A complete topographical map of Australia is available free in 1:250,000 scale. This is quite adequate to find your way and prevent your getting lost. You can download the maps, copy them to a storage file on your phone and then open them with PDF Maps Or Avenza – if you want to be restricted …
So long as you have a smart phone (with GPS and Compass – be sure it does before you buy it!) you don’t need a Garmin or any other GPS device, and you don’t need to pay for any maps or Apps. You can organise your phone so that you need never get lost. However …
Obviously you can light a fire on the snow but it will quickly melt the snow, sink into it and go out. And this is just when you most need a fire, so what to do? Find somewhere clear of snow is the easiest choice: often there is little or no snow under trees. It …
My wife, Della and I used to carry two complete cook sets but we have shrunk that down a bit. Mostly we carried two pots because it simplified heating water for a shower, but as Della almost always takes a sponge bath and as all the food we cook will fit in the one pot …
Although they are not (at present) ultralight, I really like the concepts behind these wonderful lamps. Lumir-k: Cooking oil fueled LED lamp: & Lumir-C Candle Powered Led lamp: Lumir C: Lumir K: This is a similar concept, power from heat: https://drop.com/buy/biolite-campstove-bundle#overview & this: https://www.theultralighthiker.com/2015/07/20/power-from-heat/ PS: You should be able to make this system work with …
This cup has been officially classified as a work of art in its home country, Sweden – which it certainly is. It is a folding coffee cup which folds down to just 1″ (2.5cm) high but it weighs just 25 gram (which is well-nigh impossible to beat for hiking). It holds 237 mls just shy …
While you are over at Tier Gear…This one has to be a bit lighter than the old coffee pot that John Wayne boiled over so many Western campfires. In Polypropylene Munieq’s Tetra Drip coffee filter weighs a mere 12 grams and it folds flat making it a very solid competitor to Vargo’s 36 gram titanium …
This brilliant 14 gram windscreen by Munieq of Japan (and available at Tier Gear Tasmania for A$39.95 (Oct 2019) has to take the prize. You can use one eg with an alcohol simmer stove such as Tinny’s that I wrote about here or you can join two together eg to use solid fuel. ‘Flame visible …
They have a variety of ultralight rechargeable torches, as well as this excellent charger/powerbank which is all you need to charge them (and anything else!) I already wrote about their remarkable Tube torch here and here. Now they have much brighter models available such as the: Thumb (85 lumens + 25 grams with rotatable head …
I am after some light waterproof fabric to make one of my new 10 x 10 Tarps and new versions of my Pocket Poncho Tent and my Deer Hunter’s Tent. I would like to source the fabric out of China (where most of it is made anyway) and have been trying and trying (with Alibaba) …
I sewed the tie-outs onto the Tyvek tarp on Friday night and headed up the bush to give it a try-out on Saturday morning. Completed it weighed 610 grams. An acceptable weight for such a commodious and versatile shelter. In silnylon it would weigh under 350 grams. To reiterate (just in case you have not …
I know most people can’t sew (and probably don’t have much money either) so I suggest either of these two simple poly tarp ‘hacks’ for en excellent dry shelter (which you can also enjoy a fire out front with). They both also feature ‘stand-up’ room (at least if you are shorter than 6′) which I …
Things just keep getting better and better. I was impressed by the CRKT PDK knife but I am even more impressed by this 10.4 gram little beauty. I confess I may have a titanium fetish, and yes, I do think you could dress a sambar deer with one. I have used the CRKT on one …
Opinel make some pretty unique knives. I guess I came to the party a bit late on this one, but I have two of them in my hand right now and they are magnificent! First I bought the Opinel No 6: because a reader (Tim) recommended it (in this post), as follows: ‘Opinel #6 has …
A friend of mine coined the phrase ‘APC’ being a play on words for a major patent medicine of the 50s and 60s. Instead of the three chemicals which were its constituents (Aspirin, Phenacetin and Codeine – you just can’t get good pain relief cheaply any more!), her expression stood for ‘Armpits and Crotch’. A …
An idea whose time is right: A Portable Bidet As you can see these guys have raised a million bucks on an ‘ask’ of $36K. Not bad. Gives some idea of the demand for these things – yet they were not focusing primarily on hikers. However their device weighs only .5lb (225 grams?) lasts 3 …
I had hoped that this post would be titled ‘The Seventieth Birthday Stag’ but he did not emerge from his lair during my recent sojourn up the bush to check how my hunting camps had fared from the terrible bush fires of earlier this year. I am still not fit enough for this sort of …
While I was working on my post about Simmer Stoves I just could not resist ordering a couple of Tinny’s stoves. I have to admit to being a bit of a collector of these wonderful contraptions. It is true that there are Minibull stoves I don’t own, but time will probably take care of that! …
(or ‘journey cakes‘ as they once were known) also fried scones and maybe ‘bannock’ (from the Latin, ‘panis’ or ‘bread) if you hailed from Scotland. You can see that their (European) origin is quite ancient. They were once a basic food item. Folks took little else into the bush (by way of food) except for …
This is just about the greatest knife ever! I’m just a little late to the party concerning this knife which has been around nearly as long as I have – at any rate since 1956. As you can see it has a 55 mm blade. That’s just under 2 ¼”. (55mm = 2.16”) You could …
