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 ...

If you’ve been bitten by the bug for long thru hikes, Australia is a great place to be. However, it doesn’t take too many years before you start running out of practical options. How many Australian hiking trails are there that go for over 14 days?

The six below are the main ones you’ll keep hearing about. With the exception of the AAWT, each of these is within the reach of the average, fit hiker.

TrailDescriptionAustralian Alps Walking Track (650km) 🔗Traverse of ...

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 ...

“Roads? Where we’re going , we don’t need roads” – Dr. Emmett Brown, Back to the Future

With the likelihood that the fuel crisis will be with us for some time, lets go back to the future and look at alternative transport options.

There are good reasons to leave the car at home. Not just the cost of fuel. Vandalism, theft, fuel syphoning, being environmentally responsible, peace of mind to name a few.

But what is possible and what is practical are two ...

Over many years of bushwalking in Australia I have come to appreciate the eucalypts more and more. Instead of seeing just gum trees, that constant dull green background, I have grown aware of the diversity of these trees from the giants of over 100 feet, wide and shady to the dense thickets of mallee, smooth or rough barked, the ever changing varieties of colour of the trunks, the weird shapes that branches can form and of course, that ever-present myrtle ...