Is it possible to buy a burner, fed by a tube to which you can attach whatever regulator/valve whatchamit and bottle is locally available? Or are the actual burners specific to a particular setup/fuel type?

We are driving from the UK to Australia and thought we'd bypass the various bottles/reg etc and get one of the Coleman Dual fuel stoves. Two burners is fine for just me my wife, and we just have a small 5L jerry can that we can fill up with unleaded basically anywhere. Seemed the simplest option to me :)

Cheers,
Duncan.

This is what I ended up doing on my 3 year African trip.

- Bought two small (3kg?) bottles in Western Sahara before I left. These lasted until Namibia about 6 months later. I was mostly alone, cooked a lot.

- In Namibia I bought a Cadac 3kg bottle. In Cape Town I had it refilled and bought some filling adaptors just in case, never used. It was possible to get it refilled in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi again. It lasted ok, but I cooked less on the East Coast.

I used a single screw on cooker on the top of the bottles. Working very well, can either cook inside the back door if windy etc, or take the bottle out and sit next to your camping chair. For tea or coffee get a tiny ali kettle and it only takes a few minutes. Recommended.

The frying pan/wok combination I had was really good also.

:eek3:
Exactly the same question - how to cook in westafrica - i have to fight too :eek3:

Thanks for giving feedback after such a time!

At first i had a plan to build a rearbox, behind the car - to store a 5kg Gas bottle, and the "kittchen".

But it was to expensive - and add to much weight - just for the kittchen solution.

Now what should i do? Store one or two 5kg bottles inside of the car, where we sleep? To be honest- i would find place for one, but not for two.

There also is no solution, to buy in westsahara a cooker like you bought - i still have problems to store them.

The best idea i have till now - is to buy a campingaz device like this one:

Campingaz Kocher Camping Duo(TM) Grill CV

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...OL._AA115_.jpg

http://www.amazon.de/Campingaz-Koche...9801545&sr=8-2


The small bottles are easy to store between luckage anywhere, and i have no problems to carry enough of them, for my transafrica.

The empty bottles i can store in my roofbox, and give them to recycling at home...

This or a Coleman with unleaded fuel - which i try to avoid.

But maybe here comes a better solutions

I used a 'QuickFist' grip to lash it to the inside of the landy, easy to get in or out. Plastic Rako box for pots and pans. Easy.

The cooker and metal ring to suport the pan were all bought in Morocco for about 2 Euros.

Total setup time = 5 seconds.

Total put away time = 10 seconds.

Total Cost, 2 bottles & cooker = 21 Euros, 2009 Moroccan prices. Lasted 6 months.

Its what I'd do again.

As Graham said the camping Gas 907s are a handy size and it's what they use on boats, so if you are anywhere by the sea the local marina will have them, 2 will last a month cooking every day.

Cheers

Bruce

Funny - we ended also with such a cooker @ roamingyak

We had a Coleman unleaded burner with us, who died after 3 weeks (using coleman fuel).

Then we buy a gasbottle with burner addon in congo - we are still happy with this.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-EKnJSTY5G_...0/DSC02468.JPG

For all who thinking about smaller devices: you can buy the small campingaz bottles all over in africa.

Surfy

South America
 

May I change the continent please :thumbup1:

We will be travelling on a Landy Discovery 1 for about a year in South America and are currently kitting out the Disco for sleeping (roof tent) and cooking.

What combination of gas cooker and bottles do you suggest?

Two people travelling and hoping to do most of cooking from vehicle resources.

Thanks for any insights

Start a new thread - then we have separation of info and people interested in SA don't have to read pages of info on Africa etc. Thanks.

I use a jetboil for boiling water. It's faster than my kettle at home!! it's the pups and I can drop a boil in the bag in it for a quick 5 minute meal.

For longer trips where I don't want to carry lots of gas I use a Kelly kettle which also boils water very quickly.

For general cooking I bought a 2 burner coleman stove which I can use unleaded petrol on so I can always get fuel, but generally I can't be bothered with the cleaning plates and utensils so tend to do boil in the bag!!

personally I'm with Duncan. I think on a long trip gas is a real hindrance. bulky, heavy and with issues about compatibility in different countries I am deffo more of a fan of petrol cookers.

Many years ago I bought an ex british army petrol stove for use on trips

It was a piece of cr*p - no wonder the army got rid of them (swapped it for some nice decorated plates in tunisia!). Others had difficulties with there colemans.

I've used gas ever since, as we are off for 6 months this winter I've fitted a gasit refillable setup to my truck (4.5 tonne Iveco so plenty of space and carrying ability) with an 11 kg bottle. This is actually more gas than I've used in 3 years of owning the truck so it'll last a while and if the bottle needs filling in europe at least all i need is an lpg station and the filling is alot cheaper than exchanging bottles.

When in morocco and further south we will use local gas bottles with the gasit as backup , theres enough room for 2 bottles in the locker.

To answer the question 2nd hand about S/America, Phil Flannigan only had an issue filling his onboard gas tank in one country i think so you should be fine.

I guess everywhere uses bottled gas so worse case scenario is that its a change of bottle and regulator

Camping Gaz every time - easily available
I went a bit sophisticated and bought a CADAC CHEF, genius as packs down small, can be used for boiling kettle, wok, fry up, griddle, BBQ, just great!
Got mine from GO Outdoors who offered cheapest price at the time.

In German RV shops you can buy two different packs of adaptors - one for getting gas out of the bottle, and the other for putting the liquid in. Won't work for all systems but can be useful.

In Morocco you can swap bottles from different suppliers but you will have to offer a few D compensation for their trouble.

Autogas just isn't available everywhere. Iceland, Morocco (pretty much anyway) and I imagine most of Africa. Brazil (I think) has its own unique system etc etc. Even in Europe there is no universal interchangeability of small bottles apart from the very expensive Gaz refills. Gas "factories" on the edges of towns are the best places to try - but stand well back.
Often pretty cheap to just buy a local bottle. In france recently a new bottle was on special at Carryfour for 1 euro for the bottle and 25 euro for the contents - for a 13kg bottle. Same in Morocco - few dirham for the bottle, swap as required, refill before you leave and when empty give it away.

The empty bottles make great BBQ's :)

blew myself up with one of those once, not just cxxx but fxxxxxx lethal!!!:oops2: