Heretic Posted March 17, 2014 Try to boil or otherwise sterilize your drinking water , esp if cattle are in the area . Giardia , etc , is no joke ; an no river water in Australia is really safe to drink straight from source .... Have a great adventure ! 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Psychaesthetic Posted March 17, 2014 Try to boil or otherwise sterilize your drinking water , esp if cattle are in the area . Giardia , etc , is no joke ; an no river water in Australia is really safe to drink straight from source .... Have a great adventure ! I figure I'll take the family sized lifestraw or similar with a .1 micron filter, as well as a portable burner - though i haven't decided which will give me the most flame for the weight/space it occupies, and I've already got the 2lre stainless billy and Iodine: on the off-chance the filter dies or the boiling can't happen and I get desperate enough to drink iodinized water. An actual fire would be most efficient, but a great number beautiful places only allow portable stoves. The issue is the number of hours a canister of fuel will give me: if it's only 4 hours, it's impractical, but then again a pot of water only takes a few minutes to boil. I did grab some solid-fuel fold-up stoves while I was out a few weeks ago, but having tested them a few times on packet soup, bakes beans and water I've concluded they're garbage. Each tablet of fuel only gives about 8 minutes or flame, and although the fold-up metal stove weighs nothing, the fuel tablets weight-in like sugar, very dense and heavy. So I'll read-up on which gas burners and cannisters are modt efficiant and order the winner. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
paradox Posted March 17, 2014 no river water in Australia is really safe to drink straight from source .... that just isn't true. but it's a good warning as most isn't safe.. on second thought in a sense its almost is true, but only for people with bitchy urban bred stomachs that have been brought up drinking nothing but sterilized chlorinated tap water. which is almost everyone i suppose. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Psychaesthetic Posted March 17, 2014 A quick Google uncovered the "Biolite" stove range. Not only do they burn on any combustable fuel at hand, they generate electricity while they do it, allowing charging of electronic devices whether you're cooking or not, long as you're burning shit, it charges. Amazing the range of options available. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Psychaesthetic Posted March 17, 2014 This half a year i spent on a huge property in the middle of nowhere years ago had no water outside of a rainwater tank. Huge tank, but the meshing at the top had long ago been destroyed and the entire tank was crawling with mozzie wrigglers. Didn't even take us a week before we got sick of filtering em out and started drinking it wrigglers and all. You could see em twitching around in your bottle as you drank it, and nobody got sick. Granted, I wouldn't be so carefree now, but most the .1micron filters will strip out any and all pathogens, so it's really only chemical contaminants I have to worry about. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
paradox Posted March 17, 2014 anyone who drinks rainwater froma tank has probably drunk hundreds of thousands of wrigglers. they're good for you Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Psychaesthetic Posted March 28, 2014 Canine lupus familiaris helping by holding the tent down thus saving me the effort of pegging it down Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Psychaesthetic Posted March 28, 2014 (edited) ..and relaxing after all the strain of anchoring the tent down, by sitting.. Sorry bout the angles, it's right-way-up in the photo-viewer. Wish She could come with me! Edited March 28, 2014 by Riley Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
timtam Posted March 28, 2014 So here's the situation: The last 15 years have landed me sharing houses with a mix of people, from junkies and cochroaches, to my present place in an upper-middle class neighbourhood with a woman who now drives me insane, and the feeling is mutual. I've been given my marching orders as usual which is fine (though I'll desperately miss the dog, having been with her every minute for the past several years now). My options - as I see them - are either (i) move to some other house or shared accomodation and deal with adjusting (or not adjusting) to whoever happens to hold the lease, (ii) move to a caravan park or similarly low budget place on my own, either of which will cost me at least half my weekly income in rent alone, or the third option: get a tent, pack a pack and fly or greyhound my way to a nice spot on a river, near enough to a town that I can walk to a bus-stop or similar and travel into town each week for food. I've only just decided upon option (iii) being the best course of action, but am already slurping-in as much information as possible on every possible known & unknown