camping

Ditto

Scrubby.

Agree totally 100% and completely with Boobook2 and Scrubcat.

Air mattresses are a disaster on a cold night.

I'm going to do as suggested in an earlier thread and get a down bag and use our selfinflating mattresses.

As above we persevered with air mattresses for quite a while until we finally saw the light and got rid of them. They were cold, always tended to leak and were a right pain to inflate every time you got to camp.

Richard

Why 3 am I always ask. And why does it take 5 hours to go down the first time and then when you get up at 3 am and reinflate it you are back on the dirt an hour later!

Pete

do you then sleep with earmuffs on?

Andrew

gotta agree Ian, cannot get comfy on anything else. Mind you I have given up camping in winter, but it can still get down to zero in the high country at xmas anyway.
Cheers Pete

If you have given up camping in winter you are ripping yourself off.

All my most memorable and enjoyable trips have been in winter. If your equipment is letting you down buy better equipment. 19 years ago I spent $400 on a down sleeping bag. 19years later it is still keeping me warm on even the coldest trips. It probably has another 20years in it. So far it has cost $20 per year and it is getting cheaper all the time. To buy the same bag now would cost over a grand but if you divide that by 20years it is only $50 a year. So for the sake of $50 or less per year, you are missing out on camping at the best time of year. Add a decent mattress, one that won't act like a freezer and let you down in the middle of the night and you can probably cut back on what you spend on the sleeping bag.

Buy some decent gear and get out there. It is still way cheaper than a motel room and more comfortable than some of the cheap motels I have been unfortunate enough to stay in.

Duncs

Hey Duncs,

What is the $20/yr for? I never knew sleeping bags needed to be "serviced"! :) Ok, it's a little O/T, but having read posts here about sleeping bags, I'm beginning to think I need to get ourselves some good down sleeping bags...

Duh, worked it out already (sorry - do I feel silly?) - it's the cost of purchase divided by the years of use... silly me!

Duncs I only use to go camping in winter thirty years ago, and I have much better gear now , but that was pre aches and pains lol. November at Tantangra is the same as mid winter any where else.
I do hearwhat you are saying, and would consider going somewhere mild like Lake St Clair near singleton, if the Bass where biting.
Unfortunalty we are getting to an age where I have to cart a chair into the tent to get undressed.
Cheers Pete