Table of contents for Issue 168, Nov-Dec 2018 in Wild

Dear Wild, Wild’s Fraser island story (March-April 2018) triggered wonderful memories of a once-in-a-lifetime event in January 1951 when about 800 Senior Scouts from most mainland states spent two weeks exploring what was then a wilderness paradise and nature-lover’s el Dorado. A handful of forestry workers, timber-getters and the odd lighthouse keeper were the island’s sole custodians – and there was not a tourist or 4WD to be seen from Sandy Cape in the north to Hook Point in the south. Today, the tracks carved by pleasure vehicles on the beautiful 200m wide swathe of beach on the Coral Sea coastline replace the tracks of the dingoes and brumbies, which (apart from the few aliens just mentioned) were the island’s principle inhabitants at the time of our visit. The Fraser…

ON THE TRAIL Be ready for rocks. Even being a Sydney mountain biker - and thus inured to sandstone-riddled trails - didn’t prepare me for the onslaught here. It’s not like everywhere is rocky, or that the rocks here are constant (because there are certainly sections without them). But when you hit them - and you will, because they are pretty much unavoidable - you notice them; they’re sharp, jagged, often loose, and like to bunch together into long bonerattling gangs. Tubeless is the way to go. No ands, ifs, or buts. Not only will it stop snakebite punctures when you hit all those rocks, the lower tyre pressures will give you extra float in the sand, and the larger contact patch will help with grip in the corners. You…

More than a century ago British cleric, nature-lover and poet Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote ‘What would the world be, once bereft of wet and of wildness? Let them be left …’ To his ‘wet and the wildness’ I would add ‘and wildlife’. Yet ninety percent of Australians vote for parties with wildlife-killing policies, such as coal mining, logging of native forests and more dogs and off-road vehicles marauding beach habitats. One of the oldest beach reserves in the nation has a variant of these problems. Belfast Beach, between Warrnambool and Port Fairy in Victoria, was declared a public reserve around the same time Yellowstone became the world’s first national park. For thousands of earlier years, the local Aboriginal people had treated it with great respect. One of the tinier creatures…

Finally, you turn off the highway, your speed slows to negotiate the winding gravel road and your brain, too, drops down a few gears as you open the window to let in the cool, forest-tainted air. The long drive out of the city is nearly over. In the car park you stretch, sort gear and shoulder your pack in anticipation of the day’s adventure. The fact that there are no public toilets at this road-head soon becomes obvious. Scattered indiscriminately throughout the forest floor on either side of the track are wads of white tissue. From previous experience, your eye strays no further to investigate. As you hurry on with the aim of getting out of the ‘mass toilet area’ as soon as possible, you ponder the fact that, for…

QUICK FACTS It may not be the tallest peak in the region, or even the most recognisable, but Mount Barney is undoubtedly the jewel of the Scenic Rim. The rich history of this craggy massif spans millennia, capturing the attention of indigenous people, colonists, and modern adventurers alike. It dominates the surrounding landscape and the imagination of those who travel through it. Mount Barney is big terrain, vast and complicated. It is comprised of several precipitous summits and a complex web of ridgelines, and it is these exposed ridges that lend the peak its appeal. Each route offers a unique experience, but all offer sprawling, peerless vistas. This is not a peak to be taken lightly. Despite the trade route being cheekily labelled Peasant’s Ridge, there is no easy way…

Australia’s Ultimate Bucket List by Jennifer Adams and Clint Bizzell (Hardie Grant Books, RRP: $29.99) I love checklists. Whether it’s for work (finish these tasks today) or for leisure (climbing the 10 highest mountains in Australia), checklists provide this sense of personal satisfaction in being able to check each item off, one at a time, and then completing the entire list. So, a bucket list of “Australia’s top 100 places to see in your lifetime” was surely going to be winner. Jennifer Adams and Clint Bizzell have spent more than decade travelling across Australia, including hosting the Network Ten travel show Places We Go. Based on their own adventures, they have compiled this 200-plus page book listing their favourite locations. This include family-friendly holidays, nature experiences, driving holidays, beach holidays,…

On a recent summit attempt of Mount Kilimanjaro, I was using the NeoAir® XTherm™ from Therm-a-Rest, with an R-value of 5.7. This got me thinking. What actually did that 5.7 mean? The R-value is a measure of resistance to heat flow through a given thickness of material and is calculated by measuring the temperature difference between two surfaces and heat flux (or the amount of heat transferred per unit area, per unit of time). Sound complicated? Effectively what this means is that the higher the R-value, the greater the resistance, and hence the better thermal insulating properties of the object. This measure isn’t confined to the outdoor industry. R-value is commonly used in the construction industry to rate the thermal resistance of building materials (insulation, windows, fiberglass and more). And…

QUICK FACTS Spread over 2.2 million square kilometres, the 15 islands that make up the Cook Islands, are probably not the first destination that springs to mind when it comes to planning an adventure holiday. And to be honest, for the most part, you’d be right. Nevertheless, the main and largest island, Rarotonga, does offer a number of more adventurous activities that can break up the monotony of being forced to enjoy the beaches, coral reefs and warm waters that otherwise make up this island paradise. HISTORY Rarotonga is all that remains of a volcano which rose out of the ocean several million years ago. While much that volcano has now eroded into the ocean, several peaks rise above 500 metres, including the highest peak Te Manga at 653 metres.…

