CAMPING in a RAINSTORM - Sheltering from Downpour - Heavy Rain Camping

Hey everybody, welcome back to the channel. As you can see we have perfect camping in the rain conditions. It's going to be a nice cold winter's evening with no wind and big raindrops which is actually exactly what I want for a change. No storminess, I hope. But I've got a pretty short walk into camp which suits me because my pack is extremely heavy and you know I like this style of camps where I can just take heaps of gear and still get that wild camp feel. But I'm up here in the beautiful countryside. They film all the rings up here, I'll talk about that a bit more later I think. But I'm gonna push on, hopefully get it set up before the deluge commences and we'll catch back up at the campsite. Made it into camp, it's perfect conditions. We've just got nice raindrops falling, beautiful views out behind me to the rolling hills and we've got like two or three hours before it's dark so we can just get the tent and tarp positioned perfectly. I'll get on to that now, get the whole base set up and it's probably time to get a cup of tea on because it's quite cold. It's only four degrees celsius believe it or not. So we'll do that and we'll see how I get on. I've got the Mont Supercell again. Really looking forward to testing this tent out in some nice rain. This thing's cool because you can pitch it fly first without the inner getting wet so I don't have to do tarp first and we can get this orientated perfectly. they're so easy to set up. There's tensioners as well on all the corners so you can get this all nice and taut. So I'll go around and I'll do that now. I don't think I'll need the guy lines but we'll see how I get on. Carbon fibre poles and my Alton 3x3 tarp. I get a lot of questions about this. I'll have a link in the description so you can get one for yourself if you want. been too windy to set the tarp up like this but hopefully I can have a nice big open outlook and still be protected from the rain and not get completely blasted by the wind. This gives good shelter. I think I need to muck around with it a little bit though to get the water running off it properly. This is a great setup. Full vistas and complete protection. I think the wind's kind of coming from this direction so if any does pick up hopefully none of that water can blow into me. But I got a whole lot of stuff to unpack now. I get my chair, table out, gas cooker, everything and the rain's just coming in nice so we'll get on with that. I'll probably have to get the down jacket on because it's getting pretty cold. What a great feature. Look at all this room now. We'll start with the camp chair. Looks like the weather's picking up a bit too. Yeah there's definitely more rain coming in. Oh yes this is perfect. You've got to see this view man. Honestly it doesn't get much better than that. This tent makes it so good to have all this covered room. A lot of people will ask me in the comments they'll be like why doesn't the tarp cover the whole tent? Well the tent's fully waterproof so it doesn't matter and also my tarp's only three by three meters. I would need like a six meter tarp to cover the whole thing. But this is just perfect. It's unreal. I've got this new top which I want to test out and see how warm it is. It's pretty interesting. It's got alpha direct fabric lining it and then a really fine windbreak material on the outside. But it's nice because it's got perfectly aligned pockets and the fabric comes right up around the neck so it's super cozy. It's a brand called Acepat and you can get it from the gear shop. It's a new brand that does stocking. So I want to test it out under the rain jacket and see if it's warm enough. It's not waterproof but it does have DWR on it. I just wonder if it's considerably warmer than just alpha by itself. We shall see. I'm one of those weirdos who wears outdoor gear out in public. Look at that. I'll chuck the rain jacket back on and we'll see if this can keep me insulated enough without down. I'll tell you what that feels pretty good. We're back in wicker territory. This is New Zealand's number one predator. Camp is nightmare. He knows they have good food. That's rapid boil technology. English breakfast. Yummy. Good old cup of tea. It's a bit late in the day for coffee and so I'm told by the good old English. You've got to let it brew for like five minutes maybe more. 10 minutes if you're a builder and then only a smidgen of milk. set in now. It's not super heavy but it's pretty thick and consistent. He's on patrol. Prop that side of the tarp up give me a bit more room and keep it more taut. I'm going to light the whole place up now and I'll probably chuck my down jacket on because it is getting pretty cold. This is just perfect conditions. I've