Ada Valley Gear

My most regular reader has requested a run down of my 'ultralight' 3-day pack list; so I have annotated this image:

Just realised I left my rain jacket off that list (needless to say I wore that at all times anyway)

A walk into history (Ada Valley Walk)

I was determined to go on a walk to test out my new gear and had always wanted to do the Warburton to Powelltown walk (Ada valley) which is now known as 'a walk into history'. This is not a very well know walk. It is a through walk meaning you will need a car at either end as public transport doesn't reach Powelltown. The walk follows a number of tramlines through the Big Pats creek valley, Ada Valley, Latrobe Valley, and finally the Little Yarra valley. The tramlines are remnants of the areas former utility as milled forest. Following the gold rush, a number of settlements remained as logging towns. Successive logging booms meant that a number of sizable towns and mills were established in the area. The tramlines hauled the lumber from site to mill to railway. The Bushfires of the 1930's burnt out most of the settlements, and World War 2 followed by the introduction of diesel engines meant that these old mills and settlements were left behind in the forest. The bushwalk features a number of side trips to some of these abandoned mills which still hold old machinery such as winches and boilers. I was lead to believe that there would be a number of large trestle bridges along the way to aid the tramlines across deep gullies.

I had proposed this walk or the Donna Bang to Dom Dom walk to Cal and Erin, considering the snow we luckily chose the Ada Valley. I failed to take many photos along the way but please enjoy the ones I have:

Lunchtime day 1 at Starlings Gap campsite. There were drop toilets, and a little shelter with a picnic table. You can drive into this site and some hoons drove past and harassed us.

Erin was in charge of this lunch and it was delicious.

cal and Erin looking excited in a peaceful tramline cutting; note the picturesque canopy of tree ferns above. Can you tell it is cold?

Here is a lovely selfie in my nice orange raincoat

Erin took a lovely photo of myself and Calum. can you tell it is forecast to snow tonight?

After arriving at the crossroads around 5pm as light was quickly disappearing, we decided not to walk the further 2km to Federal Mill, and instead walk the 400m to the unmarked Ada no.2 mill site. Good decision! A beautiful campsite with fireplaces, food boxes, and camping platforms. It was also a fortuitous decision because...

At the same time we walked in, so did Ben. A friend from university in Canebrra. We thought he was still overseas (for many years). But it turns out he had decided to do the exact same obscure bushwalk as us (from the opposite direction) on the exact same weekend, and to camp at the exact same unmarked campsite. Providence!

In the background you can see an abandoned tram bogie repurposed as a bench.

Camping platforms! Erin waits patiently for Cal to pack the tent.

The forest was very beautiful at this spot, and I was woken up late in the morning (snug and warm in my new sleeping bag / bivy) by the gentle cooing of the forest-folk (lyrebirds).

Before heading off on a morning side trip to the Ada tree, we decided to further explore the campsite. Here is an old steam furnace / boiler.

On the way to the Ada tree I got to see my first (collapsed) trestle bridge of the walk. I was irate about this aspect of the walk. I love trestle bridges. I love hobbies.

Some stairs! Better take a photo!

Calum demonstrating how to safely cross the river, as everyone else walked across the rocks.

Collapsed trestle bridge. Not that impressed.

Finally the Ada tree! Victoria's biggest tree.

dat sign

dat boardwalk

It's a bit hard to give perspective on the size of it. It's a lot bigger than the Statue of Liberty.

Bit.

Calum gives in and jumps across the rocks with us on the way back.

We were in a bigger hurry to get to Powelltown, and I failed to take ANY photos from this point on. The High Lead was a mega-pain to get down in the mud, and I feel for Ben who had walked UP it the day before. There was some very pretty forest and (collapsed) trestle bridges between the Bump and Powelltown.

My final verdict is: Too much walk, not enough history.

A much more comfortable and short 2-day walk would be Ada Tree Carpark (camp at Ada no.2 mill) to Powelltown for those who are considering it.

Braiding a bag for the stove

So anyway, if you're super-cool like me, you're probably really into hobbies.


I decided that I wanted to try my hand at braiding a small bag for my stove. I had seen many example online of people creating phone or camera cases. I wanted to do that too.

I planned to make the bag in two halves. This is the beginning of one half. This braid is a series of 'cobra knots' and will make the sides of the bag.

You gotta keep doing this for a while...

Once you have enough 'side; you can begin to link a 'net' across as a facing surface.

and back the other way...

