The McKenzie's Blog…

It was a proper cold night last night. Even had to fire up the stove in the tent for a bit about 330am… The girls had to go for pee so figured might as well try and warm things up a bit. The gas bottle was running low so didn’t run it too long, needed to cook breakfast haha

We decided to spend the day back in Diss. Its and old town with narrow streets and loads of little shops. A lot of charity shops too. Yuki had loads of fun looking through the shops and got some great deals on some nice clothes.

Part of the reason for spending the day there was to get to a laundrette. Lucky the town had one… Unluckily it was shut today only for “essential maintenance”, just our luck. The day was another scorcher, reaching 27 according to the car. After some shopping, walking and the best part of an hour at the new park just off The Mere (pronounced “mirror” from what I can work out), that is a lake stocked with fish and ducks, and according the signage, an over abundance of Blue-Green Algae and contact with the water should be avoided. Nice.

We then turned our attention to food… Struck out at the first two places (excessive delay and filth). Finally found food at the Morrison’s, it wasn’t bad at all to fair. Then was to shopping for some supplies including more ice for the cooler. The next time we go camping I will get dry ice, will last a week easily in the cooler. We also needed to find a place to get some gas for the camp stove, found that and headed back to camp.

On return to the camp site we found two new families had arrived with their kids, mostly about Lisa’s and Emma’s ages so that was good. Brings the kid count to about 10 or so I suppose. The girls had a blast with their new friends. 9pm came ever so fast tonight. The girls are all in bed now sound asleep, the quickest so far.

Tomorrow its time to pack up and move on to a new site. We’d like to stay here another couple days rather then move but we’ve already paid a deposit at the new place. Besides, its always nice to other things too.

I’m just sitting outside writing this, enjoying the stars and trying to enjoy the quiet but the voices of other campers are on the wind. Its alright though, its still relaxing.

For the interest of those that care… I have been writing these blog posts in Quickoffice on my Nokia N97, this .lets me edit easily plus has a spell checker in it too, good init? Hehe Then I copy and paste my ramblings into Mobiword and publish to the blog. There is a bit of fiddle with the process but all in all it works well. Quickoffice, I think, is an essential app for the phone. It comes pre-installed on the device but the trial is short and its an old version.

Right enough babbling for the night, there are stars and bats to be watched tonight.

Good night world!

Posted by Wordmobi

Getting the kids to sleep last night wasn’t quite as easy as it was made out to be in my previous posting. They were up and down like yoyos on speed… Finally got them to sleep at about 10pm…

Morning started early at 7 when Lisa woke up first. She needed the loo… It was chilly but by 8am it was getting hot and drove us out of the tent. We had a bacon and egg breaky, then it was to into the town of Diss for a few bits from Morrison’s. After that it was to the zoo.

It’s quite a large zoo for such an out of the way place. Will have loads of pics when we get back or get wifi connection somewhere. the kids had a ball at the zoo, we stayed about 5 hours…we’re all fully knackered. Could do with a nap but doubt that will happen.

Back at the camp site… Yuki and Lisa slept. I caught up on twitter, email and some facebooking plus watching Emma… She had no interest in sleeping. I hope that will work for us later at bed time…

Dinner is done, bbq hamburgers, boiled carrots and salad. The kids had a heck of an appetite tonight. Between all the walking at the zoo and the running around at the camp site with the other kids. All three of my girls are now in bed and trying to get to sleep. I’ve decided to sit out under the stars and read a magazine and finish off this blog posting.

It’s been another very full day. Sleeping tonight I hope will be easier then it was last night. Not sure what the plan is for tomorrow. I think we are going to head back to Diss and check out the town and the shops. What little we saw today when going to the store it looked like it would be worth another look around.

Well, I think that’s about it for me tonight. Gonna finish my hot chocolate and get inside the tent and snuggle down. The clear skies tonight means it will be colder then it was last night.

Good night from Brickyard Farms.

