It’s been pretty rainy out here on bike tour in the Australian winter.
One night in Victoria near Tallingatta I found myself camping on one of those areas where the copious run-off from the hills soaks the topsoil, turning it into a squishy muddy mess.
The end of the bike path. The rain had started again. No time to find anything better… Don’t ask.
No matter what I did, no matter what I sat on, I ended up with a wet bum. It sucked. Hopefully none of the neighboring farmers saw me pulling my drawers down to dry off my shorts above the fire! A risky maneuver but necessary before climbing into my dry sleeping gear…
And as I lay in bed, wishing for a nice dry night of camping some day soon, I remembered seeing a design in the Bushcraft books I got from Carolyn. It was a chair, made from a simple forked stick and an empty grain sack. “Boy, could I use a chair!” I thought.
Over the next few nights I practiced, using a piece of canvas-like material I found on the roadside. Also all ropes were roadside finds as well. Thank you dumpster fairy!
I didn’t find any forked sticks that would work, but I was able to simply lash three big sticks together.
No more wet bum!!! As long as there are plenty of big sticks around.
PS:
These gum trees were great for collecting insulation on particularly cold nights. Since the bark was hanging and not touching the ground, it was generally dry and not rotten. Combined with leaves and maybe a bit of a criss-cross pattern, it helped create a layer of air, as well as dry bark, between my tent and that frozen ground. Thank you land!
