Camping sleeping comforts

#blowupmattress #sleepingbags #camping #thelazycampers

Many people don’t enjoy camping because they miss their home comforts. I believe that one of the great things about camping is that it makes you appreciate your home comforts even more and makes you realise some of the things that you don’t really need. Now, I am not all for the glamping style of camping but there are a few comforts that are essential while still keeping it simple. I still want to enjoy myself while camping and not spend the whole trip wishing I had something from home.

I have recently put a little thought into our sleeping equipment for our camping trips (our mattress and bedding more specifically) and have wondered if we are doing things the best way. For many years, we have been using a blow-up mattress and sleeping bags but for our type of camping are these the best?  Since we have started camping more often these two essentials have been on my mind. We are also not doing hikes with our mattress and sleeping bags so the size and weight are not that much of an issue - more comfort.

The blow-up mattress:
A blow-up mattress is fairly comfortable but the biggest issue is if you accidently put it down on a thorn or sharp object you can very easily puncture it, then you have no mattress and that make for a miserable camping experience. I have camped on no mattress and on the thin roll out foam mattresses and after a terrible night's sleep, woken with bruises on both my hips - not a lot of fun!  So, I looked into alternatives to the blow-up mattress and I found two things: either people say that other than getting a real mattress the blow up one is one of the more comfortable options; or the thinner, lighter, just as comfortable options are hellishly expensive. Since we already own a blow-up mattress we have decided to stick with it. When we did our recent long camping trip in August/September this year I was concerned about being cold as an air mattress does not insulate well from the cold ground. Again, I did a little bit of looking around the internet for solutions and there are many but a lot of them are clumsy or bulky (newspaper under the mattress/ foam squares etc). So again, not wanting to spend too much money but wanting something that was as little hassle as possible, I decided to insulate our mattress with a sheepskin-fleece-jacket-type material and made a “pillowcase” for the mattress. The fleece cover worked well and also protects the mattress from small thorns or other small sharp objects. On the nights when it was below freezing we just added another fleece blanket over the mattress and we were lovely and warm and so comfortable. When it came time to pack up, we let down the mattress and folded it up with the cover still on it - nice and simple!

Tip for blow up mattresses: do not blow it up too hard. Leaving the mattress a little softer makes for a far more comfortable night's sleep.

Sleeping bags:
We recently ditched our sleeping bags! We were finding that in summer our sleeping bags were too hot and in winter not warm enough; we also like to zip our sleeping bags together but then the space for the two of us became a bit snug. Since travel space in a car is not an issue, instead of buying new sleeping bags for winter conditions we decided to use our bedding from home. We now use the duvet cover or a sheet in the summer as there is no need for more warm than that and in the winter, we use our duvet and an extra blanket if needed. Since we started using our bedding from home we have been so much more comfortable in both summer and winter.

There is no need to go out and spend a fortune on camping accessories when what you already have will do just fine.

Kgalagadi Transfrontier National Park

#Kgalagadi #SANParks #camping #thelazycampers

Camping: R144pp
Park size: 38000 ㎢

Kgalagadi Plains

The KgalagadiTransfrontier Park is located in the very top of the Northern Province of South Africa where South Africa, Namibia and Botswana meet. The park has a semi-desert, Kalahari landscape which is beautiful in its own right. The long straight valleys lined by red rolling hills are a playground to herbivores and a feeding ground for predators. If you are looking for a quiet bush getaway, then the Kgalagadi is for you.

Getting there:
There are two ways of getting to the Kgalagadi, the R31 (via Upington) and R350 (past Van Zylsrus). Your choice of route will depend on your road preference. The R31 is the most travelled route as it is tar all the way the park gate, the R350 on the other hand is a dirt road for the last 250 km before the gate. If you are looking for an alternative route the R350 is a beautiful drive and the condition of the road was not too bad but it is a very dusty drive as the tyres kick up the very fine grey sand. There are no petrol stations for the 300km before the park so be sure to have a full tank.

The Campsite:

The rest camp at Twee Rivieren is right at the entrance to the park, on the South African side, and if you plan on leaving the park through other gates into Namibia or Botswana you can sort out customs on arrival at Twee Rivieren. The rest camp has a campsite and chalets for accommodation as well as a little shop to get essentials (as the nearest town is quite far away), a lovely little restaurant in case you don't feel like cooking, a swimming pool to cool you down on the very hot summer days and a petrol station (which only had diesel when we were there) so that you can ensure you have enough fuel for all the game driving you will be doing.

The campsite has many sites (both powered and no power), however, a lot of the sites do not have shade and so if you are in a tent without a canopy or gazebo it can be a little tricky trying to find some decent shade. After driving around and contemplating for a while we eventually managed to find a lovely little site off to the side under a tree which provided ample shade for our tiny 3-man tent. Other than shade the tree provided lots of entertainment as we watched the birds flit in and out of the branches. Each campsite has a braai area, stone table and stools as well as light which are convenient for evening relaxing. The ablutions are ample, when we stayed the campsite was full but we never had to wait for the toilet or the shower, there are also wash-up facilities and a laundry room. There is limited cellphone reception in the campsite but reception in the park is very poor.