that could arise. I have about two months before I have to be out, thus two months before departure. The location - must - be close enough to a freshwater stretch of river that I can access it on foot for water and fishing, and close enough to some kind of civilization that I can walk there too. Mobile reception must also be within walking distance, but ideally I wouldn't have to walk to get a signal. Outside of those requisites I haven't picked a river yet, let alone a section that looks suitable, but having grown up in NSW (been in Adelaide for over a decade now) I'm thinking anywhere from Forster -> Byron would be where I'd most want to live, especially after all these years of horrid Adelaide dry-heat summers. There are many pros and a few cons that I've listed while contemplating such a radical life-change, but this post has gone on about long enough really. What I'd like from you, is any tips and pointers, good locales .. Anything that might minimise the number of "f$&%# why didn't I think of that!!" moments I'll encounter once I'm half way up a riverbank in the middle of nowhere. The main reason I want to do this, is I have no ties to anyone or anything and - being almost 40 now - I might simply not have the chance to give it a bash in another ten years. i might be able to find your a job and budget accommodation in Mildura. you don't have to work every day for this guy. If you want his number let me know 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Psychaesthetic Posted March 30, 2014 Mildura, sadly, is over a thousand kilometers from my destination, and simply gaining cheap accomodation and part-time work isn't what I'm aiming to do. But thank you anyhow, nice of you to offer ;) Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Psychaesthetic Posted March 30, 2014 While I'm here, I've added a 12V 9000mAh solar-charged battery and panels to keep my handheld devices running, and testing the device (PowerMonkey Extreme 12V) in the mild autumn sun I've had approx. 10-15% charge per hour out of the device. It won't replace an AC charger, and power will still be limited, but from full I can recharge my phone 4 times (~20% per full phone charge) from one full charging of the 9KmAh battery. The GPS and lantern rechargables take about the same to recharge 4 at a time, and the iPad(3) charges fine, but sucks the juice pretty heavily. I'm still deciding on a water filter, and though I originally figured the LifeStraw Family was a reliable option I've since found other - smaller and lighter - filters at almost the same price. The lifestraw family has a massive bucket that gravity-feeds water and would just be far too bulky. I also grabbed an entry-level GPS receiver, but regret that now I've found out they're giving topo maps for the entire country away free in 610 and 710 models, so I'll go with the 610, knowing the AA batteries can be recharged with just 1 hour of sunlight. I've been experimenting with the dried food I'll be taking too and noticed some dried veges take forever to re-hydrate and almost as long to cook, but I'm working out a short-list for food, and planning my routes. I'll plan alternate routes, and aim to zig-zag across thr mountains between towns, giving myself a few days between, and marking all points of interest that can be visited along the way. The tent only takes 20mins to setup, and half an hour maybe to pack away, and that speed will increase the more I do it. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Psychaesthetic Posted March 30, 2014 (edited) Also, I'm looking at some of the old haunts of my younger days, up and down the mid-north coast, and figure no matter how secksee the Mountains are, just touring that one area could get a bit mundane, so I'm going to plan seperate 'legs' of the journey. This way once/if I end-up sick of moving about hiking round the world heritage national park, I'll have pre-planned my exit from there. Cartodraft map delivery is staggeringly fast, shockingly fast, no really I ordered the last three 25K topos in late afternoon, from their Sydney store, and it was in the mailbox here in Adelaide the next morning. I was agape, I've never known anything to be delivered cross country in 12hours. Anyhow, once I've picked the alternate/additional coastal destinations, I know I won't have to wait a week let alone several (*cough*-Torsten-*cough*) ;) I've moved the departural 'D-Day' back a little, too. I set a deadline of mid-winter because I'd rather freeze than sweat constantly, and I want to have time to get into it well before sprong arrives. Edit: I'm also re-configuring wordpress and re-enabling the post-via-email feature so I can upload photos etc right from my phone, without the need for all the bullshit comes with logging-in etc: all I'll need to do is take pics, stick em in an email with some text, and email it to the site. Cron will process incoming mail into posts every 10 minutes on the dot. Edited March 30, 2014 by Riley Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Psychaesthetic Posted April 