I went to my mates yesterday arvo and confirmed zero with the 7mm-08, 162gn and 100gn loads both on point of aim at 100m which is neat. Then I taped the muzzle, grabbed the long bipod (due to the grass) and headed into the bush. There's an area where a spring comes out of the hillside under the tree canopy and runs down the hill. The slope is a blanket of rotted leaf matter over wet clay, and very steep, quite a challenge not to end up in a heap at the bottom. I was surprised that there was hardly any undergrowth once I was in there, just patches of ferns, but lots and lots of fallen trees to make it a bit of an obstacle course.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcRI0p3KS9AThe ground where the water comes through is a spongy layer of saturated rotten leaf litter perhaps 20m across.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/2h8tncFnaz4Then the water runs downhill, cutting a groove through the rock. This groove gets deeper as it goes down the hill and becomes more of a chasm, maybe 10m deep, with near-vertical walls and rocks at the bottom. I stopped for a drink and a couple of butterscotch lollies when a fox darted through the bushes about 10m ahead of me and I doubt he even noticed me - he was already gone before I could make any kind of move. There are smaller cuts in the rock where other water has run down the hill for thousands of years. One I found was hidden under the ferns that was a 400mm cut about 1200mm deep, with rocks at the bottom. That could be nasty to find in the dry when you can't hear the water flowing.
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https://www.youtube.com/shorts/YwJRk3ZeULY
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https://youtu.be/sWtynh3Hf1wSome lyrebirds found me entirely irrelevant and strutted around me like chickens, scratching in the mud for goodies while I sat and had a breather. It was a perfect spot to spend the night as it was a small plateau with a depression just behind the lip, like sitting in a bean bag, with a view out through the trees. But it was still early so I pushed on. I hadn't seen any sign at all that deer had been up in here, which surprised me a little. Fresh water and lots of mud to roll in and trees to rub. There were some wombat burrows higher up but I didn't see anything lower down. There were some wallabies around but I didn't see any significant scat or tracks from regular attendance, and virtually no regular animal routes cutting tunnels through the low cover or tracks through the leaf litter. I think it's a bit of a bird sanctuary mainly. I think it would be worth having another look to try to find some spots with reasonable lines of sight out among the trees to decrease some of the fox population.
There is a small grassed clearing that I wanted to look at while I was in there as it just seemed odd that it would naturally remain free of any growth in the midst of all these 30m+ trees, and with nicely mown grass. Avenza was telling me it was only about 30m ahead of me but I was looking at a solid wall of bracken and ferns. I got down on hands and knees and pushed through whatever gaps I could find but got nowhere fast. After twenty-minutes I was where the map was saying I should be right on the edge but it was still just a solid mesh of entangled crap, so I decided I wasn't going to get through without secateurs, which I hadn't brought. I backed out until I was back in the trees and went up the hill toward the perimeter track. It had taken me 50-minutes to cover just 440m, and now I hit another solid mass of foliage. I couldn't see the track through it but the map showed it was only a few steps ahead. So I put my head down and just bulldozed into it. In five or six meters I found the track, two metres below me. But I was wrapped with long ropes of vine that I'd dragged through with me. It took me a few minutes to ensure I wasn't caught in any of these before I could safely drop down the slope. Then I went along the track for 700m (hearing a deer calling in the plantation east of me) before climbing back up into the bush into a clearing I'm already familiar with, and scaring off a wallaby as I did. I took photos of some of the trees Landcare planted in here just before covid, some have been lost, some are above head height, most were just happily doing their own pace. Pretty good result here. We're actually going in again shortly to remove all the tree guards so it was good to get a look at it. I found a spot along the edge of the flat that looked out across the valley and made myself comfortable.
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The plan was to sleep there, wake at dawn and listen and watch as the deer came to life in the morning. Then spend today going down to the likely spots for a look. By tonight I should've been bedded down on a small clearing on the end of another ridge where I could look over the next valley tomorrow morning. The plan fell apart pretty quickly
I pulled my jacket on, cinched my sleeves around my gloves, wrapped scrim around my face to keep the mozzies out, pulled up my hood and cinched it up leaving just my eyes showing. I'm often asked how I sleep in the bush without a swag or tent.
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The brim of my cap keeps the scrim away from my face and stops mozzie bites. If the ground is wet I can put a plastic sheet down to lie on, and fold up the sides around me to keep water out. If it's raining I can put another sheet over me. If it's particularly cold though, and I don't have extra clothing, there's not much I can do except find a spot out of the wind. The cold was unexpected - piss poor planning
Last time I stayed out here it was in October, raining, and was an 8-degree warmer day. As it was quite a warm day, no sign of rain, and a month later in the year I assumed it would be even nicer than before. I didn't account at all for the fact that last time I slept deep in the tree cover, and down at the creek level in the bottom of the valley. 350m higher in altitude, on an exposed ridge made a huge difference.
I sat there for an hour just listening and scanning the valley with the binoculars, trying to decide the spots I wanted to get into in the morning. I had a can of tuna and onion and a boiled egg and settled in for the night. The mozzies arrived at 2035 en-masse. They parked themselves all over the netting in front of my eyes but didn't hang around long at all, perhaps twenty-minutes tops then they all disappeared. At 2040 foxes started shouting at each other from all directions in the valleys, including at least two just below the lip I was on, perhaps 50m away. They settled down to a busy night of killing native birds (and perhaps some of my mate's new lambs) after ten-minutes. This would be very difficult terrain for shooting foxes I think, no lines of sight over perhaps 40m at best, and any sightings would be fleeting as they move between foliage. I might look at putting a dead lamb in one of the small clearings and see if we can get a few that way. Other than birds it got pretty quiet, except for two very deep rumbling calls that came up from the valley. Couldn't decide if they were deer or perhaps a koala. I was drifting off when I realised I was getting quite cold so I put my gear behind me as a wind break, wrapped my wind smock around me and put my back against the breeze. Shortly after I noticed rivulets of water running off my smock, and it wasn't raining. It was not yet 2200 and I was already cold and it was only going to get colder. I wasn't shivering but I didn't think I was going to be able to get to sleep so I weighed up some options. Lie there for another seven hours, cold and miserable. Find somewhere warmer, in the dark. Or hike back to the ute and sleep in it for a few hours, then come back just before dawn.
It took me 2.5hr to do 1900m going in there, mostly downhill. I went out by cutting across to the track and following that in the dark rather than risk trying to move through the bush. The return around the track was 2500m but I managed it in just under an hour, all uphill except for 350m near the end. As I hadn't come up with a good plan to survive another two nights at that point I decided to go home and re-think my sleeping arrangements. Got home just before midnight. Was a pretty awesome little adventure though
I'm thinking the swag and sleeping bag might be the best solution, but that is a lot of bulk to drag around in the bush. The swag, sleeping bag and the 80-litre pack to carry it is only 7.5kg. I weighed myself naked just beforehand at right on 100kg. Bush-ready (with 6kg of water) I was 138kg (I keep an empty 40L pack on the back of my harness for carrying out). The weight caused me no issues at all, even uphill, and I can dump 8kg without any difficulty and replace it with the swag okay. But there are places I crawled through yesterday that I really doubt I could get through with a pack on. The 40L pack I can fill with meat and throw it on my back with all my gear. With an additional pack I doubt I could carry it all together so I'd have to carry one to a point, then go back for the other and leap-frog that to a point further up, then go back for the first, and so on. Guess I'll have to try it, tomorrow perhaps
Perhaps it's time to invest in one of these.
https://justgoodkit.com.au/products/tactical-sleeping-bag-by-valhalla-10-degrees-c