Machete. Think jungle travel movies

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Machete. Think jungle travel movies

Post by Blr243 » 15 Feb 2020, 8:02 pm

It’s like the director must include this method as if the movie will be lacking without it. Surely it’s easier to just walk thru and use your hands to push the vegetation aside How much energy are you going to burn if you have to chop it all first. And then you stake yourselves on all the lower sharp stalks Looks stupid. Is there really anything that thick in the world that it has to be hacked away first ..... looks like too much hard work I do admit when When thar hunting in NZ i found some super thick tree vegetation where all the twigs leaves and stems were so thick and intertwined that it if the tree was in your way it was easier to walk up the outside of the tree and walk across the top of the tree. It was so thick that your boots would only sink knee deep into into the tree tops. Hard to believe that you can actually walk across the top of a tree ....... but never seen rain forest so thick I had to cut it. Or slash at it
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Re: Machete. Think jungle travel movies

Post by Sergeant Hartman » 15 Feb 2020, 8:21 pm

Mate its cuz of poison ivy... loads of poison ivy, if your clothes touch it you will die..... hahaha

But it looks cool, and that's it movies are fantasy
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Re: Machete. Think jungle travel movies

Post by Blr243 » 15 Feb 2020, 9:18 pm

I have heard of poison ivy but I think mainly the song. So I googled and found a site describing Australia’s most poisonous plants. Interesting info
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Post by Tiger650 » 15 Feb 2020, 9:49 pm

Ord Wingate's Chindits and such would use at least one machete man to blaze a trail for following troops, those being the poor buggers carrying combat loads and heavier weapons etc.

I reckon the machete men's duty would have been rotated regularly through members of the leading platoon and that platoon likewise rotated with another.
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Re: Machete. Think jungle travel movies

Post by perentie » 16 Feb 2020, 6:55 am

When I was working in PNG in the 60,s and 70,s every male Buskanaka carried carried a bush knife stuffed in their belt diwai. Used them a lot too. And not just for cutting bush.
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Re: Machete. Think jungle travel movies

Post by Blr243 » 16 Feb 2020, 7:58 am

My sister just returned from working in lihir. Island She told me about everyone carrying a bush knife and that they had a multitude of users. She also said that they would be walking down the street with a bush knife in one hand and the latest iPhone in the other
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Re: Machete. Think jungle travel movies

Post by JimTom » 16 Feb 2020, 8:23 am

“Wait a while” is difficult to move through in the jungle, hence the name. Also steer clear of the Gympie Bush. Big heart shaped leaves. Very painful. Better off walking around it as opposed to hacking through with a machete.
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Re: Machete. Think jungle travel movies

Post by Blr243 » 16 Feb 2020, 10:33 am

I remember wait a while in Canungra My dad warned me about Gympie bush. Once while climbing a tree I got hit by a very small Gympie bush. It’s seed had somehow lodged in the fork of the big tree I was climbing It started to grow on the fork of the tree fed by moisture and leaf litter that naturally accumulated there .. it was only as bad as a stinging nettle but I had very small contact and it was a super tiny plant barely visible. I consider myself lucky that I got done by a tiny tree. I just googled it again and it’s sounds a lot worse than I had previously thought. Once when I was stalking a red deer at Gympie I was moving through some tobacco bushes in an attempt to get closer. I was so focused on the deer that I could have very easily missed noticing a Gympie bush if there had been one there. The google just told me that deaths have occurred and that the needles on the leaves contain a very powerful neurotoxin ... one site said this bush is the most poisonous in the world. If anyone here has not heard of this plant I encourage you to learn and beware
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Post by 8x57 » 16 Feb 2020, 1:27 pm

It’s a funny one the old machete in the jungle we used secuteurs in the thick stuff much better
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Re: Machete. Think jungle travel movies

Post by JimTom » 16 Feb 2020, 2:38 pm

8x57 wrote:It’s a funny one the old machete in the jungle we used secuteurs in the thick stuff much better


Forward scout had a set in webbing. Generates far less noise then smashing a round with a machete.
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Post by perentie » 17 Feb 2020, 6:52 am

Blr243 wrote:My sister just returned from working in lihir. Island She told me about everyone carrying a bush knife and that they had a multitude of users. She also said that they would be walking down the street with a bush knife in one hand and the latest iPhone in the other


Ah Lihir Island. Beautiful place , or at least was. I was working in the New Ireland Province 1971 to 1973. Met my wife there and built a Ferro yacht. Sailed to all the outlying islands. My pick of all my postings in PNG.
Sorry off topic but couldnt resist.
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Post by Am88 » 17 Feb 2020, 7:58 am

:lol: I can just picture it, army walking through the jungle with a leader out front with the suceteers pruning as he go's
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Post by Oldbloke » 17 Feb 2020, 12:22 pm

8x57 wrote:It’s a funny one the old machete in the jungle we used secuteurs in the thick stuff much better


Same here. Grouse for blackberries.
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Re: Machete. Think jungle travel movies

Post by Blr243 » 17 Feb 2020, 1:25 pm

Perentie. I was invited to go check it out but I never got there. I just have to imagine that it was as nice and the fishing was as good as it was in Broome when I left there 25 years ago. Broome fishing was no skill required , fish taste great no pollution , no fish finder or depth sounder required, carry a 303 in case big sharks chew on your outboard , all fish are hungry , oversized and in abundance and they just about jump in ya boat
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Re: Machete. Think jungle travel movies

Post by JimTom » 17 Feb 2020, 3:51 pm

Am88 wrote::lol: I can just picture it, army walking through the jungle with a leader out front with the suceteers pruning as he go's


Hmmm not exactly.
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Re: Machete. Think jungle travel movies

Post by FNQ » 17 Feb 2020, 9:21 pm

PNG the land of the unexpected & unexplained.

The bush knife (similar to a machete) is very handy.

perentie don’t go back... keep the memories of paradise
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Re: Machete. Think jungle travel movies

Post by perentie » 18 Feb 2020, 8:17 am

FNQ. You are spot on . I have thought about it but reality sets in. Remember it as it was with my photos.
The Highlanders think the same. I was in Hagen and told my offsider, a big burly bloke from Wabag, that I was transferred to New Ireland.
I huge grin split his face and his eyes lit up. Ah Paradise , he said. Funny but I dont remember any Highlanders there but plenty in New Britain and Bougainville.
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