Some tips and tricks on how to stay clean and healthy on the trail, how to wash and dry your clothes and more. I have been doing this for nearly seventy years so I must be doing something right! Some of these issues are a bit of a ‘No No’, but someone needs to bring […]
I faced a week of enforced bachelorhood anyway (as Della is craftily away) so I decided to take the pups for a week’s walk…Four hour’s driving later including a couple on bumpy 4WD tracks we gazed up a river somewhere, wondering… Who knows what wonders lie around the river’s bend? Delightfully there are a number of
It is incredibly difficult country. Some ‘easier’ areas (eg along the South Coast Track) are flatter and safer. There are both pigs and deer there. In NZ they have these excellent DOC (‘Dept of Conservation’) huts all over the place (roughly a solid day’s walk apart with a pack; all have a helipad) which make
This stuff is wonderful. First, there is its obvious utility in joining/repairing cuben fibre. There is a single-sided and a double sided version – and it comes in various widths). You normally use it to make joins to create a wider tarp, or to make ‘no-sew’ cuben fibre stuff sacks. Where it really comes into
It is highly desirable to carry a fixed blade knife mainly for those rare occasions when it is necessary to split branches to produce dry kindling and shave them to produce ‘excelsior’ (wood shavings) which are the best fire starter. Lighting a fire when it is very wet and cold is the most important time
Getting a fire going (in the rain and wet) is the most important thing you need to know – ever. If you don’t know it, one day you will die from your ignorance. It will always be unexpected. Folks are always heading off for a day’s drive wearing shorts and tee shirts into the High
These tiny luminous line locks (.7 gram ea) are just great as is ultra light 1.25 high viz spectra cord (available at Zpacks) which (together) makes for a perfect guy line for a hiking tent/tarp. They glow in the dark so well, you can see them clearly through the material of your tent. The Clam
You should read this post as an accompaniment to the posts Wilderness Hut and Debris Hut. There just can’t be too many small wilderness shelters out there in the bush. Indeed there are drastically too few – but the situation is always improving, thanks to the ingenuity and industry of many hunters fishermen, cross country
This is a beautiful easy section comprising widely varying vegetation and topography, the spectacular ‘Mushroom Rocks’, the ruin of the Talbot Peak hut, Mt St Phillack, the highest point on the Baw Baws, and a delightful camp at Phillack Saddle. Side trips can be taken to Mt St Gwinear and Baw Baw Alpine Village. It
Upper Yarra Track Section Seven: Mushroom Rocks Carpark to Phillack Saddle: Read More »
Fishing with a bubble or float is an old technique. I’m sure most of us have used this method with live baits to catch a variety of fish. It also works well with flies and other floating lures to catch trout. My handline of choice is Streamlines Tideland which weighs 2.4 oz. I cut the
