Welcome back to part 2 of our guide to the right camping gear to make your summer camping adventures unforgettable – for all the right reasons! There’s nothing like summer – long, warm days, beach, river or lakeside camping and enjoying the very best of the Aussie outdoors. Keep these simple tips in mind next time you head off-road and summer-camp like a pro!

KEEPING SAND OUT

There’s always a bit of beach camping to be had around summer, but spreading sand right through your tent is not very comfortable at all, especially when it’s tangled through your camping gear. The good news is something as simple as a camping mesh floor can dramatically reduce the amount of sand that gets into your camping gear. By simply laying it out in front of the tent, it gives the sand time to drop off your feet before you enter the tent.

PORTABLE FIREPIT

Fire is a real danger in summer, which throws a spanner in the works when it comes to the camp cooking side of things. Portable firepits are becoming a popular camp cooking option that many campers keep as part of their camping gear kit. These units have the advantage of being able to be used to cook on when open fires are restricted or banned in places. So you can still throw the snags on the hotplate and cook with a natural fire when hotplates and camp ovens are out of the question. Of course, the legalities of this will depend on the rules of the forest, park or reserve you’re camping in and the severity of the conditions, but overall these units are a very versatile bit of kit. How versatile? Well, not only are they perfect to cook on in the summer, they double as a heater in the winter, so you can use them all year round. Talk about value-for-money!

PUTTING A FIRE OUT PROPERLY 

One of the most important things to do before you leave camp is put the campfire completely out. That doesn’t mean smother it, bury it or simply let the flame burn out. The best way to completely extinguish a camp fire properly is to drown it in water to the point where it’s lost of all its heat. No easy source of water? Keeping a long-handled shovel in your camping gear kit to stamp the campfire completely out is the next best option – but we mean COMPLETELY out! Leaving the fire unattended just because there is no flame present is a recipe for disaster. Burying hot coals under the sand to extinguish the flame is not just laziness, it’s downright dangerous. Think of it like this: those coals not only get hidden, they will also heat that patch of sand up to extremely high temperatures, and if the next camper comes along and stands on these hot-spots barefooted, they could get severely burnt before they get the chance to figure out what happened. In fact, in the right conditions the coals from your campfire can retain enough heat to reignite another fire several days later. You’ve gotta’ ask yourself, would you want it to happen to you or your child?

PROVEN: MAKE YOUR ICE LAST LONGER!

A weekend away camping should be a beaut little cheap exercise, right? However, if you haven’t added a portable camping fridge to your camping gear kit yet, here’s a solution. The quickest way to rack up the bills is to add $15 worth of ice to your ice-box every time you head off-road, only to have it melt by Saturday afternoon. There are plenty of old wives’ tales out there that claim to help you extend the life of your ice, so we pulled a couple of ice boxes out of the shed and put the theories to the test.

TEST 1: BUNG IN v BUNG OUT

First up, bung in or out? The theory goes that you should always drain the melted water away from your icebox, because water’s harder to keep cold than air, and will hence melt the ice quicker.

We put one bag of ice each in two identical iceboxes and left them side-by-side in the sun on concurrent 30°C days, one with bung in, one with bung out.

The result? The ice in the icebox with the bung left out lasted a full half a day more.

WINNER – Bung out!

TEST 2: BAG v BLOCK ICE

What lasts longer, block ice or bagged/crushed? In two more identical ice boxes we put a 4L ice-cream container frozen with fresh water, and a bag of ice.

The result was no surprise, with the block ice lasting an incredible two and a half days more than the bagged ice. There’s a serious money saver there – keep your ice-cream containers, fill em and put them in the freezer a couple of days before you go camping (throw out those bags of frozen veggies, they’re only empty vitamins anyway) and have much longer-lasting ice for free! There you go – you probably never thought a couple of icecream containers were an essential part of your camping gear!

WINNER – BLOCK ICE!

BONUS TIP!

If you feel thirsty you are already on the way to being dehydrated. How quickly is dependent on the amount of activity and fitness, coupled to the temperature, and everybody is different. Military studies have concluded that after only a 2% loss of a person’s body weight through perspiration, the body will experience impaired performance. After a 4% loss the body’s capacity for muscular work is on the decline. Heat exhaustion will occur after a 5% loss. At a 7% loss hallucinations start and after a 10% loss the body will experience circulatory collapse and heat stroke – a life threatening emergency that needs immediate medical attention. Even just walking or fishing in the hot sun without adequate head and body protection can make you sick in extreme heat. To avoid heat stress and cramps in extremely hot weather, keep powdered sports drink in your camping gear kit, which rehydrates by replacing minerals and fluid lost. Also, camp on top of stream banks to catch the breeze, and use something like a large gazebo to act as a sun shade to keep the worst of the heat off during the day.