Willbar wrote:
Thanks Dave and Rob now where talking, I guess brands of quality gear is what I was hoping to find out so I can go hunting good second hand, I like swags but I know a tent gives you more room to escape the environment and to store your things. I agree about a good mattress, what do you guys do for a pillow and what brand sleeping bag is good for summer and winter or do you have a winter and a summer ones?
I have a summer and winter one. The summer one is very small when packed, the winter one is the normal large size. When very cold I stuff the summer one in the winter one and that works well but is restrictive. Now Will, you may find you need to look at larger sizes of sleeping bags for enough wriggle room. In the summer one, I don't have a lot of wriggle space. The winter one is a Black Wolf and works very well. On cool to cold nights at Abbeyard I have even had to leave it open a bit to avoid getting too hot.
For a pillow - I stuff some of the polar fleece and softer clothing in the sleeping bag cover and use that. Find it better than the air pillows.
The seriously small air beds were very pricey. I borrowed one from a friend for the Kokoda trek and it worked well. But check them out when inflated as some have a foil insulation layer that is noisy when you move on it.
I would also take a tent over a swag, and where weight and space is less of an issue go with a 2 person over a 1 person. I have an el-cheapo 2 person that still works well, but struggles when the weather gets nasty. So think about how extreme the conditions are going to be that you are going to camp in. When going somewhere where the choice is camp or camp the better gear makes it much nicer.