Psychaesthetic

So after a few weeks comparing tents and sleeping bags from various manufacturers and outlets, I ended-up going with Katmandu for the tent and s/bag, and the pack is just a blackwolf 90L. Since I didn't bother including the links the other day here they are: Tent: http://www.kathmandu.com.au/boreas-tent-v2-sand.html S/Bag: http://www.kathmandu.com.au/sleeping-gear/sleeping-bags/odyssey-sleeping-bag-blue-grey.html?___SID=U Backpack: http://www.blackwolf.com.au/product/Cedar-Breaks/2 I wamted a square sleeping bag initially, but saw the difference in size, weight, and thermal rating and went with the mummy-shaped bag rated 0oC, since if it's not cold enough I can simply not use it, and if it *is* cold, I figure warmth trumps roominess. The bag took alot of thinking, and I tried several on. The top-loading tubular packs didn't look like they'd hold anything bulky and most didn't come in the larger 90L size, and after much comparison, as well as the fact i don't want to have to tie shit to the outside of the pack or carry the tent seperately, I went with the blackwolf one, in spite of it's stinking of popular brand commerciality. The tent was the only all-year, 4-season 3-man dome tent under $800 I could look at and examine before buying,

Yeah that's the best batch to date, although i did like the pork with smokey BBQ sauce, it's stayed a bit sticky even when dry. The rosemary and pepper - of course - goes well with Lamb, and being fresh from the bush out front, with fresh ground pepper and sea salt I've concluded that I prefer the all natural flavouring to sauces and pre-mixed flavours. Last week I did a half kilo of pepper steak, and that was so good it was gone in less time than it took to dry. The actual point of this rambling message, is that before i go, I will prepare several differant jerkies: Pepper steak, Lamb and Rosemary, and pork of some kind, stick em all in compression bags and suck the air out. I'm not sure quite how much will be too much to carry, but it's certainly packed with nutrition. Then again, given my penchant for scoffing it down once it's made, I probably should make half the jerky completely unflavoured or just mildly salted, so I have some to cook with and don't eat it all in a few days.

I'd also like to add, while I'm here, that although there're many guffaws being tossed around regarding my insisting on taking an iPad with me, the number of roles a tablet can serve now makes them well worth the hastle, and for that 0.3kgs of weight, and as long as you've got a retina display (or better) it can act as a gps unit with very clear, full-sized PDF maps, a diary that can hold almost unlimited pages without any need to carry paper, a HD camera and video camera, email, online services and information, and god knows Google is never a bad thing to have - anywhere, as well as all the more mundane online shit like fb, twitter and forum access. Of course I cannot use or charge it in the rain, but that's hardly reason to banish it from the pack. So you may well scoff, but the Swiss Army Knife number of functions packed into such a tiny device leads me to believe that *not* including it in the itinerary would be exponentially more retarded than taking it. All it needs to function is a solar charger capable of charging it within a few hours, and to be kept dry.

Tell ya I'm getting to be quite the craftsman with jerky. This weeks batch is lamb jerky with salt, rosemary and a small amount of pepper. Thanks to the hydro grow cabinet I no longer use to grow anything, I can dry a kilo of meat into excellent jerky in 12 hours. The four fans pump about 500 cubic feet of air per hour when they're turned up all the way, and the supplimental flouros warm it *just* enough to allow slow dehydration. ;) Edit: I did have a 400w HPS in there too, but removed it when I stopped growing, just thought I'd add that before anyone starts on why I'd use flouros to grow indoors. They were only side lighting. ;)

Yeah someone mentioned WWOOF and although I haven't ordered the index of hosts yet, I will, since that could allow me to pre-arrange a few set destinations and possibly allow me to bounce around between them, though I still do not want to live within a stones-throw distance of the farmers.I'm basically sick of the suburbs, and even sicker of coming home every day to four walls. Doesn't matter where it is, a house is a house, and I'm tired of other peoples noise, neighbourhood noise, the phone ringing randomly and that Groundhog Day feeling of repetition. Time of life also is a driver, since I'm approaching middle-age, and we all know that's when all the nasty mid-life diseases start populating peoples bodies, and I could easily spend another five or ten years comfortably dragging my feet around, going through the motions, and for a long time I've been quite at odds with the way society functions. People go out every day, work their way into upper-middle-class luxury, ending-up truly imprisoned by all the shit they own, their jobs, their families, their obligations, then sell everything at 65-75 to pay for medical treatment of cancers. How many times do we hear about people having to sell their houses to buy themselves a few more years towards the end? Society is so full of shit, and everywhere I look I see people pretending to be happy while right below the surface their fucked-off they have to work so hard just for a shitty house - well - anywhere. Everything from A to Z is exploited by marketing now and that's another noise of sorts I am fed up with: I can't walk 20 meters from my place without seeing billboards and advertising plastered everywhere, and every letterbox on my street is almost constantly over-flowing with junk mail. I want nature. I don't give a shit about Bear Grylls style survival, or living like a Nunga, but I want nature.