30, 2014 (edited) Alright so having vented my disgust I'll update the thread, since it's been a while. With maybe a month left to go and two-three items of kit to procure before I get on my way to Sydney, this bitch has - in the space of two days - got one of her ex-bfs to come and rekindle the flame while I'm still fucking here, and told me I have until next Thursday to get out. She knows I'm almost ready, but not quite, and as a result of the snake act, come Thursday, rather than heading off to live the dream, I'll be heading off to homelessness. The new guy's no upgrade: a foot shorter than me, and 20 years older, he sits in the corner reading books for hours on end and mumbles as he talks - shifting from foot to foot like a dumb-fuck kid in trouble with the teacher or something. Everytime he skulks near me I wanna grab the cunts head and slam it in the fucking wall. So I can go to the Mountains, without the stove or water filter, or warm clothes, or be homeless. Fucking slag. Edited April 30, 2014 by Riley Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Psychaesthetic Posted April 30, 2014 I also get the urge to throw my ipad at the wall and start breaking shit, but that's probably to be expected when confronted with such a low bitch act. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
etherealdrifter Posted April 30, 2014 fuck . did you pack some cammo tea mang? when ever i get uptight it helps me calm down. honey,warm tea ,make you good. 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
theuserformallyknownasd00d Posted May 2, 2014 Sounds like she's doing you a favour and getting the flame under your ass to accomplish what you've been planning mate! If you can't do it now you probably couldn't in a months time either Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Psychaesthetic Posted May 2, 2014 Well, a week ago She screemed for about half an hour solid, because I ate two Easter Eggs out of a basket meant for someone else. Called it a "crime" and "theft" etc,,. And she's been as hysterical as that for a while now, so it's pretty hard to think of it as losing anything much far as she's concerned. The dog though. I haven't even been patting the dog when she runs to me, cos it makes me tear up every time. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Psychaesthetic Posted May 3, 2014 Sounds like she's doing you a favour and getting the flame under your ass to accomplish what you've been planning mate! If you can't do it now you probably couldn't in a months time either Having said that though, the few months extra were to be used to research the best clothes to keep be warm out there. So without those few months, I have nothing warm enough or waterproof/resistant to wear out there at all. Be in Sydney mo day though, so maybe I'll look up clothing stores there.. See what I can find before I go wherever I end up going. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
incognito Posted May 3, 2014 Why don't u relocate to western nsw, inland where rent is cheap and u could almost live self sufficiently ? Not l parts of Australia are expensive rent wise. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Psychaesthetic Posted May 3, 2014 I want nsw cos it's my home state, and it's greener and I prefer the climate, but there're cheap little towns there too. Sydney's just a stopover at my Mothers a few days while I book the next lot of tickets and drop my laptop and other valuables off. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Psychaesthetic Posted May 4, 2014 Well, the latest update is I'm on the bus for Sydney. Upon arriving, I'll stop at my Mothers place just to store my laptop and other non-camping/hiking stuff, re-organize and re-pack mybackpack, grab some food and a few gas cannisters for the stove, and get on a train to Katoomba. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Halcyon Daze Posted May 4, 2014 Make it the most awesome time of your life. Then someone can make a movie about it someday. All the best and No bad endings please 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ThunderIdeal Posted May 4, 2014 Sounds like its on. we're all rooting for you, even if there were a few heated moments. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
incognito Posted May 5, 2014 B chillay in katoomba! U should come to Oberon! 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Psychaesthetic Posted May 7, 2014 Well, with a too-hot-inside jacket and top layers, I've grabbed long-johns, some thin but quick-drying adidas training/trackies and sealed waterproof nylon outer pants, Plus a dry bag for a dry change of clothes and socks, And a maplefire hiking stove and canisters. Reakon I'm good to go. All I need tomorrow is some food shopping and some backpack repacking and I'm good. On Saturday I will be in the Blue Mountains! Word is there's been snow in thr mountains last few daya or something, but whatever: too much planning for some snowy coldness to stop the process. ;) Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