missed camping in nice rain like this. So nice. I'm totally dry. This rain jacket works so well. It's the Monks Pro Shell. It's pretty heavy duty and it's worth the extra weight. The good thing about this jacket it's really oversized so the down can lock properly underneath it which is pretty important. A lot of these new rain jackets are very tight fitting and down just doesn't work that well when it's compressed so having one like this is definitely worth it. I think it's bear o'clock. On the menu we have an Ubernaught Pink Grapefruit Hazy IPA. This should be full of flavour. Give it a whiff. Yeah instant man. Grapefruit, mango, citrusy. Blast off on a tropical wave of electric haze. This bears sweet tart and juicy daydream sipper with notes of fresh cut citrus, pine and lush squeeze of pink grapefruit. We'll give it a go eh? Not bad. Pretty low bitterness. Quite sweet but still has a pretty good mouthfeel. It's not too light. I found these in the supermarket and they're like the ultimate treat for beer I reckon. As you guys know I'm quite the fan of that wasabi flavoured but mixed with a peanut. Who would have thought? A lot of rain coming in. What a great combo. Hazy IPA, wasabi, peanut. Look at these things. They're really nice. That's a giant pool of water. It just keeps sagging the nylon. This is like a full-blown deluge. I was expecting rain but not I think that's better. That little deluge has passed. That was pretty intense. I just need to keep this centre bridge line bit nice and taut and it should be okay. Camping in the snow is nice but there's something about just being out in the rain, minimal wind and just listening to that sound. They're both good in their own way. I do probably prefer snow but it's not often that we just get nice falling flakes without full-on snowstorms but it's good to mix it up. It's what keeps it interesting for me. Changes in the weather, changes in the setup and location and the gear. Obviously I love gear but I think I'll finish this beer off, chill for a bit then we'll come back and do dinner. It doesn't look very appealing but trust me it will be. This is a Wagyu shank that's been slow cooked Asian style so it's gingery, chilli, sesame oil and heaps of fat. I'm going to render it all down to get it nicely reduced and I'm going to put this into a burger with Swiss cheese. This will take a bit of time to cook just to break it all down and get all that fat completely rendered and reduce it a bit so it's not too sloppy in the burger. There's just no way that I can get this level of flavor from like cooking a meal up here so these first light farms, that's the brand of this Wagyu shank. It's like the ultimate thing to get massive amount of like rich deep developed flavor while I'm out camping. This is thickening up nicely. It hasn't really taken too long to reduce down and cook up. The little stove is doing such a good job. There's quite a bit of a breeze coming through but it doesn't really seem to affect it. It's got a little lip over the burner and you can just get the perfect simmer going. It's the Soto Fusion Trick Stove. I've been using it quite a bit recently. It's becoming one of my favorites. I think that's about ready. Okay how do I do this? Get the buns out. I think by this point I pretty much have a degree in burger engineering but you know there's always room to get a PhD so that's why I'm trying new things. I'm just going to completely lather these brioche buns up with a thick and hefty serving of this Wagyu shank and then we've got the good old Swiss cheese. It would be nice to melt this on but I don't think it will need it. I'll still get that nutty texture from it and taste and there we go. Simple as but likely unmatched flavor. Look at these things. Taste test. That is very different but very very good. Anyway I was watching some YouTube the other day and I tuned into Paul Messner as you do and I noticed he made another video talking about YouTube and all that crap that he always goes on about. I don't really know. He mentioned me and Victoria's channel and it got me thinking. It's like the premise of his video was like why do some channels do good and some don't. I think he pretty much only had positive things to say about my channel but he was going along the lines of it's always the same thing. Different tent, different storm, different wind, snow, rain, burgers, hot dogs, meatballs and how it's just the same stuff on repeat and I know it is and a lot of you in the comments, well not a lot but I do get comments where people are like rinse and repeat blah blah blah boring but honestly for me and you've got to remember that I'm the person actually doing it. It is not boring for me like being out here is the highlight of my week in a lot of ways and it's not