Any event, I'll clearly be travelling heavier than you would, but then I'm hardly Bear Grylls. The tent is arguably the heaviest item of course, and I could've gone with a tarp and ropes, but it will most likely be the tail end of winter when I go so the lack of warmth will be at least partially addressed with a weather-proof shelter. I spent a week white-water rafting around Grafton years ago and all we had was a tarp and ropes, and while it wasn't that terrible, it also wasn't cold enough to worry about the wind, and the gushing water must've stopped the mozzies swarming the area, yeah.

Bravo! Constructive, and with your actual inventory I can superimpose mine over, a much more digestable post. I've got many of the items there, but since grabbing the tent and sleeping bag I've already accepted that the "original list" will either add too much weight, or too much volume and need to be trimmed-down. Choice of knives to take and diamond sharpener are like bread and butter to me. Years ago i bought my first sharpener and started using it and now, I just don't understand how so many people Can have kitchen knives that're perma-blunt. I've bought and left behind four or five sharpeners since then, and simply couldn't imagine taking any knife without the stone to maintain it's edge. The years of cabinet-making solidified how mandatory sharp edges are on anything that cuts.

So I could aim for 20kgs realistically I reakon. I figured 30-35 would be about the minimum, but thanks to the lightweight gear, the three heaviest items together and packed only weight in at *drum roll* .... ..11kgs, for the 90L pack itself, with tent and sleeping bag inside. Edit: 14kg including the mandatory 3ltrs water.

Okay you can stop apologising, I've already forgiven you. To relieve the anxiety you have regarding fire-lighting though, I currently have water-sealed matches, a handful of BICs, and of course, a sparkstick and striker with enough cotton tinder to outlast quite a few rain-drenched days. Like the matches, the cotton tinder is in it's own little waterproof container. ;)

Alright so everyone's friendly again

So you're recommendation, that I should be going out there with nothing but my own dick and a boomerang? what's that? Smart? ;) We're not living in -30000BC, I'm not Aboriginal, and I can assure you, that if you popped into Native land 10,000 years ago and offered the natives some of the basic technology available to us these days, they would happily accept *some* of the items you offered. Reakon they would have said no to a lighter? You seriously think, that all those years ago, they would've prefered stick-rubbing over a BIC? Really, the lack of rational thought behind the "advice" you've given me here - today at least - is simply mind-numbing. The title of the thread has never been "Heading into the bush: Barefoot with my dick in my hand", yet here you are embarrassingly crowing that it's not "Authentic Survival". I never said I was going for authentic, bug-muching, fungus-licking, minimalistic survivalism, and what kind of pretentious toss would I be if i *did* go out there pretending to be Aboriginal? Just me and my boomerang? Anyhow, had you have cared to read at least most of the posts, you'd already have known all this, saved me the effort of correcting you, and you the embarrassment of being corrected. You are forgiven ;)

With no siblings or family contact for years, I'm quite happy with my own company, and to state one pack and some dried food will "imprison" me is not only ill-considered, but smells a lot like someone trolling for forum popularity. By your logic, unless I'm out there chewing the maggots off road-kill, then you - The Master - deem it to be camping, and the *only way* to collect water is with a garbage bag and foliage or to piss in a pit of dirt.Simply *acting* as though your intent is to provide positive information when anyone reading can clearly see posts filled with negative, patronising vomit not only broadcasts your inability to comprehend that you may not be the smartest person in the room, but makes you sound old, bitter and arrogant - in my opinion, of course. But I did ask for everyones' opinion, so you go for it. Just be aware that the angrier/trollier you sound-off, the less weight your opinion will carry

So tonight or tomorrow I'll set the tent up and confirm there's nothing missing or wrong with it, then stuff it in the pack and that's that taken care of.

Here's a ceremonial dagger I've started from a splinter that cracked off a log from a Jacaranda in the yard. Just an example really, while I'm here. The finished carvings will be plenty light enough to carry so I should be able to carry plenty with me. Mm can't see the teeth on the side properly from thr photo, and it looks dull because it's not been finished, but a few coats of french polish and it'll rub up beautiful.

Yeah I don't expect i'll end up like him somehow I also like carving wood, and there'll be no limit to the variety of gnarled crotchy figured wood I can choose from out there, just from fallen branches.

I've bought and started flicking through ibooks about bush tucker, orienteering, camping and survival, though I don't plan on eating bugs to stay alove, and I sure as hell won't be fillomg my bag(s) with tinned baked beans. I don't know what'd possessed him to carry such heavy tinned food, but if I do stuff beans in my food sack, they'll be dried then reconstituted when I need em, not wet in the can. :D I also want to find some ebooks or other info on looking for gems and take a gold pan with me, since I'll be hovering around a water source there's likely creeks etc I can have a go at. Plastic gold pans are very light, and they make them as small as cereal bowls too. Anyhow, I don't know much about prospecting other than it's usually done at a creek or stream. My uncles took me gold panning a few times as a kid, but that was a while ago now ;)

