Camping in a Remote Hut During Heavy Rain - Roaring Fire and Campfire Cooking
hi Indie and I are about 1 hour into a five or six hour trip up the side of Mount Thomas in Canterbury we're in New Zealand and it's summertime and even though it's a bit overcast now it is so hot it is so so hot we're on our way to a place called Bob's Biv which is a pretty rudimentary little shelter but it's got a fantastic outdoor fireplace and it's tucked away in the bush in a really cute little spot so I thought you guys might appreciate a trip up there i've got a lot of walking to do but I will see you further up the track when I stop for lunch it's a late lunch cuz it's 3:00 but I wanted to get going and get some miles under my belt before I stopped well there you go who needs a raincoat this dork who loves camping in the rain forgot to pack a raincoat so uh hence the the rain tar the rain has set in we're not far now we're about 10 minutes from the biv we just need to drop down the down the hill now strangely when I was walking here I kept thinking I could smell smoke and given that there's lots of um farmland around this conservation park it might just have been a controlled burnoff down in the valley but there is a chance that there's going to be people already camping in the biv with the fire lit i haven't smelled smoke for a while so I've got my fingers crossed but a word of advice if you're going to camp in New Zealand unless you can stay in a bookable hut um if the hut doesn't take bookings make sure you're carrying a tent just in case i've got one for Indie and I so worst case scenario we'll come back up here onto the the ridge and camp up here welcome to Bob's B fantastic we made it Indie and there's no one else here there's no one else here fantastic go inside actually I don't think I want you to go inside before wet dirty paws wow well she's a simple little shelter but she's awesome and I can hear the sound of the rain on the roof this is going to be amazing i'm going to get my stuff inside and maybe get a light on in there because even though it's only about 5:45 in the evening in the forest with all of the the clouds and the rain it's really dark in there now Indie we've got a broom to sweep out with so I think you can come in and then we're going to have to clean up afterwards all right we'll clean up before we go tomorrow come on okay all of New Zealand's huts have basic gear in them for sweeping out and cleaning and part of the etiquette of staying in a hut is that you leave it in a better state than when you arrived so um I will make sure that I give the floor a really nice clean there's a big bowl of water around the corner there and there's also I see a massive big um pot down by the fireplace so I'll collect some water keep it for tomorrow give the floor a nice scrub water indy's not thirsty but I'm very thirsty i'm looking forward to a cup of tea um right now I'm not caring about the fact that I don't I don't have a raincoat cuz actually now that I know that I'm sleeping in the bib it's going to be warm and dry i'll get the fire going i can hang my t-shirt out there to dry i've got dry clothes to change into so I'm just like enjoying the fact that it's raining and I have no rain coat it's a bit like when I was a teenager walking home from school i used to love it when it was raining on my way home from school and this should have actually told me something about what I was going to end up doing uh in my late 40s as a teenager I'd walk home from school and if it started to rain I'd just walk slower and just like let myself get completely drenched i loved it because I'm one of those fortunate people who's got a home to go home to with a warm shower so there's nothing wrong with some lovely warm summer rain so right now I'm warm going to go down and get some water and then let's get a cup of tea going before I get that fire started i want to get the fire going soon because the wood is going to be getting wet i did pick up a bit of dry kindling on my way in thankfully but I don't have any fire lighters or paper or anything to get it going and we're going to need some dry mediumsized wood um and given there's a fireplace here there's not a lot of standing dead wood so we're going to have a bit of a mission i love a mission don't worry about it tea time indie what are you doing i think there might be an animal carcass see can you see it through the window look away if you're squeamish [Music] oh oh oh oh someone very kindly left some dishwashing liquid but the lid is not very trusty oh well at least I can give my hands a good wash people often leave little bits and pieces in these huts um like someone's left some tea bags there's some coffee there's some dishwashing liquid a little bit of sunscreen and this is the cutest i'll have to show you in the morning when the lighting is better cuz it's really hard to see but it's a little like instant Polaroid photo of a group of people and it says maintenance team 2023 so thank you to the maintenance team who obviously did some work here 2 years ago much appreciated it's a little bit hard the space is quite small so it's a bit hard for you to get a good image sorry about that i