Kit testing by the lakeside with Joe & Jordan
After a lengthy lay off due to exciting new found work commitments alongside my continued quest to become a great fell runner (much more to come) Outdoor Licence photographer Joe Light and I finally managed to get together for a long awaited trip out to our favourite national park, The Lake District of course!
After having a good old catch up with great tunes a plenty on route we decided to head to our favourite cafe. A pre-wild camp ritual of ours involved a fuel stop at the legendary Freshers Cafe located in Ambleside. After wolfing down the top tier brekky and catching up with the main man Michael we headed North and further into the national park.
Due to the clouds being down over the fells and not to mention the heavy backpacks and laidback attitude we had towards the trip we decided to set up base a little lower than usual in a top secret lakeside location. Which was just up the road from Dunmail raise (a Bob Graham roadside changeover location) just to help feed my current fell running obsession.
Another purpose for this trip apart from purely getting out and communing with nature was to test out some new outdoor equipment. Starting off with the shelter for the night, I decided to leave my trusty Hilleberg soulo behind in order test out something a bit different from a brand I wasn’t too familiar with Heimplanet. A brand hailing from Germany which I have recently learnt are renowned for building top quality bits of outdoor kit made to withstand the most brutal conditions that Northern Europe can often throw at you.
The tent was a classic of theirs named ‘The Cave’ a 2-3 person tent and a really beauty that I’ve never had so much room in on a wild camp. THE CAVE is an inflatable tent that once you’ve attached everything together you only ever need to pump it up to pitch up in less than a minute. Due to its geodesic dome construction with ten crossing points THE CAVE is and feels extremely stable and thanks to the high-quality materials is also fully weatherproof as well as super durable, which feels evident when it’s pitched up in front of you. The inflatable Diamond Grid not only guarantees stability, but also ensures an easy set-up. Weighing in at 4.8kg it’s on the heavier side so we probably wouldn’t haul it up above 600m but for a lower level forest camp in any conditions we wouldn’t hesitate to recommend and we certainly will be testing it out on many more trips for years to come!
The second piece of kit came from a brand we were a little more familiar with which is also a household name in the stove and camp cookware world PRIMUS. The kit in question was the PRIMUS lite +. Feeling similar to my ‘go to’ stove the Jetboil Minimo we were both impressed with the build quality, time it took to boil water as well as some nifty additional features not found on our current stoves. Featuring a piezo igniter (no lighter required) and an impressive boil time of 2 mins 45 seconds the stove packs a real punch for its very reasonable price. Other handy features include a Cork-lined insulated pot sleeve made from G-1000 ECO Lite fabric which also has a sleeve pocket for carrying any accessories or cooking utensils as well as a Bio-based plastic pot lid which doubles up as a cup.
All in all 2 highly recommended pieces of equipment which we will add to our ever growing armoury of outdoor kit so signing off with big thanks to Heimplanet and PRIMUS, stay tuned for many more adventures and kit reviews!