1. Lone tree, 2. Windmill landscape, 3. Twee Rivieren Campsite

Things to do:
The Kgalagadi is quite a remote place and so all activities are centred around the park: bird watching and game viewing (both self-driven and guided). Game drives in the Kgalagadi are beautiful and peaceful and the speed limit was surprisingly high at 50km/hr. Drives in this park are far and you will not see as much as if you were in the Kruger park, however, what you will see will be fantastic and you won’t have to fight 100 other cars to see it. If you are a birder, the bird life is spectacular especially the amount of birds of prey. On our visit we met an older couple, one evening, who told us that they had been in the car the whole day and had only driven 7km as they were watching the birds. Each day we did our own game drives and found the scenic drive on the Mata-Mata route very serene and saw plenty grazing animals (springbok, gemsbok, wildebeest and giraffe), but when we switched over to the Nossab route we were spoiled with some spectacular sightings: two young lions as well as a mating pair, a Honey Badger (what a treat), a Giant Eagle Owl right next to the road and to top it all off a cheetah with 4 cubs also right next to the road. Throughout the park we saw a great deal of birds of prey: Black Shoulder Kite, Pale Chanting Goshawk, Martial Eagle (we also saw two crows harassing a Martial Eagle mid-flight), as well as the larger birds like the Secretary Bird, Northern Black Korhaan and Kori Bustard.

1. Jackal, 2. Lion mating pair, Cheetah cub

1. Northern Black Korhaan, 2. Pair of Secretary Birds, 2. Kori Bustard

The picnic spots inside the reserve are very well placed for stunning views while you enjoy your time out of the car. The picnic spots are peaceful and spotless and most of them have interesting fact boards or little museums. At the Auchterlonie picnic spot, on the route to Mata-Mata, we were entertained by a squirrel who ran around our feet and under the table while we ate our lunch. There were lots of squirrels everywhere and we spent a lot of time watching their animated behaviour. The squirrels were very cute and extremely entertaining and probably one of the highlights of this park. There are quite a few viewpoints that branch off the main road which are well worth the detour: some of them open up to a flat plain while others allow you to get a spectacular aerial view of the valley below.

We tried to book ourselves onto the morning game walk and the sunset game drive (as these had come recommended in all the reading I had done), however, we were told that we could only do the game drive as they no longer do the game walks, which was very disappointing. Nevertheless, we booked onto the sunset game drive and had a wonderful drive with a very knowledgeable guide, Ian. One thing I really liked about driving with Ian was his utter respect for the environment: one of his drive rules was that if an animal is not looking your way, you may not call and whistle at it - we are visitors so he suggested we be considerate. We were treated with sightings of bat-eared fox, cape fox, jackal, steenbok, meerkats, wild cat and spotted eagle owls. If you are doing this drive outside of the summer season I suggest you take a lot of warm clothing on the drive because as soon as the sun sets the temperature plummets and although we were warmly dressed I could have done with a blanket over my legs or a pair of thermals under my jeans.

1. Gemsbok licking the road, 2. Squirrel playing next to the road, 3. Springbok at one of the lookout points.

1. Pale Chanting Goshawk, 2. Giant Eagle Owl, 3. Large Sociable Weaver Nest 

 Temperatures in the Kgalagadi are extreme, we went in August in the hopes that the temperatures would be a little more comfortable; in the middle of winter the evenings are freezing (literally) but in summer the daytime temperatures are a scorcher. We had lovely days of about 25°C but we did experience the extreme: a day of over 30°C and a night where the temperature dropped to -2°C. This cold night was not too much of a problem as we were prepared for the cold: we slept with beanies on, gloves, socks and a jersey.

The Kgalagadi is a wonderful place to visit and the 3 days we spent there were not enough. We only got to see a very small portion of the park. If you really want to experience the full Kalagadi I advise you drive to and stay at some of the other camps as well (Mata-Mata or Nossab), this will also ensure you see a greater variety of wildlife. If you have a 4X4 you might also want to try one of the remote campsites.

*We found this “First timer's guide to Kgalagadi” article from Getaway very helpful.

Prepping our Ford Figo for our 25 day South African Adventure.

#fordfigo #camping #roadtrip #lazycampers

We have a Ford Figo (2011 model) which we love, it gets great mileage, I love the diesel humm and it is pretty comfortable to drive, and we do a lot of driving. We have very high expectations of this car, it is expected to take us wherever we would like to go. So when we went on our 25 day South Africa camping trip it was expected to take us… and it did. This trip covered quite a few of the national parks in South Africa and +-7000km.

