Companions true
Long distance tramping is always challenging when it comes to balancing taking everything that you need with taking only what you need. I have a couple of formulas that I use to calculate how much food I need to take, but there is a more pressing question when most of the food you take is dehydrated in nature: How much fuel do you need to carry to cook it. My favourites of rice, instant noodles and surprise peas still need to be softened for their nutritional value to become available.
Companions true
I first took a small gas can and burner with me on the Waikaremoana Great Walk in September 2010, and was impressed by the performance. More than half of the gas was still in the can at the end; but this was far from being a controlled experiment, because I let the girls cook for me on night #2 at Waiopaoa, and they cooked ordinary noodles.
On the track, the amount of gas remaining can be quickly determined by shaking the bottle, or observing the condensation line formed as the gas is boiled off during burning. Having transported the gas can home without either blowing the plane up or being arrested for transporting flammable materials (Are they joking? Most spray cans nowadays run off – flammable – butane), I decided that more accurate experimentation with the help of the kitchen scales was required.
Water can be brought from room temperature to boil with around 1 g per 100 mL, so that one gas can should be enough to boil 22.7 L of water. Low burning used up about 0.3-0.5 g/min, so that two sausages could be thoroughly cooked in 25 minutes using a total of about 10 g of gas per pair of snags. Practical quantities of rice (e.g. 200 g rice with 480 mL of water) used up 12 g of gas to boil and cook completely (using 20 minute parboiled rice). Now I am not sure that I would be using the gas burner for the simmer phase if there happens to be enough firewood for the hut stove. In any case, there is a small amount of gas that could be saved by buying 10 minute rice instead. Oh, and I fried 4 eggs with 6 g of gas, but I don’t think I’ll be taking the raw eggs with me to Stewart Island this time. Cooking 150 g of spaghetti requires boiling about 1.5 L of water (15 g gas) and leaving it to simmer for 10 minutes (5 g). The surprise peas can be cooked with the rice/spag. So all of the cooking, washing and drinking needs per day come to:
| Breakfast: 500 mL water for coffee and washing up | 5g |
| Drinking water: 1 L | 10g |
| Rice dinner | 12g |
| Spaghetti/Macaroni with cheese dinner | 20 g |
| Instant noodles dinner (2 packs) | 6g |
| Washing up: 500 mL | 5g |
Or about 33 g per day.
For the North-West Circuit (current planning: 10 days) this will mean two gas cans @ 227 g, even if some fuel can be saved by using the hut stoves.
