We’ve decided to try and wild camp as much possible, so at night have been finding flat(ish) and concealed spots near the road to pitch our tent. For the hour before the sun goes down, we find ourselves ducking out of sight and holding our breath at any sign of human movement, hoping we won’t be seen and disturbed. Our first few campsites were a rubbish dump, a picnic spot and a ditch.
Once the tent is pitched it is time to prepare dinner. At this stage we may as well take a red flag and wave it above our heads whilst shouting at the top of our voices “come and steal our bikes while we’re sleeping”. Our stove is not nicknamed ‘the roarer’ for nothing. The MSR XGK is built to work at high altitudes, and hurls a flame into the air during the preheating stage. The first time we lit it we both leapt backwards and had to check our eyebrows were still attached.
During the cooking stage the ‘roarer’ roars so loud that we are certain that our hideout is going to be found by anyone within a 5km radius.
On the upside though, it makes us delicious pasta and sauce dinners night after night. Yum yum yum!
Having felt a bit of an ignorant ‘townie’ for never having heard of the apparently ubiquitous MSR stoves, I just had to google. As well as your impressively precise cost of petrol at 885 mls for £1.40, the MSR website claims the XGK “boils a litre of water in 2.8 minutes”. I was puzzled by where such a figure would come from (given the lack of starting temperature and external conditions). But, if you assume a start temperature of zero degrees, that would take 420,000 joules and 2.8 mins is 168 secs, so division gives 2,500 watts – a remarkably nice round number! So actually I suspect they are simply rateing the XGK at 2.5 kw and have probably never actually boiled a litre of water. But if it really does boil a litre of water that quickly it must be rated considerably higher than 2.5kw – allowing for heat loss – which would be impressive. So before I donate to CAI any chance, on a quiet evening, you could check their performance claim?!
I was very distressed to read that you nearly singed your eyebrows off after Hugh’s experiences and our dire warnings on the topic! x