actually think rather than rather than get the water going now I'll go and find the wood now because I can't leave this boiling and walk off i've got to watch it so let's go now we'll leave that here we'll go now and get some wood and then we know we've got some relatively dry wood for the fire can you come help me find some wood there's a little bit of dry wood that's been left from the last fire and probably hasn't had a lot of rain on it because it's under the cover so I'm hoping we can get it started with that and then throw my wet wood on i don't think it's wet inside but it's wet on the outside [Applause] heat [Applause] heat heat [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] heat [Applause] heat [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] heat heat [Applause] [Applause] heat [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] heat [Applause] heat heat [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] would you like to get dry as well p lovely and dry by the fire isn't it but it's a bit muddy on the ground maybe you'd like to lie down here there you go nicer isn't it go outside outside to shake shake can you shake good girl all right you come in and lie down here good girl yes right I'm just lying down in a warm corner of the hut i have got fire going obviously and I got very wet but hooray for dry clothes i've still got one more set of dry clothes in case I get wet again but I don't plan to get my puffer jacket wet the fire is craving along i tried to throw as many branches you know as many logs and stuff on as I could um because I really want to get some nice coals going for cooking dinner and you're probably thinking well why are you why are you heating your water over this cooker if you've got the fire going but to be honest um I don't know i don't know i don't know i just am maybe I'm enjoying being able to stand up and cook in here i'm looking forward to moving all my food and everything down there and sitting on on the log i've created like two logs that I can sit on and um I'll go down there and enjoy the fire once I've got my cup of tea i didn't bring any wine with me i decided I don't always have to have wine when I'm going out on a camp every week I don't always have to have wine otherwise I'm drinking wine every week so it's a cup of tea go and enjoy the fire that delicious sound of rain heat [Applause] heat heat [Applause] this is for the camera but I've got it under the tarp at the moment so I'm using it for me it's a bit hard not to get wet i wish I'd brought my rain coat but I did [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] there's nowhere really dry to lie down do you want to go back inside hello D hello sweetheart you want some reassurance it's quite wet out here it's nice under the cover but look at how muddy it is for dogs you got to be able to sit on this log ew hi yeah it's a bit muddy it's nice and warm isn't it but it's muddy hey pup no no that's my meat is that why you're here uh-uh nope is that why you're here hey P go back inside back inside off you go back inside inside inside inside good girl good girl lie down lie down good girl indie might think she's a bit hard done by not being able to be out here by the fire but it's so wet there's this big puddle of water in front of a fire because there's a slope behind us and all the water's running down it so she's okay out there she's all right she's in the dry i'm going to cook my burger and have my cup of tea and then I can go and hang out with her inside the [Music] baby the sun is setting it's quite bizarre because it's casting this beautiful light all through the trees it's like it's all of a sudden turned lovely and light and I suspect that over there in the west where the sun is setting that actually the clouds have parted so this rain might not be around for too much longer it's beautiful even though there's not a lot to see because we're in the trees it's really beautiful the light is so lovely [Applause] oops very toasted bun right looks good little bit crispy but looking good i'm going to show you the nonb burnt side here we are there's my hamburger you can't see me fortunately can't see me eating you can watch Indie it's too small in here to film it's quite tricky but I decided to come inside even though the rain has stopped just was really dark and Indie was in here and I just thought I'd come and keep her company good night girl indie and I have turned in for the night it's such a treat to be in our little hut i think we're going to sleep well we'll see you in the morning your tail good morning good morning Thumpy good morning Sumpy did you have a good sleep mhm thumpy hold on thumpy i'll take you out sorry he's still covering you're licking it for me i don't think it's No that's enough darling i don't think it's good for you all right I'm just going to go down and get some water coffee don't think you like coffee no don't think you like coffee i do how much is left we'll pour it all in oh dear this could be a strong coffee good morning pup good morning morning coffee woohoo well it's the end of March right at the end of March uh December January February yeah so we're a month into autumn