Camp Kitchen
As food and water are the 'gasoline' for our trip, our meals are very important for us. In the past we always carried an extra 10.000 calories with us, but with time and distance we realized that generally this isn't necessary, North America is fairly densely populated and provisions are usually available within biking distance. The space that we won by not carrying an extra kilo of rice or oats we fill with free roadside fruit or veggies. Especially when biking through Mexico in summer we found every day more fruit than we could carry: mangos, limes, oranges, coconuts, you name it. In the past (read North) we used our stove three times a day at least, as David is a coffee junkie and warm meals and drinks just make you feel better on cold days but things have changed. Oats that have been soaked in cold water for an hour are just as good as boiled oats and David has kicked his ten-cup-coffee-habit. With that we have been saving a lot of time and fuel. Depending on where you are, a campfire might be a more economic way of preparing food. In short, the necessities of the camp kitchen are dictated by the environment we are in.
Here is an itemized list of our camp kitchen hardware.
Here is an itemized list of our camp kitchen hardware.
- Primus Omni Fuel camp stove with repair kit and spare parts
- 450mL fuel bottle (we use Coleman premium blend fuel when available, instead of single-use canisters)
- MSR water purification system (with spare ceramic filter, cleaning and repair kit)
- Nalgene wide mouth 32oz (x2, attach to MSR water purification system)
- Origin-8 Hydration Pack, 2,5 liters.
- Water bottles in cages on our bikes (2x bike)+
- Extra water bottles (at least 3, this is our backup hydration system)
- Pot and pans camping set (one pot and lid, two pans, handle)
- Cups (x2, plastic)
- MSR folding spoons(x2). We carry two forks because it makes eating spaghetti easier.
- GSI Outdoor Serving Spoon and Spatula
- Knife with plastic sheath (suitable for cleaning a fish, cutting a tomato or whittling a marshmallow stick, fire-striker in handle and jack knife
- Dish cloth.
- Multi use soap (for dishes, bodies, dog, hair, hands, vegetable based and biodegradable, Ph neutral for the fishies)
- Can Opener. We used to carry a 'one dollar' can opener that died on us after some use, right now we have a small boy scouts knife that comes with a one-piece can opener. No moving parts so it wont break.
- Tea towel (also used as oven mit, place mat, to keep things insulated and warm etc. keep these clean!)
Staples. We buy the cheapest, local food we can find along the way for meals but also have a surplus of easy calories and easy to use non perishables, we used to carry kilos and kilos of food, after gaining experience we have shaved an estimated 3kgs of weight! This is what we always carry to spice up our food.
- Salt
- Spices (dried oregano, dried chilis)
- Rolled oats
- Garlic ( good for us, good for the dog, delicious)
- Vegetable oil