101 ways to stay warm & dry when it is cold & wet in the mountains

by Robbo Bennetts

first published in Outdoor Australia, June/July 2001

1) Don't go.(At least check the weather map first.) 2) Go back (if the weather is filthy when you get there). 3) If you do go, keep spare leather gardening gloves in the car for fitting snow chains so your ski gloves don’t get wet or muddy. 4) Think ahead and be packed and ready to take off as soon as you get there. (Don't waste a minute any time tasks have to be carried out in adverse conditions.)

The art of bivvying

#NicheCamping #LowCostAdventure #ExperiencingNature

the art of bivvying

by Robbo Bennetts

first published in Outdoor Australia, February-March 2001

I bivvied out on my first independent trip. It was Xmas and I was fifteen. A mate and I hitched to Phillip Island, taking nothing but a few dollars and a beach towel each. We spent two nights shivering under our towels, huddled under a cypress tree. On the third day, while thawing out along the foreshore, we noticed a row of bottom-up aluminium dinghies. We returned that night and crawled under one of them. We pushed the still-warm sand up into the gaps to stop the draught, and dozed in "centrally-heated" comfort.

hard skills