Venery is one of my passions. This is one of my all-time favourite photos. This was Eddie Herrick circa 1934 in his eponymous creek in Wet Jacket Arm, Dusky Sound, Fiordland NZ with his bull moose. In a moose hunting career in Fiordland which involved Eddie hunting there for nearly three months a year for […]
If you wonder why I return again & again to Fiordland (& the Dusky Track) maybe this excerpt from ‘Shadowland’ will whet your appetite. (Della’s favourite part, the kakapo @ 37secs in). You may have to buy the complete video as no-one seems to have uploaded it, but it will be worth it. Even more worthwhile is
Alas, we cannot all have the opportunity to bag innumerable elephants, pandas, platypodes, blue whales, etc – though I am sure we have all read all Teddy Roosevelt’s hunting books, etc but, here is an interesting book about a chap who satisfied his venality with the pursuit of rats, ‘Tales of a Rat-Hunting Man’ by
As you can see this pamphlet dates back to 1924 which gives some idea of how long people have been grappling with the idea of lightening their load on the trail: http://www.outdoors.org/articles/amc-outdoors/the-dawn-of-ultralight-backpacking/ The Whelen Forester Tents I talked about here http://www.theultralighthiker.com/col-townsend-whelens-forester-tent/ and here http://www.theultralighthiker.com/new-tyvek-forestertent-design/ date from about the same time. I must come back to that design (like so
This young lady (accompanied by her husband, Hig) is amongst the greatest living explorers. Their 4,000 mile trek along the US Pacific Coast related in her book ‘A Long Trek Home’ is astonishing – but it proved to be only the beginning of her adventures. Connect with her here: http://www.groundtruthtrekking.org/blog/
A Long View of Nature from a Small Wood: This looks like such an enchanting book: https://www.amazon.com/Wood-Trees-Long-Nature-Small-ebook/dp/B016PK9VOY#reader_B016PK9VOY Reviews here: http://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/books/the-wood-for-the-trees-the-long-view-of-nature-from-a-small-wood-by-richard-fortey-review-a3246291.html & https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/may/25/the-wood-for-the-trees-by-richard-fortey-review
Following hot on the heels of ‘Wild’, Bill Bryson’s ‘A Walk in the Woods’ is soon to hit the big screen with Robert Redford in the starring cast. Della will want to see this. I admit I enjoyed the book, though I suspect I would enjoy the walk even more, so long as too many
‘ Good Judgement Comes From Wisdom, Wisdom Comes From Experience, Experience Comes From Poor Judgement’ http://woodlandwisdom.blogspot.com.au/
WHAT a guy! Not many in modern times (save perhaps Thor Heyerdahl: http://www.theultralighthiker.com/kon-tiki-thor-heyerdahl/) have adventured like this chap, eg: The Brendan Voyage (1976–1977), The Sindbad Voyage (1980–1981), The Jason Voyage (1984), The Ulysses Voyage (1985), The China Voyage (May–November 1993), In Search of Moby Dick: Quest for the White Whale (1999): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Severin
What an adventure it was: drifting across the entire Pacific Ocean to Polynesia on a balsa wood raft http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kon-Tiki_expedition . The doco Thor made http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kon-Tiki_%281950_film%29 won the Academy Award. The book was translated into 70 languages and sold 50 million copies. If you haven’t read it, you should, and its successors, and fellow adventurer Bengt
