Coffee Anywhere

There are many different options to consider when choosing a hiking cook set. Thanks to brands like Toaks, Tomshoo, Lixda and Keith a titanium cookset can be both the lightest and close to the cheapest option. My current hiking cookset consists of a titanium 750mL Tomshoo mug, Baligh stove (45g generic aliexpress hiking stove) and a firemaple universal gas cartridge stand. The total cost of this kit was less than $40 AUD. The only downside is the Baligh stove is not that great, it gets the job done but I wouldn't recommend it to a friend and on shorter hikes have been carrying a Fire Maple Titanium Stove FMS-117T to use instead (approx $50 AUD). The FMS-117T does not fit in the 750mL Tomshoo mug like the Baligh stove. The FMS-117T weighs 114g so is a fair bit heavier, it is just far more pleasant to use and negates the need to bring the canister stand (30g) so the weight difference between using the Baligh stove and FMS-117T is about 40g. Left:  FMS-117T Right: 45g Baligh stov...

The Fire Maple FMS-100T is a light weight hiking and camping stove available from AliExpress. It was my first experience with the brand and since purchasing I now have kettle, pan, pot, gas adapter and titanium cutlery all from Fire Maple. The stove weights 207 g or 219 g with its soft case (312 g with the plastic and soft case). The stove is made from titanium alloy and advertised at 2450W. I have mainly used this stove for car camping and some single night hikes and I would recommend for this purpose it works amazingly well. I paid $71 AUD but have seen the price vary from roughly $60-$100 depending on AliExpress sales, time of year and lunar cycle (prices can vary alot week to week on AliExpress.) Some Australian retailers have similar products to Fire Maple. The most apparent difference between the Fire Maple FMS-116T and the Kathmandu Backpacker Stove Titanium is the price (~$42 or $139) and the standard 4 week shipping time to Australia from most AliExpress ...

The Naturehike Cloud Up 3 tent is a 3-man, 3-season hiking tent that looks to have taken its design inspiration from the Big Agnes Fly Creek UL3. We purchased this tent originally for car camping but more recently have started to use it as a hiking tent. We have owned the tent for a little over a year now and have had no issues with it at all (we have bent 3 of the pegs). The tent has experienced moderate winds and heavy rain without issue. The inner fly has plenty of ventilation mesh at the top and makes for nice star gazing, the 20D half height walls of the inner fly provide extra protection from the wind and rain.  The front vestibule is OK but smaller than what some 2-person tents have. The single front entrance design works well for protection against weather conditions but makes it near impossible to get in or out of the tent without waking up the other occupant(s). If I were looking for a tent solely for hiking I would probably not pick this as it’s a little heav...

Ordered A generic “Down Jacket” from AliExpress for a total of $34 AUD some time last winter and since has become an almost permanent resident of my car/pack. The fabric is lightweight and the stitching is good. The down has leaked a few times but no more than some of my non-AliExpress sleeping bags. A size XXL weighs in at 313 g including the stuff sack. Sizing is a bit tricky, coming from Australia the sizing looks to work such that jackets are two sizes higher than they would be if on the shelf of an Australian retail store (I am a size Large and purchased an XXL) No fancy features to speak of, just a front zipper and two pockets both with zippers. The loft of the down fill is not rated but the jacket provides me enough warmth to justify its continued use in all four Australian seasons outside of alpine areas. Lauren is wearing a UNIQLO seamless ultra light down parka for comparison. The loft of the UNIQLO jacket is comparable along with the weight. The material of the U...

3F UL Gear is a Chinese hiking brand that is best known for LanShan series tents. They also have been making backpacks for a couple of years now and recently released a 35L and 50L roll top style packs with single stay internal aluminium frame. This pack offers an interesting combination of features. A single compartment roll top XPAC bag with a zipper to allow overfilling the complete volume (probably allows an extra 5L roughly). The trampoline pouch front is nice but also its weakest point on my pack, already the stitching on my pack is unravelling – you may be able to see in the photo below some grey stitching near buckle where the red strap attaches to the trampoline pouch where is have attempted to stop any further unravelling. The internal frame is minimal and in my opinion puts this bag in the sweet spot between ultralight frameless packs and traditional packs (only other packs that come to mind would be the EXPED Lightning 45/60L packs). The aluminium frame stay a...

Kosciuszko Main Range Walk - Charlotte Pass to Mount Kosciuszko is a 9-hour, 22 km loop that starts (and ends) at Charlotte’s Pass. We decide to visit in mid April before the temperature in the alpine region starts to drop. We headed towards Blue Lake to do the longer section of the hike prior to the summit. Being an alpine region Kosciuszko national parks ask you to carry everything out (no burying the business) so we planned our hike around toilet locations. There are two toilets, at the start and a second between the summit and Seamans Hut. The track is well differentiated and maintained, there are however narrow sections at the higher region of the walk that require some common sense and care when traversing. We took a detour to get a closer look at the blue lake pictured below. After the summit we decided to camp just past Seamans Hut as we spotted a prime location (protected from wind on two sides, flat ground and a view). The walk back along the summit trac...