In order to make this camping trip as easy as possible we needed to pack our car cleverly as we did not want to spend the whole trip packing and unpacking then repacking the car every time we got to a new place. I put quite a bit of thought into how to adapt the Figo to best suit our trip. I kept thinking back to when I was a kid and the cars we had when we went on safari. When I was in my early teens my folks had a Unimog (for those not sure, Unimogs are large army vehicles) that had been converted on the inside into a safari vehicle. We used to go on holiday in this car: the tents were on the roof, my brother and I had our own seats in the back with a TV and the fridges whilst in the very back of the vehicle there were 2 stacks of drawers (one side with clothing and the other with utensils). This was a great way to travel and there was very little setup and very little unpacking and repacking. So my thought was how do we make our Ford Figo work like the Unimog?

Firstly we needed drawers but the Figo does not have nearly as much vertical space as a Unimog so in order to be able to fit a set of drawers 4 high my husband suggested we take the back seats of the Figo out. Removing the seats was really easy: two clips and 3 bolts and 5 minutes later we were in business. Removing the seats gave us a lot more space but underneath the seats the floor of the car is not flat and so the drawers would not sit well. Solution: we put a large piece of MDF superwood where the backseats were to create a large flat surface. We placed the drawers’ frames onto the MDF and to prevent them from sliding we screwed thin strips of MDF around the base, cable tied the top of the drawers to the front seats to prevent them toppling over backwards; cable tied the drawers to each other to prevent them from toppling sideways and once the drawers were filled the weight of them was more than enough to help them stay in position. We filled the one set with clothing (2 drawers each) and the other set with non-perishable food items. We used bungy straps over the front of the drawers so that they didn’t slide open while we were driving, especially on the the bumpy dirt roads (of which there were many).

The drawer system.

The next task to tackle was how to keep fresh food cold for 25 days. So off we went to Outdoor Warehouse and Cape Union Mart to look at car fridges. They were way more expensive than we had expected and the big ones were too big for our tiny car and the small ones too small to fit the amount of food we needed to keep cold. So after weighing up the cost of a car fridge versus bags of ice, we decided a cooler box with ice would do us very well, and we already had the cooler box. Now the issue with a cooler box in a car is that everything rolls around the inside of the cooler box and then things become messy. So we adapted the cooler box as well. We bought plastic trays and angle grinded them to size and then slid them into the cooler box to create partitions: one for drinks, one for fruit and one for all other fresh goods. We also placed a tray, with holes drilled into it (it helps to heat the drill bit before drilling to ensure you do not crack the plastic), in the bottom of the cooler box to help keep fresh fruit and veg out of the water from the melted ice. In order to keep everything cold we put new ice into the cooler box each day and emptied the water out when need through the little side tap - super easy.

1. Divisions in cooler box, 2. Cooler box packed in car, 3. Cooler box as food prep area

Now to pack the car smartly:

We packed all the clothing in the drawers behind the passenger and all the food stuff in the drawers behind the driver. This was also really convenient when driving around because if we needed a jersey or short sleeve shirt the clothing was always with us. There was also no need to make any major plans to ensure we packed lunch as all our food was always with us in the car (in the drawers and the cooler box). We packed all valuable items like cameras, binoculars and laptops behind the driver’s seat and all the quad-copter paraphernalia behind the passenger seat. When the boot opened we had the cooler box with all our fresh food and drinks and our box with all our cooking and eating utensils nested in the frame of the boot. We were also able to use the top of the cooler box and utensils box as a food prep surface. In between the drawers and the cooler box we stored all the extra beers, extra milk, 5L water bottles, charcoal and firewood. Then on top of that we put the tent, blow up mattress, bedding and chairs as these were the only items that needed to be taken out for the car. When we moved from one campsite to another we didn’t roll up the tent, mattress and bedding, we just left everything in the tent folded it all in 4 and slipped it into the car, this made set up at the next site very quick. We managed to put up or take down our entire campsite in only 20 minutes, this gave us more time to enjoy the scenery.

One trick to living out of your car for a number of days is to put everything back in the same place all the time so that it is easier to find. Otherwise things get lost in the car, not to be seen again until you get home and unpack.

Our Ford Figo did really well on our trip and we covered a great variety of landscapes. We did over 1700km of dirt roads and some of those roads were rough. We drove hectic rumble strips in the Tankwa-Karoo National Park, beach sand on our way to Koringkorrelbaai in Namaqua National Park, 4X4 passes (we didn’t know they were 4X4 passes until reception told us after we had driven them) in Tankwa and Namaqua, drove through rivers at Augrabies Falls and got stuck in the sand at Augrabies (here the 2 wheel, front wheel drive was not our friend - we just dug deeper and deeper as we tried to get out). We also reached the 100 000 km mark on our trip while chasing the sunset to get to our beachfront rustic campsite in Namaqua National Park.

1. Stuck in the sand at Augrabies. 2. Driving through rivers in Augrabies. 3. Beaching driving while chasing the sunset - Namaqua

Clocking over to 100 000 km

We might have accrued a few extra rattles on the trip but we are very happy with how our vehicle handled our adventure and our packing system worked fantastically. Just because we didn’t have the ideal vehicle did not stop us from having an amazing adventure. Plan your trip and make your car work for you.

Disclaimer: We did make an effort to avoid 4X4 paths when we knew they were 4X4.