almost heading towards the middle of autumn and you can definitely tell the difference in New Zealand i woke up at 6:45 and it was still really dark i thought it was probably still like 2:00 in the morning it's taken quite a while for things to brighten up so yes I feel winter coming wasn't last night amazing i really enjoyed the rain it was so fun the forecast originally had been for some heavy rain and then it changed and the heavy rain system was moving out to the west and I thought look we might get a little bit of drizzle but I wasn't expecting it to rain that hard in hindsight so I set the tar up so that it just covered this seat this log here didn't want to get the tar too close to the fire in case there were sparks but there were no sparks it's a really welldesigned fireplace i mean it's it's awesome e it's like really rustic i love it and the little um skeleton on the front i think that's a pelvis um it's really it's really rustic but it's really good at containing the smoke and containing the sparks i could have brought the tarp right up to the edge and then had this whole dry space here to work and eat but it wasn't going to be dry anyway was it because this bit here is on a downhill slope so we had a massive puddle in front of the the fire it would have helped i wouldn't have got my my jacket so wet but at least it's not particularly cold so that was fine and I took this off hung it up inside the hut last night and the the heat from um our bodies sort of rose to the rose to the roof and dried my jacket i also hung my t-shirt and my trousers up in front of the fire once it had burned right down just in the hopes that some of that residual heat would would dry them out but I think the combination of them being in the out in the wet outside um that offset the heat from the fire so they're not dry i've put them on over my long johns and I feel comfortable enough so that's good what do you think Indie indy's had her breakfast which means she wants to get going and seeing as we've got quite a long walk out I don't think it's going to take us the five hours it took us to walk in because most of it will be downhill so probably four four and a half but all the same we need to get cracking i've boiled up a whole lot of water and um put it into my drink bottle for the walk out which sounds pretty disgusting because it'll just be lukewarm water but at least I can be 100% sure that it will be safe to drink wow wow wow wow i'm thinking I might show you a bit of the walk out because yesterday it was really overcast today I can't even see a cloud in the sky so we should get some lovely views so stick around for that um walk out i also want to tell you a little bit about what's coming up i've got some trips planned and some new gear I'm looking forward to showing you hello yeah we'll go soon i'll have my breakfast and then Yeah literally we're going to go nag nag nag i don't mind i don't mind you nagging you're cute have you had plenty to drink from the river i've got water for you but you need to have something to drink before we go hey You found a psome pub i know you know I don't like them do don't you wow they're not normally out in the day we're going to leave him be even though he's a massive pest in New Zealand so that my friends it's a psum and that is what I don't like visiting my camp in the night massive pest they absolutely destroy our native forests and our native birds i know they might look cute to some of you guys but psums in New Zealand are horrendous pests do you see the little orange marker right at the top to the left of those rocks that's where I'm heading i was chasing the cloud racing with it to see if I could get up here before it completely clouds the view in well I wonder what you thought of that trip did you guys enjoy it make sure to leave me a comment and let me know because I have a couple of similar trips planned but before I tell you about those I just want to give these people a big shout out these are some of you amazing people who've left donations on YouTube super thanks or who have bought me a coffee or bought indies and treats on buy me a coffee or who've joined our YouTube channel membership thanks you guys and thanks all of you for watching if you enjoyed this one I've got a couple of trips planned this winter uh when it snows i've got two huts I'd like to try and get to so if you enjoyed this hut experience let me know so that I know it's worthwhile because most of the time huts are a little bit further for me to get to than I normally would walk if I was just going to set my tent up i also want to get my RBM hot tent out for a nice heavy rain uh hot tent experience so just waiting for the right weather window for that one and um Indie and I have some trips planned as well i've got some trips planned that will include her cuz I know how much you guys enjoy her coming with all right you guys she's up there she's always ahead of me thank you so much for watching if you enjoyed this video you might enjoy the other ones that I've tagged on here if you don't watch them now tag them to watch later enjoy the outdoors and I look forward to seeing you next time bye there she goes
2025-04-11 20:47
