Last Thursday many ABW members met with family and friends to celebrate the life of an extraordinary man, a dear friend, and a life member of Adelaide bushwalkers. John Bartlett passed away this year 92 years young, after a full adventurous interesting and loving life. John was survived by his two children and their partners, three grandchildren and six great grandchildren. 

John’s love of walking began with the first Torrens Park Scouts in 1945. His first day hike was ...

Although it is hard for many new members to accept, there was a time in our club’s history when digital maps, mobile phones and the GPS did not exist. But many notable walks some in wilderness areas were successfully conducted, how was this done?

This article seeks to demystify old style navigation. 

In the absence of topographic information one had to look for whatever was available, geological maps, aerial photographs, cadastral maps, to name a few. There was a time when club ...

September 13 – 19, 1992

My plans for a visit to the Gammons were influenced by the desire to visit former Outstation Idnina, now within the Gammon Ranges National Park. Refer to the map for location of the Outstation.

Idnina has been offered to ABW by National Parks and Wildlife Service for the club to renovate. In return, a lease would be offered to the club. In due course, a proposal for taking on Idnina as a project will be ...

Anyone who’s hiked with me knows I’ve always been focused on my stove’s fuel efficiency. On the last walk I had the benefit of meeting another member of this unfortunate group and he introduced me to GearSkeptic.

Who is GearSkeptic? He’s a North American with a large YouTube following who appears to have an engineering background and an evidential approach. He’s producing thorough, detailed videos that look like the visual equivalent of the offspring of scientific papers and Dad jokes.

In other ...

Rain. In the 5 days before we arrived, Arkaroola received 45mm, and another 52mm during our trip. Roads and campsites were either closed or awash and creeks in full spate. Normally dry waterfalls resurrected themselves in spectacular fashion. Was this the wettest Gammons trip ever?

Trips to the Gammon Ranges are normally an exercise in schlepping water between the known, reliable water sources and that’s exactly what we had planned. But nature made our plans look ridiculous. Each day was spent ...

Perenties are the world’s fourth largest reptile, and can be 2.5m long and weigh 20kg. Their head and neck has a distinctive reticulated pattern of black on a cream background and the body has light rosettes edged in black.

Perenties are found across the arid country in the centre of Australia. Their name comes from the Dyari language from the east of Kati Thanda – Lake Eyre. They eat eggs, birds, reptiles and small mammals.

Australia is a stronghold for monitor lizards, ...

I joined ABW in 1980, but I have no record of when Frank joined – maybe a year or two before that. From the time I joined ABW, Frank was a driving force in the Club. In due course, he was justly awarded Life Membership.

I formed a firm friendship with Frank, particularly as a result of the many walks and trips I shared with him Sadly, a debilitating illness took hold of him, and he saw out his days in a ...

We left at approximately 8 o’clock on the Thursday morning, but the train was slow and, of course, late, so that we had practically no time in Pt. Augusta. Fortunately, we now know the eating shops in Quorn, and so we dived for the nearest as the train pulled into the station and made short work of ham and eggs.

On again, reaching Copley at 5 a.m. we stumbled across the station yards in the darkness towards a glimmer of light ...

In part two of our series on walking South Australia by public transport, life member Mike gives some additional detail on bussing to bushwalks, along with few travel-related tales. 

I love it when you can set off and complete linear walks by simply catching a bus or train at either end. You can often do so for interstate walks, most recently for me, Victoria’s Great Dividing Trail (and now with free transport!) and coast-to-coasting Tasmania. Walkers of WA’s two most popular ...