Screenpacking…
With the after-effects of a head cold hanging around, it’s been time to catch up on some TV and films.
Several of the celebs taking part in The Real Marigold Hotel appeared to be sporting some large bags for their three week stay in India, whilst Michael Portillo still appears to travel with a small wheelie bag…
Even those in The World’s End had cracked the problem as they stashed their bags in the boot of Gary King‘s elderly Ford Granada before tackling The Golden Mile and a loads of Blanks.
Mind you, Pegg and Frost appeared to have large packs in their rented RV in the film Paul – the eponymous alien appeared to be travelling light though by carrying the same kind of bag sported by Neil Oliver of Coast fame).
One programme that I caught on The Travel Channel last week was Around The World In Eighty Days with Michael Palin.
Apart from the dinner suit that was posted home after a rail journey on The Orient Express, Michael’s bag of choice appeared to be a very full Billingham style travel bag.
The journey was however taken in the days before smartphones, dumb-ass phones, tablets, laptops or Kindles and if memory serves me right, Michael was carrying quite a few books with him as he travelled the globe.
Nowadays, I suspect that Michael would be travelling in a much lighter manner, yet still carrying his own stuff, especially as his camera and production crew had their own bags to carry around plus all the technical kit needed to record the images and sounds whilst on the road.
Mind you the crew would now be using the latest broadcast technology to do the same job, so their kit bags and cases would also be smaller, lighter and more manageable…
On a different note though, Jason Bourne appears to travel light, as does the British super spy who has the same initials.
Go back further in television history though and there are a couple of characters that spent three series apparently living out of two pairs of saddlebags in the wild, wild, west.
Who am I talking about? Hannibal Heyes and ‘Kid’ Curry – Alias Smith and Jones of course! Not only did they have the stuff needed for any ranch work, they also managed to pull smart suit and shirt combinations out of the hat on several occasions. Awesome!
Lightening the load…
The time has come to lighten the load.
Many start the process on January 1st, but I decided to be different…
Given that my birthday falls on January 3rd, it’s around anniversary time and the fact that the stash of food we’d bought in for the holiday season had hardly been touched, then a decision had to be made – to postpone things until February.
So, it’s time to do the deed now that there’s just a few crackers left in the cracker box and that the cheese to accompany said crackers is almost gone (along with the rather good homemade birthday cake).
The respective stashes have been gradually reduced rather than thrown in the bin and whilst we’ve refilled the cupboards, fridge and freezer, there’s little in the way of convenience foods and no ready meals either..
Not only that, there’s no chocolate left in the hidey hole in the kitchen and no biscuits leapt off the shelves and into the respective trolleys in Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Lidl last week either. I do know that there’s one box of RNLI fudge in the office, but once that’s gone, that’s it!
Yes, it time for some weight loss here and if the Hairy Bikers can do it, then so can I.
It will be done sensibly and it will be done without resorting to paying to attend any meetings or spending money on online resources.
So the sensible head is on, the calories are being counted and it’s bye bye to ready meals and regular takeaways. It’s Subway instead of burgers or fried chicken when out and about and the takeaways will be a treat rather than a regular occurrence.
And lightening the load may also occur on another level too – a lighter travel bag as any new trousers or jeans will be a smaller size (and a smaller packed size/lighter in weight too) whilst any footwear doesn’t need to be so sturdy.
The tops however will stay the same as I’ve taken the same size for years – it’s only the war on the waistline spread that I’ve lost!
Until now…
2015 Top 10
Spotting this sculpture in Lisbon in July – a British TV ad for a brand of instant mashed potato sprang to mind…
Travelling light and staying dry in Porto after spotting a red weather warning on the BBC forecast before we flew out. Took good waterproofs with us to combat the rain, but once the storm passed, it was back to t-shirt weather and dining outside at one of the city’s riverside cafes…
A day in the Douro Valley – travelled by train from Porto, lunch on a cafe’s terrace and a river trip with a glass of port as part of the experience.
Bangers & mash and a beer on the terrace of the University Of Coimbra‘s student/staff cafe. A quick lunch and a cheap one too – didn’t even get asked if we had student cards!!! Caroline had a salad and an orange juice by the way.
