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 […]
Does your dog rip holes in your sleeping mat (see photo), your pack raft or canoeing dry bag with their sharp claws even if you keep them trimmed? Instead of leaving Spot (or Honey) at home you could get yourself some dog booties to prevent such disasters. This is the hole Honey managed to rip
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
This is a very useful hiking stove you can make with a paper punch from Officeworks and some empty cat food cans. Its inception was a genius idea from Jim Woods. Be sure you only use the punch on aluminium cans. I have found that there are two sizes of aluminium can and that one
I will be using the Nano A5X (glow in the dark) 14.8 gram 650 lumen rechargeable torch for this mod though the pictures here are for the A1 which I already own (which is a whole gram heavier and does not glow- alas!) I have often added a simple O-ring, a length of 1mm dyneema
DIY 20 Gram Rechargeable Head Torch + Tent Lantern Read More »
Let it be a golden rule with you that you always carry some form of shelter with you when you are out and about. You can lose heat very quickly in cold. soaking rain and soon be in desperate trouble unless you have some form of shelter. The humble garbage (or trash) bag is quite
I have been making a new floor for my Grey Flyer Tent. You should understand that this tent doubles as a hammock tarp. Here it is in action in High Flying. The roof in this 1.15 oz/yd2 material weighs around 310 grams with tie outs and guys. As you can see it is big enough
This is an addendum to this post The Overnight Tent Stove. The self-fueling tube works! Proof of concept: A 2″ x 8″ plastic tube filled with approx 1 cm gum pellets. Approx 1 gram of wood per 1 mm of height so I could just about fit 1.5 metres in my Grey Flyer Tent which
Tim Tinker has once again come through with a great idea. This time he has alerted me to where you can purchase some pretty good ultralight pots. A set costs as little as US$10 on Amazon, Aliexpress & Ebay. They are usually advertised as ‘mixing bowls’ and come with plastic lids for fridge storage etc.
