Multimat Kumfie

All the Gear but No Idea

If you've ever been on a walking holiday - or joined a group like the Ramblers - you'll probably have come across a type of walker who drives others crazy and for whom the phrase 'All the gear but no idea' was created. Often they come in pairs - sometimes referred to as 'Mr and Mrs Rohan', because you can spot them in their head to toe matching high tech outdoor gear. He's probably got a beard, she's got the worn out air of someone who stopped listening to him long ago and they've both got rucksacs filled with every conceivable outdoor accessory. Many are single men of an age when they shouldn't really still be living with their parents. Need to get a pebble out of a horses hoof? He's got the 120 blade Swiss Army Knife. Need a drink? Out comes the high tech water purification system. Need to summon Mountain Rescue? There's probably a satellite phone and GPS locator in the strap of his rucksac. Mr and Mrs Rohan can barely move for all the gear they're carrying - they are, in short, prepared for everything.

My friend Leslie comes from an entirely different school of mountain craft. She once lost her luggage and survived all week on one pair of shorts and two t-shirts. She's a sort of acceptable, undetestable and less wreckless female incarnation of Bear Grylls. She carries only what she really needs and everything she has is multi-purpose. Until she got a boyfriend and dumped us, she used to go on walking holidays with my husband and me. He dubbed her 'goat girl and was in awe of her mountain skills. If Leslie says something is worth having, we take notice and head for the camping shop but even we poked fun at her when she dipped into her rucksac and pulled out a Multimat Kumfie and proceeded to sit on it. How tough can you really claim to be when perched on a small piece of coloured foam?

So what is it?

To describe it simply, a Kumfie is an oblong piece of foam of a similar consistency to the type that's used for roll-up camping mats. If you're too mean to pay a quid or two for the real thing and you've got an old foam mat at home, you can make your own - but that really would make you look a bit sad. Multimat make the Kumfie in two formats - with and without a handle. Well it's not really a handle, it's slot that makes it easier to pull your Kumfie out of your bag. You can see what I mean if you look at the picture. The dimensions of the Kumfie are 350 mm (about 14 inches) by 245 mm (just under 10 inches) by 8 mm thick. The material used is a polyolefin cross-linked foam which helps to insulate your bum from the cold or damp ground below. The Kumfie comes in a range of colours, predominantly in the grey - blue - mauve part of the spectrum which I'm guessing is chosen for being muted enough to not scare the animals but not green or mud coloured to prevent you wandering off and leaving it sitting on a rock.

We could be forgiven for the derision we heaped on our poor friend. The Kumfie looks ridiculous and is quite likely to have everyone around you asking whether you've got a linen table cloth and a set of napkins in your backpack too. It's just not cool to be carrying something to sit on when you are out yomping up a mountain. We quickly realised that we aren't and never have been cool but we do appreciate a warm dry posterior. We bought Kumfies as soon as we got home and they've been on most trips since - even rather sedate city visits. There's a lot to be said for one of these when you're perched on a cold wall in the middle of a city with your mother's warnings about 'piles and cold walls' ringing in your ears. My husband has even used them as protective wrapping (with some of those nice red Post Office rubber bands) to protect delicate items.

On a sunny day (yeah, we go abroad - they have them sometimes) you might think you don't need a little padded seat but if you're faced with perching on some rocks, a little bit of foam makes all the difference. In British conditions, having something to protect your butt and your trousers from a damp muddy field comes in very handy, insulating you from the cold and keeping you dry.

The uses are limited only by your imagination

The Kumfie isn't just about having something to sit on. It's useful for lots of other stuff. When you need to turn out the contents of your pack to find your emergency Mars Bar (or Kendle Mint Cake) you can keep all your gear clean and dry by placing it on the mat. If you want to fiddle around with your camera and don't want to put it on the grass, again, it's happy to do service keeping things clean. When your Swiss Army Knife comes out to savage a baguette and make some sarnies, it's handy to have a clean surface on which to cut and construct your lunch. Want to get down on your knees and take some close up pictures (or inspect a rock or furry caterpillar or pray for salvation when the mountain gets scary), then it's a handy mat to kneel on. If the inside of your tent resembles an explosion, set aside a little area to put your mat for all those bits you'll want in the night but can never find (torch, alarm clock, travel bear or whatever. I'm sure that given enough time I could come up with almost as many uses for a Kumfie as there are for a can of WD-40.

A genuine real McCoy Kumfie made by Multimat will set you back a recommended retail price of just £1.99. Shop around and you might even get one for less - last time I looked on amazon.co.uk they were just 99 pence. There are imitations - don't be snobby, if that's all you can find, go for it; it's just an oblong of foam. It weighs just 20g - that's about the same as one of those small multi-pack bags of crisps, but it's much more comfortable to sit on. The version without the slot costs slightly less but might weigh a fraction of a gram more - because you're not getting that handy hole. I defy anyone to identify the difference in weight.

Recommendation

If there's an award for 'most useful gadget under £2' in the camping and outdoor pursuits category, the Kumfie has to be short-listed. There's nothing terribly clever about it but at 20g and less than £2 it's hard to find an item that's more versatile or comforting on a damp day out on the hills. Mr and Mrs Rohan have probably got something that cost £100 and weighs a kilo - like I said "All the gear but no idea (what really matters)".