A couple of nights in Averio Rossio Hostel in Averio, Portugal – one of the best hostels we’ve stayed in around Europe so far. All this and a ride on a gondola on the nearby canal too. Cheaper than Venice? You might think that, but I couldn’t possibly comment!
Taking time out to visit Somerset in May. Spent time in Wells spotting some of the locations used in the Simon Pegg/Nick Frost film Hot Fuzz, had a day in Glastonbury and spotted a former M.P. taking lunch in the same cafe as ourselves. Oh, and we bought a dragon too…
Sitting just off the beach at Seahouses in October in a vain attempt to spot The Northern Lights. We showed up, they didn’t!
Wandering around London with a group of fellow contributors to Lonely Planet’s Thorn Tree Forum and a trio of Lonely Planet forum moderators too. Some new places visited along with some old haunts from years ago.
Wandering around Newcastle-upon-Tyne with Caroline in November. More old haunts, some good food and a little bit of retail therapy thrown in for good measure. And no parking ticket either (touch wood) – we lost track of time and arrived back at the car an hour after the ticket ran out!
Taking time out to see Roy Wood (of The Move, E.L.O. and Wizzard fame) playing in Last Of The Summer Wine country at The Picturedrome in Holmfirth. Good meal at Brambles before the show, decent drinks prices at the venue and a good show by Roy and the band too. And yes, a certain Christmas themed classic rounded off the night!
And our plans for 2016? That would be telling!
Portugal Packing v3.0 – the verdict!
So, how did things go with the items listed on Portugal Packing v3.0?
Very well actually (and everything bar the worn stuff did go into our respective Osprey Farpoint 40 packs). Virtually all of the clothing taken along earned their place in the pack or on me in the case of the items worn on the plane.
The only mistake I made was in taking along my pair of Peter Storm Soft Shell trousers.
They’ve been worth their weight in gold since I bought them last year, but they were too heavy an item to take along and wear in Portugal, especially given the temperatures encountered (even on the couple of wet, windy and generally stormy days).
When the storm hit Porto on the Tuesday of our trip, I ended up wearing one of my Rohan Cool Silver t-shirts, Rohan Goa trousers and the same brand’s Silver containing socks and trunks. The top layer was my HyVent jacket from The North Face. On my feet were one of the two pairs of Salomon ventilated shoes that I’d taken along.
Despite the conditions, everything worked well. Yes, I was wet from the bottom of the waterproof to the pavement and the inside of the jacket’s sleeves were damp, despite the pit zips being opened to provide some ventilation.
The rain was teeming down though and as it was still relatively warm, I’d expected some condensation in the sleeves as the linings were solid rather than mesh and also because I was wearing a t-shirt rather than a long sleeved shirt so my bare arms were helping raise those condensation levels.
Now the Goa trousers may be lightweights and meant for tropical use, but this combination worked in their favour once I got out of the rain and into the photography museum we were aiming for during the storm.
They were soaked when I entered the museum, but as I wandered around, they dried out.
So much so that I was able to sit down and partake in one of the many espressos imbibed over the course of the trip. The vending machine coffee was fine, but it wasn’t going to stop the rain, so after a while it was time to get back out there and try and find some lunch.
And yes, the Goas got soaked once more, then dried out again whilst waiting and eating fodder and then got soaked once more as we left the cafe, went to do some food shopping and headed back to the hostel we were staying in at Porto.
End result? Worn/soaked/dried/soaked/dried/soaked and you get the picture by now. Not only did they perform well under the challenging conditions, they also coped well with the heat encountered later in the week and over the time we were in Coimbra plus the lower temperatures and breezes when we were on the Atlantic Coast.
Washing and drying wasn’t a problem with the Goas either. Once we had a decent sink and places to dry kit out, then there weren’t any problems with the washing and wearing of any of the kit we’d taken along.
Caroline’s storm days kit worked as well as my own – the Rohan Thai trousers worked well as did the selection of tops used on the days and her somewhat elderly Berghaus PacLite Gore-Tex jacket. Her Ecco Blom Lite Mary Jane shoes did get a soaking, as did my Salomons, but they did dry out relatively quickly and were usable a couple of days later (something we’d anticipated, hence the decision to take two pairs of shoes each rather than lighter or flimsier items).
