My daughter used one of those on her Duke of Edinborough award hike, so they do exist here. But I believe the overwhelming amount of people use gas canisters, including me. Simply because of the numbers, the gas ones are going to be cheaper, newer and better designs, and the fuel will be available in more places.
Are you planning a camping trip? Come down here and you can borrow all of our stuff.
Aww, thanks! I would, but I don't think the Daughter would go.
Assuming we can get a period without massive amounts of rain (which may be a while) there's a nice place not too far away that has campsites, but is still out in the country. Pretty tame for camping, as it has a little shop and stuff, but the Daughter hasn't been camping much in her life. I actually do miss it. I used to go hiking and camping when I was a kid, down in Big Bend (Texas) or New Mexico. She's never really seen the Milky Way - always lived in the city, and it was summer when we'd be far enough out in the country, so she'd fall asleep before it was dark enough. I'd like her to get to see it, and I'd like to get to see it again before I get too old and creaky to go camping. And then there's the s'mores in the evening and bacon and eggs over a campfire in the morning. Except it'd be sterno.
And, besides going back to the woods, now that it's chilly enough to have hopefully murdered the midgies.... There have been a few long-range weather forecasts starting to say we may have the worst winter in 30 years coming our way this year. Our flat uses electric for lights and cooking, and has a gas-boiler for central hot-water heating. Which requires electricity for the thermostat/ignition. So, while it's quite unlikely, it occurred to me the other day that if the power did go in, say, the dead of January and they couldn't get it back on for a few days, we'd be getting seriously chilly. It might be nice to be able to have hot food and a cup of hot tea/coffee now and then. So, I was looking in the kitchen to see what supplies we had. Kettle grill with charcoal - we could, in a pinch use that outside if the weather wasn't too bad. And my cast iron fondu kit. Given the stand from the fondu kit with a good heat source under it, I could use the kettle to warm water and/or soup in an emergency situation. (And this is why I always like to have a place with a working fireplace, which we don't have here. Sadly.) And I'd also have to be able to warm water up to add to the aquariums or we'd have fishcicles in there.
Again, unlikely. The longest we've had without power was six hours, so far. But if we do have some really nasty weather, I want to be prepared.(I also have several litres of drinking water, and would fill up the bathtub immediately if the power went, as long as we had water pressure up here. Just in case. You can always flush the loo with a bucket that way.)
I hope the forecast is wrong. "Coldest winter since the 1960s" is kind of alarming, around the edges.