Posted by Wordmobi

We started out a weeks camping by leaving the house about noon on Sunday. The drive to the camp site, Brickyard Farm Camp site (Banham, Norfolk, NR16 2HQ), was only about an hour or so from home. Even at the reduced speed we had to travel at because of towing the trailer. After a stop at Sainsbury in Thetford for a few last minute supplies and lunch as well, we arrived at the camp site at about 1400hrs, plenty of daylight left so we could take our time getting everything set up.

Lisa and Emma immediately found the horses in the fields to go and see plus a swing set to play on as well. I was a bit worried for a while, there were no other kids around. Then, a family came trooping back into camp. They’d been out to the Banham Zoo. It’s about 1/2 mile down the road. Anyhow, Lisa and Emma quickly became acquainted with Hanna, 7yrs old. They spent the next 3 or so hours playing all sorts of games and running around the farm.

The camp site itself is a small family run business. It’s run the brother of our neighbour, very nice folks. They popped around to check on us and see how we were settling in. Quite layed back, they haven’t asked for money as yet. The site is, as I mentioned, small. Only about 6 or so pitches, most with electric. We didn’t bother with that, I’d brought the 120amp battery with us. More then enough power for the week to run a laptop if needed and charge the phones. I brought a 12v florescent lamp as well but likely won’t need it.

The kids are knackered. They’ve had a busy afternoon that’s for sure. Tomorrow we’ll be walking to the zoo and checking out the animals and whatever else they have there.

Well that’s about it from here tonight I think. the big people are knackered too and ready for bed now as well.

Watch this space for the day 2 report. I won’t be posting pics on the blog, but check on facebook, flickr and mobypictures and of course Twitter.com/m1xzg for updates.

Btw, this is all from my phone, there are likely spelling errors, I will fix them later. Don’t think I have a spell check on here.

Posted by Wordmobi

From the looks of the weather we’ve had it should be a good summer for camping … at least I sure hope so anyhow. Need to get the tent dug out and setup in the garden for to check it for any damage and such .. it’s been put away for 2 years since we last used it .. there was no camping last year.

I’ve been looking at some camp sites and one that has stuck out as looking like a fun place to go (for the kids too) …

River Dart Country Park – http://www.riverdart.co.uk/ Check out the pics of the place on the site.

Also found this place http://www.woodovis.com/cmx/content/view/2/4/ seems all right. Will have to check them out more.

So, while looking for a small and light weight stove for hiking / SOTA whatever I decided to pick up a Hexamine pocket stove and give it a try.  I usually have a Camping Gaz type stove but it’s big, bulky and you need to carry compressed gas cartridges with it.  These themselves are big, bulky and can’t really just be chucked in a bin when they are finished as they are still a risk of exploding.

I’d really like a MSR Whisperlite but they aren’t cheap, however, they are very versatile.. best you read about them on the manufactures website (click the link back there).  At some point I’ll likely get one of these, but not right now. 

For now I’ll have a go with this Hexamine stove.    This the very same one I have picked up for £4.00

To night I decided to do some timing experiments to see how long it takes to boil water in both my crusader cup and a small aluminium kettle.  The Crusader cup took 6m20sec to bring 1L of water to a boil and the Hexamine cube held the boil for 3 minutes.  Might want it to boil longer if you were sterilizing water, but just pop another cube of Hexamine and it would be good for another 9 mins of burn time.  The kettle, which has a lid, only took 4m30sec and the same 9 min burn time on the cube so that means 4m30sec of the water being held at a boil.

A couple of pics and a couple of videos can be seen below.. click to enlarge or see the videos.

Well, now just have to try it out in anger one day in the field

I’ve been working on this project for a few weeks (lack of time).  Basically, I bought a huge 120A/hr battery to go camping with and to use for other things, such as portable amateur radio work.

Well, that’s all well and good, but how do I connect things to it?  I wanted some easy way to connect multiple things to the battery without having to have a number of wires getting attached to the battery.

So, not wanting to spend ARM+LEG and either our first or second born to buy something already made, and it wouldn’t include the cig plugs either.

So, I made this:

Read on if you’d like to see the other pics .. or, you can just go and look at them in my Flickr Gallery

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