Camping badge attempt :)

[ddogu]

I hope I'm not floodding the board with badge requests

A few weeks ago we drove about 500km (that makes 310 miles, my non-metric friends) and arrived in a very calm, quite and touristically very underdeveloped sea-side village in Assos. The place is in Çanakkale, Turkey, users from Down Under probably heard about this city, Gallipoli is in Çanakkale. Here's a Google Maps link: https://www.google.com.tr/maps/place/Assos,+17860+Behram%2FAyvac%C4%B1k%2F%C3%87anakkale/@39.490561,26.3329479,12.75z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x14b07eda08ffb863:0x86455936e4be7770!8m2!3d39.487778!4d26.336944

From our camping site we could see the Greek island Mitilini, which reminded me of kkokkolis

Well, here's the camping equipment I used. It didn't occur to me to take photos of my sleeping bag and my mat

The tent is actually a gift from a friend, it's a 16-year-old tent. Which actually could not withstand the very windy Çanakkale weather and was torn here and there. When I came back I had to fix it (WHICH EARNED ME A DUCT TAPE BADGE, WOOHOO!), here are the shots: http://forum.multitool.org/index.php/topic,68318.0/topicseen.html. It's a 2-pole, 2-layer, 2-entry, no-name tent suitable for 2 persons but 3 can also fit in easily.

The cooking equipment is an MSR Whisperlite and an aluminum Primus set with 2 pots, 1 pan and a universal holder. As fuel I use white gas, which is pricey but burns very clean, almost zero soot. For priming I used asetone, which is dead cheap and -again- burns sootless.

I also have an ancient Hobo knife, which I stole took from my grandma's closet when I was a kid. It's horribly bulky and the knife, the cork-screw and can opener are a pain to open up but for some reason I kept it for years. My first choice is my spork, though, I was a moron and used it on the pan when it was hot, so tips of the fork melted down  a bit. Had to sharpen them afterwards.

As plates I have been using two Orikaso products: An orange place and a blue cup. I definitely recommend these! They're incredibly useful! They weigh nothing, are almost paper thin, yet tough enough for you to use them as cutting boards. Easy to clean, too. Why are they not in the pics? That is something I'm asking myself now...  The orange one can be seen on the night shot below, though, but it's not a very clear shot At least let me give you a link: https://www.rei.com/product/739247/flatworld-orikaso-solo-set I do not have the mug, because it's locking mechanism has a metal snap fastener  which I thought could rust easily.

[ddogu]

Here you see the MSR starting to burn (yellow flame) and then the actual burning (blue flame accompanied with a helicopter sound). The blue flame is cannot be seen very easily on the photo, sorry about that.

I once watched Bear Grylls adding some pine needles to his drinking water for aroma and for their vitamin C content. So, I wanted to be cool to my gf and grabbed some needles and threw them in the boiling water. The result? Nothing... Instead of a "piny" fantastic aroma, the water tasted like... Water. Then I realized that I have used young and light-green coloured needles, which were "not ripe" and probably lacked aroma. So, on my second attempt I used darker coloured green needles. I crossed fingers, showed off with this knowledge and my MSR stove to the elderly couple who have been visiting the area but was really concerned when they told me that I put in too much needles and that that could maybe poison us... I acted cool and did my best to keep my everything-is-under-coltrol attitude but inside I was like "Man, I hope we don't get diarrhea..."

Once again the water tasted very "watery"... But frankly, it did not have that dull taste of boiled water but had a slightly better taste. And luckily, no diarrhea... 

[ddogu]

These night shots attempt to show my cooking skills(!) which I'm gonna apply for a badge for, but I'm not sure whether 2 dark shots are gonna suffice, let's see...

So in the first pathetic shot you see fried spicy zucchinis.

Second shot: We fried the big large okras we found in a local market. This was quite a surprise because AFAIK the long ones are not available here and they only grow in South East Asia. So when we saw them in the market we grabbed them even though I hate okra. The other day we cut the okras lenghwise (can I say that?), covered them in egg whites and in-situ prepared white flour (we crushed a pack of crackers and voila, here's your flour) and deep-fried them. This time they tasted even better.

BTW the orange plate you see in the second shot is the Orikaso plate I mentioned in the post above.

[Poncho65]

Great write-up and thanks for sharing the pics and the story

Badges awarded 

 

[zoidberg]

Cool, great pics.         Keep the badge threads coming.      

[ddogu]

Hehe Thank you very much, guys!

[ducttapetech]

Congrats! Looks like a great area.

[SteveC]

Congrats on the Badge 

[magentus]

Great subject matter ddogu and congrats on the badge! 

[ddogu]

Thanks guys and yes, ducttapetech, indeed it is! We're planning to go there again before it's widely known and gets overpopulated with tourists (like us )

[Grant Lamontagne]

It looks like you had a fantastic time!

Def

[Aloha]

Looks to be a great location.  Congrats on the badge