Hi,

This Saturday it was warm and sunny weather with 25 degrees, but I decided that this should be no reason why one could go for a big wellie and rainwear adventure.

So I packed my large rugsack with the following items:

Black westgate all rubber heavy duty chest waders

Extral tall Gates waders

A pairr of yellow classic Ocean rainpants

A pair of yellow HH nusfjord bib pants

A yellow classic Ocean rain smock with neopren cuffs.

A green no name one piece PVC rainsuit

Rubber gloves

A leather belt to secure pants and waders.

As I had decided this to be truely muddy and the weather were warm, I wore my two piece neoprene suit as first layer of protection. Over this I wore a pair of jogging pants and a sweater and jumped into a pair of old and leaky green Viking rubber boots with laces. Finally I put the rugsack and my bicycle in the car, and left for my favorite forest for mud play.

At the forest I got the bike out of the car and rugsack on my back and began the drive to my favorite mud hole. The rubber chest waders and other gear made the rugsack very heavy, at least 20 kilos if not more. As the bike path at some places goes uphill and at places quite steeply, some of the way I had to walk with the bike, because the path was a bit muddy and it was difficult to get traction with the bicycle.

After a short but for sure warm bike ride I arrived at my destination, a quiet place in the forest where there is peace to have a lot of messy fun even on a Saturday afternoon. I undressed my jogging pants and sweater and wore the Ocean rain pants, Ocean rain smock and wore the green rubber boots again. Then brought my ofther rubber gear to the edge o the mud hole and stepped in. I immediately sank in to above the knee and slowly sinking in to my crotch. As both boots are leaking I immediately felt the cold mud and water seeping into the boots. I wore the boots with a pair of tall sports socks, so these quickly got soaked. After a bit of messing around and roling in the mud it was time to try out some taller boots.

So I pulled myself out of the black forest mud with some effort and now I wore the HH bib pants on the outside of the rain smock. Then I pulled off the green rubber boots with a loud sloppy sound, no reason to protect my socks as they were now covred in black mud. I tucked bib pants and dirty socks into the black Gates waders, which already have been used a lot in dirty play like this, so the lining is almost completely gone. Pulled the waders all the way up and it felt as always great to feel how they reach all the way up to the crotch. So it was time to head back into the mud, this time there was no immediate flodding, but it just took a roll or two before the sloppy wet mud began seeping into the waders. More messy fun followed, I several times pulled out of the waders filled them partly with mud and water and pressed the leg back in them again.

Finally it was time for some total protection, to test the chest waders. Not that there was much to protect as I now was pretty dirty all over and just by wearing the chest waders made them pretty dirty before they even had been in the mud hole. More muddy fun followed, it was almost impossible to get water and mud down to my feet in the chest waders. But managed to push some mud down in the front as I had not pulled the strings at the top of the chest waders tight. I decided at the end to go total muddy, more than I've ever done before.  I lay on my stomach pushing mud into the rain smock at the neck. It felt so great to feel the cool mud cooling down my body after the efort of biking in wetsuit in 25 degrees and sunshine.

Only nasty thing was the many mosquito's around the mud hole, after some time they really began to be pretty anoying, even though they could only attack my face as my hands were covered in the rubber gloves, but a bit annoying to wave a hand in front of the face every 10 seconds. So eventually it was time to clean up, wash the gear in a small stream, pack up and head back to the car. Just sad that I did not manage to also wear the one piece PVC rain suit, but the mosquito's had changed my mood to further mud playing.

When I was home and took off the wet suit I had a large chunk of semi dry mud stuck between the wetsuit bib pants and the jacket, so my fun with shoving mud down the neck of the rain smock had really had effect :-) I was so wasted, tired and dehydrated after that trip that I first managed to get my raingear properly washed in clean water Sunday morning! But as always it was fun and for sure something that I would gladly do again.

Regards

Boots Lux