Some time ago I found an old wiro notebook in a drawer. A scruffy wiro bound notebook with a photo of 2 men in a kayak with a bear on the front cover. In that notebook I found terrible sketches drawn in pencil made while travelling in 1991. One sketch leapt out at me. It was a rough pencil sketch of Mt Ararat from a backpacking trip to eastern Turkey. The sketch really surprised me – it was a very basic pencil sketch, drawn using a .5mm technical pencil on a cheap notepad. The sketch is just black and white… To my surprise the sounds and smells of the day came flooding back. Meeting some Kurdish goat herders and their flock near the base of Mt Ararat, about 10km from the Iranian border on a bright sunny but cool, alpine day. Along with memories of driving across the mountain steppe in an old Renault 19 and the smells of chai and coffee in a Doğubayazıt pasta solunu. It all came back come flooding back! Why did it evoke such vivid memories? I’m not really sure to be honest. Maybe t...
Made from cotton duck – an industrial revolution equivalent of the modern day gore tech fabric – and waterproof too. The heavy duty cotton is infused with paraffin wax, blocking the voids in the fabric. When the fabric gets wet, it swells to block more moisture entering. Pretty cool eh. I have a large pair of Carradice Super C panniers made of the same fabric that I used on a 5,000 km tour of Europe years ago and they still look like new.
I like that each bag is finished by hand and the creator signs each bag. As you can see in the sketch Ayesha finished this bag. Thanks Ayesha!
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