After two weeks of miserable rain, we’ve finally got some sun: and what better way to celebrate than to plan for your next hairbrained adventure across mountainous Scottish countryside? Even with the almost unbelievable success of our last trip, we still had some… *ahem* criticisms that needed to get worked out before we could set off again.
Firstly, and foremost, sleeping arrangements. Now, granted, the weather may have not exactly been favourable (Wales is not necessarily known for its sunny and tropical climate, especially in March), but our choice in tent the last time was less than stellar. Of course price was a major contributing factor, and tents tend to be fairly expensive, but with the coming of the next trip that had to change. So on Sunday, we went out and investigated some tents and other tenting supplies. The major issue I had with our last tent mostly surrounded the fact I didn’t even fit in it diagonally, so obviously overall length was a major player in the decision making process. In the end, we had some success at a local Cotswolds where a very helpful sales guy gave us quite a bit of information and even set us up with almost exactly the right piece of kit. I still have some size concerns, but that’s just my overarching pessimism. For the time being, I think it’s infinitely more suitable for our needs and the price is right too.
Secondly, some technology changes are afoot: In keeping with our minimalist navigation techniques, I was hoping to have some manner of GPS device at hand that would be more suitable than a phone. Obviously a typical car-mounted GPS is out of the question (as it would provide navigation support) so I decided to look into more traditional hand-held units. After some crafty searching I think I’ve found the right device and it’s straight out of the 90′s. Infact, it looks almost identical to the first GPS unit I remember my dad bringing home when I was much younger. From the spec sheets it sports a glorious 64 x 128 px display (I think I’ve owned watches with higher resolutions) and *ahem* “500 waypoints, 20 routes, 10 track logs with a maximum of 10,000 datapoints each”… really, this is the future. That said, it also gets nearly 24h on a single set of AA batteries and is waterproof, oh and it costs less than £70! Sounds good to me.
Finally our Toughbook, having survived our last trip pretty much unscathed, has had some fairly subtle modifications applied: I’ve yanked its awful Intel wireless network adapter out (it was causing all sorts of troubles and crashing the machine) and replaced it with a Broadcom model. Pretty good price, does everything we need and seems several leagues more reliable. I also took the liberty of permanently disconnecting the built in GPRS sled (yes, I know, we worked so hard to get that working) but it was just draining power for effectively no reason and would turn on at very annoying times. I have tentative plans to replace it with a couple USB jacks and perhaps a built in GPS module that I found as an upgrade kit, but that’s a project for a much later date.
Until next time, clear skies and smooth sailing.