really rinse and repeat because it's a different tent, it's a different burger in a different spot. These are all things that actually are highly stimulating to my mind and I think a lot of you like it too because you watch the videos obviously and I think with YouTube like if you do want to watch a different type of video say like people ask me to go fishing or why don't you build a shelter or that kind of stuff there's a lot of people that do that and they specialize in that kind of thing. I specialize in camping in storms, chasing storms and using tents. I don't really specialize in fishing. Maybe one day I'll want to do fishing but for now I just want to keep doing what I like doing and you guys enjoy it so it's all good. I'm not really sure if anything I said makes sense because I'm just out here in the rain eating burgers enjoying myself not really thinking about it but yeah I think with YouTube if you like the content creator and you like the videos watch them. If you don't like them and you don't like that person there's plenty more content out there that you can enjoy so I think at the end of the day you just got to remember is there's actually a real human being making videos for you guys and you should be nice and also on the creator side of it you just got to do what you enjoy and I think if you do that Good old jar of dark, been drinking these for years camping, always satisfying. Man that's deep rich and creamy just out of the packet. The tent behind me is starting to look real inviting it's been a lively evening but getting in there is always so good after sitting out in the wet and the cold. I can't really feel any cold by the way, layered up in these jackets and stuff just warm it's rather nice. Having all the good gear definitely makes the experience like 10 times better. I can hear frogs croaking down in the ponds and streams there's wickers calling and there's kea around here too. There's a chance that you could hear a kiwi which is like a rare native bird. They probably do live around this area but I don't think I've heard one in this spot yet. A lot of people ask what predators we have in New Zealand and literally there's nothing. There's the wicker birds, there are like rats and stoats introduced species, pigs, deer, goats but there's no bears, there's no snakes, there are a few spiders but they're not really poisonous. This is pretty much the perfect camping environment nothing to worry about but the weather. It's actually pretty wet and gross out here there's quite a bit of like fine misty rain coming through with a breeze so I'm going to finish this off, pack down, I'll come back to you guys in the tent. I have the Zen Bivi ultralight bed I love this thing. I haven't used it in a while and I'm using the Zen Bivi ultralight mat I think it's called as well and their pillow so it's the full-on comfort sleep system. Hey it looks like there's some strange something strange on my pad. Is that mold or something? I think that's mud from my last camp. That's weird. It smells alright. You guys probably can't see that on the camera but there's like, is it mold? I don't know what that is. That's not good. Anyway we'll blow it up. That white stuff on the pad was weird. I gave the whole thing a wipe down so hopefully it's clean now. I'll probably put it in the bath when I get home and soap it off. It should be alright for one night hopefully. I'm not even sure what it was It didn't really look like it was mold. I don't know. Strange. Oh this is going to be nice. This has a thick down topper on it. Super comfortable and warm. That's honestly such a cool feature. The tent's all zipped up. We're now fully enclosed. Trying to film inside of a tent it's pretty hard when it's misty and wet and humid. Make sure my venting is open. This isn't the biggest vent but it's better than nothing. So we're now inside the tent and I'm very comfortable Once again I'm sleeping with my head at the foot end of this tent but like last time there's absolutely no issues with your head hitting the fabric or anything and with all the pockets it actually works out really well. I just love being in this tent. It's spacious. Definitely a two-person tent and yeah big roominess for one. I think the reason why the Zen Bivy system works so well is because where this hook attaches it's not on the edge. Kind of like my Neve quilt but this actually works better I think with the sheet and everything. It just like drapes over you and when you're tossing and turning it doesn't pull on your body at all. I'm pretty restless sleeper so it takes me like a few turns before I can get to sleep. So this quilt just works. It's probably not the most high spec and the warmest thing in the world. You can't really cinch it right up around your neck and stuff