Outdoor Trade Show 2013

The outdoor Trade Show is currently taking place at Stoneleigh, near Coventry in the Midlands, a visit yesterday was a first for me.

Checking on travel options it didn't look as though rail was especially convenient so it was an early start for the three and a half - four hour drive from north Cumbria. The weather, close to home, was a joy - early autumn sunshine and thin veils of mist settled in the fields surrounding the M6. Unfortunately this did not last and by the time an hour and a half had passed torrential rain showers became the order of the day. As an aside & by way of a bit of a rant I was horrified at the remarkably uniform and extremely high fuel prices that I observed on the motorway - every unleaded option I saw was 148.9p per litre, today's ASDA Carlisle price being just 134.7p per litre - that's a 10.5% difference. You can even buy in rural Wigton at 138.9!

Anyway, on arrival at Stoneleigh the most immediately eye catching feature was the vast array of tents - never seen so many in one place at an exhibition or trade fair. It really was quite impressive. The only negative on the morning being that it was a soggy wet camp field to walk around.

After registration a quick initial walk around the two halls of the show was followed by a few meetings, it was particularly good to catch up with the Terra Nova folk and Sarah from Cicerone Guides.

There were some impressive products on display - the Paramo stand looked to be well visited in this respect and I quite enjoyed a browse of the Petzl & Silva stands. By way of something I'd not seen before Sugru's (www.sugru.com) self setting rubber for repairing self-inflating mattresses; minor damage to boots; paddles etc. will be something that finds its way into my canoeing, caving and mountaineering emergency kit.

So, overall, a long day with quite difficult travel but good to catch up with a few folk and one or very two useful meetings.

The sun did come out on the tent field for a while in the afternoon which allowed the picture above to show the tents off in a slightly better light - would have been nice if it had lasted on the journey back north on the M6.

All told though - I'm looking forward to Saturday's caving trip. Enough said!