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I have mentioned it before, but my tent is also a Howling Moon 3mx3m tent and it has given me 10 years of good service. After every camping trip I pitch it on my lawn and clean it properly. An absolute no-no is to pack your tent away while it is still wet, and I am not talking about packing it up to go home, but after you arrived at home.

I use small amounts of the non compressed variety of charcoal to start my hardwood fire , Theuns !

Thanks Ndloti, I was just wondering because all I see is that HUGE bag of charcoal with no hardwood at all!!

What brand do you use? I don't recognise the bag.

I think that was labelled Gravelotte , or the company is in that area .

I have also seen "Suidwes"/ Namibian types .

Can you guys send me some links discussing the benefits of using each type of fuel? (compressed charcoal, uncompressed and wood). If my habit of using compressed is ecologically unsound I can change it (though I dislike braaiing with wood)

J , it appears to me from the aroma that the compressed brickette type contains some sort of accelerant such as paraffin .

Hhmm, I hadn't noticed that before. Will keep my nose open next braai.

& here I thought Ndloti would pick up a few dried out "Cow Patties" to make his fire,

Scips, he just said he doesn't use the compressed type as it smells.

Does look like a bag of gravellote charcoal. Must admit to preferring briquettes over charcoal, with first choice wood.

I agree on this, that is why I use non compressed charcoal, the Sudwest brand in the blue bag. Another reason for using this is because the briquettes disintegrate if the bag takes bit of hammering. On a trip to Zambia, we took along 2 bags of briquettes in case we were unable to find wood. These 2 bags were placed next to one of the water containers in the trailer. The road between Chipata and the South Luangwa game reserve was particularly bad and the lid of the water container came loose, spilling the contents on the charcoal. 120km and 4 hours later we arrived at our camp and opened the trailer. What a mess!! The bags disintegrated and the contents spilled onto the floor of the trailer. With the shaking of the trailer, the charcoal was ground to pulp. Mattresses, sleeping bags, everything was soaked with the charcoal mud.

A couple of good lessons learnt,
Do not use briquettes
Close water containers properly
Do not pack your sleeping stuff with charcoal and water(or petrol)

Cow patties where I camp ? Buffalo patties maybe , though their droppings are somewhat watery and are dispersed by natural means before they are dry enough to collect .

AWB , it seems the uncompressed type is even less able to survive the shaking actions of travelling intact ?

Ndloti, I said Cow cause Buff patties would be illegal in kruger.

Do you guys think when at these special camps such as Tsendze , Balule , Moroela and for that matter even though it is not for camping , Tamboti , when the ambience is disturbed by spotlight trails sweeping accross your view of the wilderness ?

I got a theory, but will not post it, after 2010WC, ppeps will be too scared to come to Kruger.