give you a much hotter, more efficient fire to cook on, or provide heat.

It does work remarkably well. On the occasions I have used it, provided the stove is out of the wind, andyou remember to feed it pretty constantly, it does a good job of boiling water (8-10 minutes).

I rate this very highly and have been amazed at it’s performance. Had I known how effective it was, I would have bought myself one years ago.

Rating 10/10

festival tent

Cheap ‘festival’ dome tents

  • Brief descrition: Single skinned monodome tent
  • Cost : sub-£20
  • Available from : Most large hardware/bargain stores (Wilkinsons, Tescos, Asda, Argos)

You can get these simple monodome tents extremly cheaply at almost any hardware/bargain type store. The 2 man versions generally cost no more than about £10.  They are extremly simple to set up, and often do not require guy ropes. As long as you divide the reccommended number of people by 2 (i.e. a 2-man tent means one person in comfort and a 4 man tent means 2 people in comfort etc) you can comfortably inhabit one of these with all your gear.

The only real problem is longevity – you don’t tend to get more than 2 years worth of camping out of them. That and, being a single skinned tent, you will get a bit of consensation on the inside overnight, on cold nights. But when you take into account the extremly quick set up times, price and wind resistance that these tents offer, in my opinion, they are unbeatable until you go up to the much higher price brackets and tent ranges.

Rating 8/10

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