but for most of the camping that I do this is by far the most comfortable option I think. This is so cozy. I've forgotten how good this system is. I'm gonna have a fantastic sleep tonight. There's just so much room inside this quilt and the pressure relief on this dimpled finish on the pad and a slight stretch of the material man it just feels great. I've got like a gentle rain coming down and a slight breeze so hopefully there's no condensation. The tent's dry at the moment and I do have my vents open and all the mesh exposed down there so hopefully we're dry in the morning. But anyway I'm gonna go to sleep and I'll catch back up with you guys for coffee and breakfast. Until then, good night. The rain just got way heavier. Oh it's pretty steamy in here. The tent seems to be dry though. It's still raining. Pretty much all night long there was a consistent drizzle and periods of like heavy downpours. I had a great sleep though. I only woke up twice which is pretty unusual for me. But yeah totally comfortable, totally warm in the Zenvivi. I'm just gonna enjoy this bro. Wait for the sun to come up and I think we'll head outside. The sun won't come up to about 7 30am. We're still winter here in New Zealand. We get pretty short days, late sunrise. We can just spend some more time in the tent. Look at all the room in here though. It's got a very big front door and what I really like about it as a YouTuber is you can open the door from both sides and you can sleep in it from each end. Which for me means it's versatile. Especially when you're pitching a tarp there's always limited space where you can fit the tent where I'm camping. So that means I can have it either side and sleep either end I think I'll get another brew on. That screeching noise is the Weka. I'm surprised I haven't seen one come around camp yet. They'll probably be here soon. You'll see them behind the tent or something trying to sneak up on me. Usually when I'm camping here and it's not all clagged in you can see massive vista of the far peaks over into the other mountains where I camp at. Up into the area called the Cob. But now I can only see like the close rolling hills. These are brioche croissant rolls with some apricot jam. Sweet, salty, buttery, delicious. Oh man. I was hoping this rain would stay away. So I could get packed down in the dry. Doesn't look like that's going to happen though. No worries I'll just chill, sit back and enjoy it. Finished my morning off with a big cup of tea. English breakfast. It's my favorite at the moment. I was Earl Grey drinker for a while but I've reverted to this. I think it's just a little bit more full-bodied and fulfilling. Isn't that fruity kind of zesty Earl Grey taste. Last time I was camping here I asked you guys if you liked the spot and there was an overwhelming positive response. I like it here too. Has a good feel to it. If you guys are fans of Lord of the Rings you would know that the Chetwood is just down there. That's where they filmed. I love Lord of the Rings by the way. The movies are awesome but the books, they just send me to another dimension. When the hobbits are leaving Bree with Aragorn on the way to Weathertop, there's a few scenes where they're walking through a forest and it's just down there. I've actually camped I reckon in the exact spot where they've filmed. But yeah it's called the Chetwood. It doesn't really feature much in the movie but it's a lovely chapter in the book where they're just traveling out of Bree to Weathertop in Rivendell. Lots of Lord of the Rings is filmed around here. There's Mount Owen where I've camped as well. That's the Dimrell Dale where the Fellowship leaves Moria. Also there's some scenes kind of in the hills over that way where the Fellowship, well not Fellowship, Sam and Frodo are walking out of the Shire and you can see the mountain range in the background. Also that scene where the the crows come in and are hiding in the mountain, that's probably like a hundred kilometers that way up on a pretty remote spot. They would have had to helicopter into that one. I think there's also some scenes in the Hobbit actually when Bilbo's returning to the Shire up in the limestone on the entrance road to this area. So it's pretty much just like a Lord of the Rings film location where I'm camping. It's awesome. Heavy rain came back. All right, all packed up. That only took 30 minutes. I timed it. Everything's very very wet. It's still raining. I'm gonna get this pack on, head back down to the van and that's the video guys. Thanks for coming along. Hope you enjoyed it. I had a great time and hopefully we get some snow and I can be up in the mountains and have a fire and all that. But until then, have a great week, have a great day and I'll see you in the next one. Bye bye.