All of our tops performed as expected, especially the Rohan Stratum Polo Long Sleeved which came into its own on the nights when we could sit outside restaurants to have a meal.
Caroline was also more than happy with the couple of Ultra Silver Camisoles and the matching briefs that she’s taken along. These were used on their own or as part of a low-key layering system on cooler days, but washed and dried like crazy every couple of days, as did her Serene vest tops.
One thing that we did forget (okay, one thing that I forgot!) was our Lifeventure travel sink plug.
The sinks in three out of our five different lodgings in Portugal didn’t come with sink plugs, so necessity was the mother of invention. I plugged some sinks with socks whilst Caroline found that the top from her Nivea roll-on deodorant did the job in one place.
Other than that, it was make do and mend with the plastic top off a Pringles tube or the plastic top from a small tub of Hagen Daaz ice cream. Needless to say, a small amount of food consumption went on before these tops were used in the sinks…
Anything else? Yep, the tea tree oil worked well on the insect bites, as did the tube of gel that was bought in Porto to help combat the results of unexpected encounters with mosquitos.
The lavender oil had helped to keep the flying nasties at bay, but some had got through, resulting in 10 bites on my back, legs, arms and face, even though I had kept myself under the bed sheets on even the warmest nights in Portugal.
What I wasn’t expecting was for one of my pairs of shoes to deteriorate. One of the fabric lace retainers came away and as the two weeks wore on, it became apparent that the shock absorbing materials were breaking down inside the sole unit.
Although the shoes weren’t that old, they had done around 400 miles or so. Given that I have gait problems and also have trouble with my left leg as a result of that stroke a few years ago, I knew that it wasn’t something that I could put down as a problem with the shoes as I’ve been wearing Salomon shoes and boots for years now and not had any problems.
As a result, they were left in Portugal – not in a bin, but with someone who was going to repair the lace retainer and hand the shoes over to a local homeless charity.
On a lighter note, the umbrella that I’d taken along didn’t last either. It went inside out a few times in Porto and ended up being left in a guest house somewhere in Portugal.
It had served its purpose though in Somerset, London and Porto and as it had cost me the princely sum of £1, I wasn’t going to complain about being ripped off by a pound shop…
Portugal Packing v3.0
See – told you that it would be along shortly!
One of the reasons why there’s a Portugal Packing v3.0 rather than a Portugal Packing v2.1 is that our road trip in September 2015 was two weeks long rather than one week and the predicted weather conditions for the first part of the trip were dire…
Had the weather forecast been warm-hot and dry, then there wouldn’t have been any problems as all I would have done is swap a couple of t-shirts for a couple of polo shirts or smarter short sleeved shirts to ensure that there was an element of smart casual rather than just casual when eating out.
But the weather wasn’t destined to be warm-hot and dry over the first week. I’d taken the precaution of adding each of our locations to be visited on the Weather section of the BBC website so I could track a set of ten day forecasts for each town or city that we were visiting.
Every town or city showed the same prognosis for the Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of the first week. Something was coming and it did not look good – heavy rain and high winds.
So our packing lists were thought about and adjusted accordingly to take into account of potential weather conditions that were more reminiscent of Blighty on a bad day…
The heaviest stuff was worn for the flight, a good move as the weather at Liverpool John Lennon Airport on Sunday morning as we crossed the road from the hotel to the terminal wasn’t wonderful (and we were aware of the fact that we had to walk to the plane in order to board it – none of this bus to the plane nonsense here!).
In my case the Rohan Goa trousers were packed not worn and a pair of Peter Storm Soft Shell trousers took their place. The Rohan Stronghold shirt was worn again (plenty of pockets to keep passport, camera, reading specs and change bags to hand) over one of Rohan’s Core Silver t-shirts, but the top layer was a HyVent waterproof by The North Face.
Footwear came courtesy of Salomon once more, but rather than take sandals, flip flops or espadrilles as a second item, an identical pair of Salomon ventilated shoes were packed, just in case. Yes, it was tempting to take a pair of Gore-Tex lined shoes with me to counter the potential weather conditions, but these would have added more weight to the bag and ensured that my feet could sweat buckets if these shoes were worn on warmer days (prefer Gore-Tex lined footwear between October and March in the UK rather than in warmer months).
