Bush life: a step-by-step guide to washing up while bush camping, using only a few drops pf water and producing very little garbage!

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1 – Make a delicious meal (for illustrative purposes we have made an extra greasy eggs and bacon breakfast as an example – this may or may not be related to the fact that this is Øyvind's breakfast every day)



2 – Enjoy your (greasy/sticky/saucy/messy) meal – do not refrain from licking plates/bowls/cuttlery – this shows the cook you enjoyed it AND saves on washing!



3 – Use a paper towel to dry off grease/condensed milk/sauce/leftover bits from everything you wish to wash (try to turn and use every corner of the paper towel, if you do so you will very rarely need more than two sheets (yes, even with that greasy mess!)



4 – “Wash” everything with wet wipes (we use the supercheap ones from Coles, which are a bit rough and as such make excellent replacements for a sponge). Try to do everything in steps so you use the “dirtyest” wet wipe first on everything and then progressively end up just smearing around wet wipe soap (yes, it smells like babies).



5 – Take out your trusty dish towel (no microfibre stuff please, just cotton), and wet one end of it with about 2-3 tablespoons of water. Use this end to wipe everything down, thus removing the “baby smell” film.



6 – Turn your towel to the dry side (if you're in Australia, the whole towel will be dry by now) and wipe everything dry.



7 – Enjoy how clean it all is. Relish in the fact that you still have 70 litres of water to drink, and that, should you get stuck in the desert, you won't be regretting using bowls of it to do your dishes.



8 – Remember to dispose of trash properly (this does NOT include burying it, burning it or throwing it out of windows).



9 – Repeat process as often as needed.

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Photos

Breakie
A great serving of greasy goodness

The problem
A lot of dirty dishes, and not to much water

Nice, cheap kitchen roll
great to clean away almost everything

Great, cheap wet wipes
Also great for almost everything - including doing the dishes with little water and hardly any garbage

A few drops of water
and it is literally a few drops. Just the leftovers from the hot water for coffee is used

Wipe it all down
Get rid of the soapy leftovers from the wet wipes

And then, use the dry end
After a go with a wet towel, its time to use the dry end and get rid of the last leftovers

TA-DA!
and in no time at all, hardly any water used and hardly any garbage created, our dishes and cooker is shiny and clean from top to bottom. Great job Sadie!

Comments

[Adventures of Philnsonja]

Very frugal!
Another great blog, very entertaining...keep them coming. Well done! Cheers Sonja

[Sadieandoyvind]

trying to save money, water and resources :)
thanks guys!

[mom]

what an adventure in suriviving without water
love the pics of the no-water dishwashing demo...and papi says (of your adventures...) "It's better than Crocodile Dundee!"