Hiking

A Soft Pillow and a Warm Bed Under the Stars

 Comfort. That’s what it’s really all about. A few extra ounces ought not to be sacrificed to inadequate rest. That’s why we always carry our Cyclone Chairs @ 180 grams so we can really enjoy the time at the end of the day. We use Thermarest Neoair Xlite Women’s sleeping mats @ 340 grams and

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The Importance of a Roof:

Getting dry, staying dry, that’s what survival comes down to. Alan Remnant founding pilot/owner of Wings on Water, Te Anau, Fiordland who has flown me in to Supper Cove so many times (one of the world’s greatest trips) tells me he has often had to ferry deceased hikers out of there too, folks who could

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Not Quite Alone in the Wilderness

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

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South Coast Track Fiordland NZ: Waitutu to Westies:

I can’t believe it is five years ago today we were there. Time for another trip. We have not seen Long Point, the Slaughter Burn, Big River…I was reminded of this by our jet boat pilot (Roffy) posting this on Facebook yesterday. The trip out to Westies is the journey of a lifetime. Do not

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Improvised Bow Saw:

You can make an improvised bow saw from a bent branch and a couple of large key rings (or similar) I noticed Erin & Hig used small carabiners in Ben Fogle’s New Lives in the Wild Episode 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOUcDt96IrU Since a bow saw blade itself only weighs 30-100 grams (depending on length), this could be

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Tick removal: Spot’s First Tick:

This is the very first tick either myself or one of my animals has acquired in Southern Victoria – even though I hunted with hounds here for over thirty years and have owned as many as a dozen and a half dogs at a time. I used to see tiny ticks infecting the ears of

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