Well, now I’ve gone and done it. I bought myself a bivvy bag.
Thoughts…
When I first thought about the SWCP Plod, the little voices in my head started going…
“I’d better book some B&Bs”
“That’s going to be expensive. And it means you’d have to stick to a plan. And what if you get injured 3 days in – that’s a load of money to lose!”
“How about camping?”
“You hate camping.”
“But… the flexibility would be perfect. Maybe it’s time I stopped moaning about camping and got over it.”
“Campsites are going to be busy. Or closed.”
“Wild camping.”
“Ha ha! Yeah, right. You’ve got the personality for that. (sarcastic)”
“Remember that saying: Do something that scares you“
“Fuck off. We’re not wild camping.”
“But… the flexibility…” 🤔
My Brain
And then looking a bit more, I found this thing called a bivvy bag. It looked like a fantastic idea – sleeping out under the stars on a lovely warm night, and most of all it’d be all stealthy and I wouldn’t get noticed and I could camp almost anywhere…
But this is the UK. And it’s not all that warm in September. And it rains. A lot. And reviews of bivvy bags suggested they get a lot of condensation inside. And there’s no room to put your bag/shoes etc. And, and, and…
So I got a tent… but the bivvy idea kept bouncing around in my head.
Fast forward a bit, and all my thinking has resulted in me buying an Alpkit Hunka XL. Here’s where I’m at:
- Get the Hunka XL and try out the bivvy idea. It’s not silly money and gets good reviews. It’s compromised, but so are the ones at 6 times the price.
- Stick in a mat and a sleeping bag and see how I get on. Does it get all wet inside? Is it really cold? I went for the XL size hopefully to be able to get my bag in as a pillow… we’ll see.
- Rain. Obviously it’s a strong possibility, but I’ve thought of that. Most people get a tarp, but a strong one is surprisingly heavy and you need poles/trees etc to get it set up. So… I’ll take the outside of my Alpkit Soloist tent. Total weight of bivvy & tent outer (including poles, footprint and pegs) is about 100g more than just the tent… but if offers me the ability to just use the bivvy.
So the plan as it stands (and I admit this could come tumbling down the first time I try it out!), is to use the bivvy, supplemented with the tent outer if the conditions look poor or the space allows it.
The bivvy should hopefully turn up tomorrow and I can give it a bash at the weekend and see how I get on.
If the concept looks good but there are specific problems with the Hunka, I can look around for another. But if it just doesn’t work, I can sell on the Hunka and stick with the tent.
Sleeping Mat
Last thing – I’ve bought an Alpkit Numo sleeping mat now too. Last Saturday, sleeping on the Cloud Base was a bit uncomfortable, so I’ll give the Numo a go and hopefully it’ll be more comfy (and surprisingly it’s actually a little lighter too). I was looking at ThermaRest mats, but reviews didn’t sound all that positive, especially as they’re 3 times the price of the AlpKit offerings… let’s see how I get on.