How I Survived My First Overnight Hike
This is a follow up to my blog post Branching Out: A new (to me) type of camping. You may wish to read that post if you haven’t already to get an idea of my thoughts and plans in the lead up to this adventure.
So I’ve got this backpack bigger than my entire torso, a hiking stove smaller than my fist and a vague plan of where my first adventure will be. Luckily I’m not alone either. I’ve got four mates who are keen to give this thing a go; all inspired to take only minimal supplies along, keen to only eat what they can hunt. Only two of us have proper hiking backpacks, but that all changes when they see how awesome my pack is and everybody raids Gumtree (Australia’s biggest online marketplace for those not in the know) to get their own.
I pack my bags the night before our journey, keeping light weight in mind. Here’s what goes in:
Food: >Moroccan Tuna Cous Cous meal >tinned salmon and pasta meal >small portion of pancake mix for breakfast >Packet 2 minute noodles >200ml UHT milk (for coffee) >instant coffee for one cup >1 apple >500g trail mix >2 teabags >1 sachet cup-a-soup
Bedding & Clothing: >Compact 5 degree (celcius) sleeping bag >Self inflating mattress >Thermal pants >Waterproof insulated jacket >Spare underwear >Beanie
Everything Else: >Machete >Survival knife >Fork >Teaspoon >Matches >Enamel cup >Compact hikers pot & pan >Hiking stove >480g gas for stove >2 glowsticks >Ridge Ryder Lantern & batteries >Gopro, clamp mount, head mount & spare batteries >Compact camera & spare batteries >iPhone & backup battery >3.9 litres of drinking water >shopping bags for rubbish >150g insect repellent >A compass
A last minute ditch of equipment occurred in the morning before we departed as I could not believe how bloody heavy this thing was! A spare pair of socks, 30 metres of rope, a 600ml bottle of water and the kitchen sink (yes, a folding kitchen sink) didn’t make the final cut. After about 15 minutes of walking I had adjusted straps, got my balance and the weight of the pack didn’t look like it would be such an issue after all. I had planned a route out the back of the area I grew up, about 11km in length 5km the first day and 6km the next. There was no specified trail to follow, it would be a mix of vehicle tracks and straight through the bush to get us where we needed to go. I had a compass and an iPhone with a start, middle and finish point set into it but I have a pretty good internal man-compass and we followed our noses most of the way.
We marched from 10am til 2pm and covered our distance to camp. That meant plenty of time just lounging about and building shelters. I was happy to just build a frame of sticks and lay a bunch of branches over the top, the others were keen to put in a lot more effort and build platforms out of logs right up off the ground just for the fun of it. It took Dylon about 3 hours to build his head height platform; but it was pretty awesome. As dinner time rolled around it was apparent that I was the only one who had thought of light weight hiking food as the canned stews, spam and even a family sized steak and kidney pie came out! No wonder everyone’s bags were so heavy! Everyone except me was roughin it pretty hard in the cooking stakes though, one canned stew fell in the fire, one entire coffee went in the fire and spam steaks were cooked in the tin from the steak and kidney pie…
I slept like an absolute champion that night! No millipedes in my eye sockets, no swaying hammock to make me seasick. Just the gentle breeze and the smell of the pine forest. As we set foot back on track to home we were all rather relieved that we had eaten most of our food and used most of our water. Such light packs! Despite the lighter load, the balance of weight in the pack seemed to be causing me pain in the shoulders that I couldn’t put a stop to. Then the blisters came….an unfamiliar burning feeling on the soles of my feet. None of us wanted to stop for fear of not being able to get back up again!
The Aftermath:
Well, I thought I would carry far too much gear on my first trip and not use half of it. It’s a good thing I ditched the kitchen sink because I wouldn’t have used that! Otherwise I made use of everything I took except for a small tarp (which I will certainly use next time). Unfortunately I didn’t carry enough water to be self sufficient. I had to boil a litre of creek water to keep me going. At least I came close but there’s another 1kg of water I have to carry next time. I don’t think I’ll be buying a tent in a hurry, I didn’t mind sleeping out in the open. Of course that’ll probably change the first time I run into bad weather.
I’m looking forward to doing it again!
Alex
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