I'll grab a 3ltr "hydration system" - you know, a water bottle with a tube is all they are, marketting is so fulla shit - and for filtering I've got my eye on the family size lifestraw, which has a gravity-fes 2ltr bowl and filters 99.999% of pathogens etc from the water, but also filters up to 60,000 litres of water without any need at all for chemicals, changimg filters or any shit like that. They're only $99, so long as there's any kind of water around, I'll be good for hydration. The Sleeping bag is rated 0oC, and I thought a while about that: I originally wanted a -6oC bag, but I figure it's unlikely go get quite that cold, so 0oC seemed a good, generally cold-protective number. The tent is a beastly 3-man, 4-season geodesic number that's won't have any issue with stability or warmth even in snow, and at 2.5m across and 2.5m long, it's not as light as the smaller 1-2 man tents, but for the extra kilo it weights, I've got a castle. My pack - being 90L is almost as big as a second person, so although I thought about going with a light, swaggish rectangular tent, I figured the surplus space will at least mean I'm not cramped if it's pissing rain for a week straight and I'm stuck inside. So most the big ticket items are now sorted, it's just a matter of deciding how much weight I'm willing to carry and what can be tossed right now etc,.

Reakon I'll go out for a few days locally to road test everything too. I'll arrange to be dropped off and picked-up five days later or something, and that'll give me a chance to iron-out any kinks in the plan, albeit not in the same environment.

Well yes, sure, but - to my mind at least - walking-the-walk doesn't involve wandering out un-prepared. If I had a deathwish, I'd find a more creative way to off myself than starving or freezing solid. I told you all it wasn't happening for a few months geesh calm down ;) I've got a 90L pack, 4-season tent and sleeping bag sorted, and am going to scrap a few things from the inventory as a result of this. The tent's only 3kg, back's 3, sleeping bag's 1kg, and they're all small enough to fit in the pack, so nothing has to be tied onto the outside. I haven't bothered to get a water bladder yet, because I know a 3ltr cap. bladder will weight 3 kgs, so we're up to about 10kgs for all the basics, reakon that gives me about another 15kgs before it gets too uncomfortable or tiring to carry. I'm keen to know of a solar charger that'll charge at least my phone now, because the few I've read-up on just don't seem to have the juice to do it.

I saw that on the news last night Echo's a similar potential scenario, but he's obviously a moron whilst I am not All spitting on tourists aside, it's possible. Possible I could get lost, bitten by a brown snake, and eaten by feral dogs and dingos but there are - equally - threats related to suburban living: from house roofing collapses to cars flying into bedrooms in the middle of the night. Truthfully, i have no idea how prep'ed he was for the QLD bush: he may have researched for months too. Event hen though, being 7th generation Australian I have a bunch of information about the country and it's dangers that a foreign tourist just doesn't get exposed to. Maybe he became disoriented looking up trees - paranoid the drop-bears would ambush him? Who knows? Of course, as that story plainly states: locals and emergency services get particularly annoyed with "foreigners" getting lost, which by implication also states that they wouldn't be so irritated having to look for an all Aussie lad like myself. :D

That's why I yarp at people to treat their dogs better. I knew it all along, didn't need no sciency schmuck with a scanner to know dogs are almost as smart as we are. The size of a dogs brain is roughly the size of a small orange. Not THAT much smaller than ours. So treat your dogs better! They're very sensitive animals!

Yeah I have to pack as much nutrition into a limited space as possible, so vegetarian beliefs go on hold. ;) Outside of "survival-mode" situations, I eat vegetarian friendly iron supplements instead of meat. Oh wait, fish and bird meat, that doesn't count right? Fish don't have feelings and birds are just feathered dinosaur leftovers so I'll happily scoff them down. But mammals, I'm a mammal, dogs are mammals, and mammals have feelings, so I refuse to support fat, lazy redneck beef farmers who make their living in a chopper trading in animal misery! No no don't start my inner animal-lover, I'll start thinking about all those poor cows lined-up being prodded in the arse while they watch their whole family get butchered. Society's great for glossy human convenience, but scratch the surface and it's all sad, sick and ugly.

Long as the Donkey doesn't start arguing back at me right? I've been making jerky in my unused hydro grow-box, chicken just sucks, but would be fine rehydrated in soup or whatever, well as beef and pork. Beef is really the superior meat as far as dried "snack" meat goes, I'll assume that's the blood content gives it so much more "chew-life" in your mouth. But thepork's not bad, just loses flavour faster. All of these meats are far lighter dry of course, and although I've used marinades on the pork and beef for testing purposes (Hickory-Smoked BBQ), any I dry out to actually take with me would only have salt, and as little as possible, of course. Yeah Donkey Jerky would make that sucker a lot less stubborn and objectionable.

Update: The maps have arrived. 1000+ square kilometers of topo/orthophoto@25K. Really, quite shit paper, I predict folding/unfolding half a dozen times would see holes starting to form at the corner-folds, so I'll probably want to order a laminated map of the quadrant My route(s) run through. For now I'm just rolling them up to spare some tears.

Is that Fritz the cat? Gawd there's a blast-from-the-past!