Outdoors types are strange folk. There’s a huge variety within this quirkiness: the gear obsessed, masochists, camp-site gourmands, dirtbag scroungers – and on and on, until you get to well-balanced individuals like me. I know people who can guess the weight of a two-man tent to the nearest 100 grams, don’t pack wine(!!!) and sleep on foam mats. I have climbing mates who make restaurant-worthy paella at Arapiles, a mere five-hour drive from the sea, and others who live on two-minute noodles and dirt. If you made a colony and populated it with my outdoor friends they could rebuild cars, oversee nuclear reactors, deal with most medical, legal and creative emergencies, build solar passive houses, cook well enough to make me very happy and play beautiful music while I’d wolf…

Taking a pair of boots directly from box to trail probably isn’t the wisest of strategies for breaking in a new pair of boots. When that trail would commence across a muddy paddock, up a steep rocky scree slope, include traversing a rocky ridge and culminate in descending a slippery and snow-covered slope, and my apprehension that I may come to later regret this decision is probably understandable. Nevertheless, this was exactly the situation I found myself in and the way in which I would break in a new pair of Lowa Renegades. German-based Lowa have been designing and manufacturing outdoor footwear since 1923. Their website states that as of this year, almost 2.8 million pairs have found their way onto the feet of adventurers right around the globe. The…

RETAILERS NEW SOUTH WALES Mountain Equipment72 Archer StChatswood 2067Ph: 02 9419 6955 Mountain Equipment491 Kent StSydney 2000Ph: 02 9264 5888 Trek & Travel447 Kent StSydney 2000Ph: 02 9261 3435 NORTHERN TERRITORY NT General Stores42 Cavenagh StDarwin 0800Ph: 08 8981 8242 TASMANIA Allgoods Pty71 York StLaunceston 7250Ph: 03 6331 3644 QUEENSLAND K2 Base Camp140 Wickham StFortitude Valley 4006Ph: 07 3854 1340 SOUTH AUSTRALIA Annapurna Outdoor210 Rundle StAdelaide 5000Ph: 08 8223 4633 Scout Outdoor Centre192 Rundle StAdelaide 5000Ph: 08 8223 5544 VICTORIA Bogong Equipment374 Little Bourke StMelbourne 3000Ph: 03 9600 0599bogong.com.au The Wilderness Shop969 Whitehorse RdBox Hill 3128Ph: 03 9898 3742E: info@wildernessshop.com.auwildernessshop.com.au REPAIRS Remote Equipment Re pairsSpecialising in repairs and alterations to packs, tents, sleeping bags (clean ing and down-boosting), Gore-Tex rainwear, fleece and ski clothing, alloy tent poles, self-inflating camp rests,…

The North Face have launched a new range of their Ultra Fastpack collection. This is the third generation in the series (since 2014) and includes three variants; a low-cut hiking shoe, low-cut woven hiking shoe and a mid-cut hiking boot. All of the Ultra Fastpack III shoes incorporate a waterproof, breathable GORE-TEX® membrane, OrthoLite ® footbed, Vibram® Megagrip outsole, and The North Face’s proprietary dual-density FastFoam™ midsole, designed to return energy while walking. As the name suggests, the Ultra Fastpack III collection has been designed to bring the lightweight and flexible elements of a running shoe and incorporate them into a more durable and all-purpose hiking shoe. A TPU (thermoplastic polyurethane) coated woven mesh, offering 15-20 percent more abrasion resistance than standard nylon mesh, is incorporated into areas of likely…

Water. Considering that life is impossible without it, you’d think us humans would make protection of the world’s supply our number one priority. Sadly, as a species we are too greedy and/or short sighted to do so. Among other industries, fast fashion has been rightly blamed for its careless despoliation of rivers in the developing world, in some cases literally colouring them the hue of next season’s must-have palette. But are our favourite outdoor brands any more conscientious? Cotton is one of the most water- and chemical-intensive textile crops to grow, and that’s why responsible brands in the outdoor industry use only organic cotton in their clothing lines. Organically grown cotton uses less water and none of the usual harmful chemicals (pesticides, fertilisers, defoliation agents, bleach, surfactants, dyes) in its…

If it were not for the Osprey logo and the rugged look of the Osprey Transporter Wheeled, if you turned up to Everest Base Camp with one of these bags, you’d probably get laughed all the way back to Kathamandu. The Transporter Wheeled is not really designed to actually take you into the wilds, but rather help transport your gear near the wilds. Having released the well-received Transporter Duffel, the folk at Osprey obviously determined there was a market to enhance the design of the Transport Duffel to better suit the more leisure/adventure traveller. Lugging a heavy backpack or dragging a suitcase from airport to airport, train terminal to bus terminal, hotel/motel/hostel lobby to waiting taxi/bus/rickshaw is no fun at all. Even a fully loaded duffel bag is likely to…