So, that was the worn line-up, but what was inside the usual Osprey Farpoint 40 bag? Another Rohan Core Silver t-shirt, two blue and one white Rohan Element t-shirts, two Rohan polo shirts (one Progress Polo, one Stria Polo) and a Rohan Stratum Polo Long Sleeve shirt for wearing on its own or as part of a layering unit if eating outdoors on an evening.
Packed trousers were not one, but two pairs of Rohan Goas tropical trousers. I’d liked wearing these during our Lisbon stay in July as they were cool to wear in hot temperatures, had good pockets to help deter thieving bar-stools and dried quickly after washing in Lifeventure Fabric Wash.
Rohan Silver trunks came into their own once more as did a few pairs of the same brand’s socks. New to the equation though were a couple of pairs of M&S trainer liner socks – easily washed/dried, but also useful enough to deal with my feet being encased in approach shoes after several months of padding around barefoot at home or in sandals when leaving the house.
The clear bag to be examined by security contained a couple of travel size Nivea Factor 30 bottles of sun cream, the bottle of King Of Shaves shaving oil that I’d bought for the last trip, a travel tube of Colgate Total toothpaste, small bottles of tea tree oil and lavender oil (tea tree to deal with insect bites and lavender oil to help prevent them – the latter didn’t always work!). Also in the mix was a disposable Gillette razor and the Slim Sonic battery powered toothbrush.
Techie stuff was the usual Kindle and Nikon Coolpix digital compact camera plus respective chargers and one three pin to two pin plug adapter. A Petzl e+Lite was packed as a light source, a Moleskine paper notebook for notes/accounts and a Fisher Space Pen to make the notes with.
I’d also got a new set of specs for this trip so one was worn, the reacting to sunlight specs were packed and the reading glasses stayed in my trouser pocket or day bag until needed.
I’d had reacting to sunlight specs before and found them useful, but the new ones are back with my opticians at the moment as the lenses started to work their way out of the frames after being used twice on this trip – apparently it was known problem with this type, but hadn’t come up in conversation when I was buying them… Ooops!
Owt else? My usual meds and back-up literature plus a small umbrella and a copy of Rough Guide To Portugal as I’d forgotten to copy the relevant pages before we left.
A new travel wallet came into play as a means of keeping my £’s separate from my €’s and to help avoid card details being skimmed by no-gooders with scanning devices. After July’s day bag problem, the chosen one was a nylon drawstring shoe bag that I had at home. It lasted three days and was replaced by a more substantial bag bought in a sports shop in Porto.
Caroline’s bag contents included Rohan’s Thai trousers (comfortable, light, good for hot weather and easily washed and worn again).
Other options included the same brand’s Linen Plus Tunis trousers and a dress that also used their Linen Plus fabric, a couple of Ultra Silver Camisoles and a couple of Ultra Silver Briefs (the camisoles were good for layering when needed and were also easily washed and worn again).
Oh, and her Rohan Serene vests and Malay top also proved their worth once more.
To cope with the rain, Caroline also took her Berghaus PacLite Gore-Tex jacket. Two pairs of Ecco shoes (Blom Lite Ballerina Pump and Blom Lite Mary Jane) were used over the course of the trip and a newly acquired two-piece swimming cossie was used for the obvious and as spare top and knickers if needed.
And her tech? Kindle, Pentax camera, her smartphone and the necessary adaptors. Both of our sets of adaptors were stored in IKEA wash bags – small, sturdy, zipped and cheap too. As ever, Caroline’s day bag was her Rohan Stowaway Daybag 3.
Now you may be wondering why there are so many mentions for Rohan products on our packing lists…
I’ve been using Rohan clothing for around 30 years now and Caroline’s been doing the same for around 10. The items we’ve been using on our travels have usually been bought in the sales or when there’s been specific offers on items instore or online.
Heck, we’ve even paid full price for stuff on a number of occasions, because when we’ve looked at other items from competitors, they’ve not always been what we’ve wanted for one reason or another…
So what are the verdicts on items mentioned in Portugal Packing v3.0?
They will be along on Friday!
wisepacking 
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