Stuff Sacks

I had some little net bags from my RTW which I reused the largest -- which is still small. I bought some more stuff sacks which aren't stuff as in compression but stuff as in, er, stuff, er, collections of things, sacks. They have a drawstring on them anyway and are exceedingly handy for keeping groups of stuff together.

You might have clean and dirty clothes sacks. I have an electronics (chargers, batteries, tapes, flash cards) sack. It almost like you get to choose what goes in and then you just grab it when you want all that stuff.

Dry Bag

Anyone doing the maths would have realised that I've brought more stuff than is going to fit in my two panniers. The solution is a dry bag. That is to say a plasticy-rubbery bag with a fold-over top. In fact you fold over the top several times (there is a plastic shaping-collar to aid the process) so that there is no chance of water getting in.

My only complaints about this are that when I left the bag action-end in a stream for twenty minutes (after probably only rolling it three rather than the recommended five times) it let a tiny amount of water in and that repeated abuse of the surface by bungees has led me to apply some gaffer tape to the outside.

So, it works a treat.

Messenger Bag

For a long time I've been looking for some sort of day bag (presumably to compensate for the lack of pockets in my trousers) to carry my camera around inconspicuously and have looked at camera bags, fishing bags and various messenger bags and finally found the ideal bag underneath the television tower in Berlin. As you do.

So, it's plenty big enough to carry the camera, a protective t-shirt, a bottle of water and maybe some other stuff (spare lens, etc.) and is entirely crumple-able which is a necessity as it'll get stuffed in the remaining space in a pannier.

It also makes me look like some uber metro-sexual which is really cool. Only maybe not in the third world. I tell you, with a Tilley hat you can pull anything off.