Nice and messy looking. It will even out with tension.

Ok skipped a few steps, but did the same thing with the other side. Now tieing them together.

completed and with stove inserted

Tada!

The stove

After much reading, I have settled on the Hexamine Stove

Pros:
Lightweight
Solid fuel: lightweight
Solid fuel: can't spill
Solid fuel: does not take up space in your bag once it has been used (no empty canisters)
Solid fuel: cheap
Cheap
Very hot (quick to boil)
Easy to vary temperature (how many cubes do you want to use at once)

Cons:
Blows out easily in the wind
Creates a sticky residue on the bottom of pans

The cons are easily removed by creating a windshield with your bag / body, and by scrubbing the bottom of the pan :)

I decided I wanted to test out the rate of boil and consumption so I would know how much fuel was suitable to pack.

Burning pretty impressively. It seems 2 tablets will boil 500ml in roughly 4min before burning out. This is of course indoors (with breeze I imagine tablets will burn out quicker)

Time to test another cooking idea- I read this somewhere online, but I can't remember where: The freezer bag method. Basically you boil water in your stove, then pour it into a pre-prepared bag of dehydrated ingredients. Let it sit for 5-10min whilst you set up camp; and your meal is ready.
This methods main benefit is the completely lack of mess / cleaning up.

Here I have put together a bag of Deb (powdered potato mash) with dehydrated ham, dehydrated mushrooms, and 'provence style' herb mixture. The result was actually quite satisfying, and exceptionally filling. Super ultralight

And here it is on display on our new cake stand.

Ultralight Packing

Hello again

After reading up on Ultralight bushwalking over at r/Ultralight I found myself over-enthusiasticly looking through my own gear and considering what could be culled. As the holidays had just begun, I found myself with a week to go over my gear list before doing the Ada Valley Walk "A Walk through History" .

I recently purchased a One Planet Zephyr -4. After selling them for years at Snowgum I had a good idea of what to expect, but I still couldn't contain my excitement at the chance to properly test it out in mid-winter.

I spent ages considering food weights and requirements, but I will go into that in a later post. I thought I should include this action shot of some ham about to be oven-dehydrated.

I have also been sold on Hexamine stoves. I purchased a French Mess Kit from Aussie Disposals as it would perfectly fit my stove, cutlery, fuel, lighters, and cleanup gear inside of it.

Many gratuitous photos

Above is three days worth of gear including food and first aid kit. I have included a few luxuries such as an LED lantern, playing cards, and some extra snack foods.

Here is the same gear all wrapped up and waterproofed

And here it is all crammed into a 30L daypack.

The computer in a box

Hello fellow internet enthusiasts.

Following on from last year's computer build (for mapping and games, and everyday use), I have set my sights on building a new low-rent media computer to sit attractively next to our TV.

After seeing this particular gem on reddit I was inspired to create our own 'wooden box' computer:

   

The aim was to create a computer that could fit comfortably and safely within a pretty wooden box. The box would appear just like any other ornamental box on our mantle piece. The computer should be able to:
Be controlled remotely via a TV remote control, or an xbox / equivalent controller
Have a very usable smart TV style graphic user interface (GUI)
Access to regular free-to-air TV
Access to overseas free-to-air if possible
Play netflix, hulu, youTube etc
Play all movie files from hard drive
Play music from spotify
Stream content from our other computer
Browse the web

It also needed to be cheap.
We had a lot of the simple parts laying around: Hard disc drives (HDD) ; wireless keyboard and mouse ; cooling fans ; entry level graphics card (GPU) Radeon 6670

The first requirement to look at was size. The motherboard needed to be the small ITX form factor (17cmX17cm). Unfortunately though, in Australia it was going to be very difficult coming across a MoBo similar to the one listed in the album above; meaning I would need to include a power supply (PSU). I wouldn't be able to simply link in a DC adapter straight to the MoBo, I also wouldn't be able to rely on a decent APU, which would mean either a very expensive CPU (core processing unit - the super chip that runs the whole thing), or a cheaper CPU and a low rent GPU (which I already had laying around).

My space restriction are now getting ridiculous. The power-supply (PSU) is by far the largest bulkiest part of the build, and the graphics card (GPU comes in second). It would be nice to be able to do without both of these.... Challenge!

First stop: finding a box that I could cram all this into. Went for this one from Howard's Storage World.
Next I needed to figure out the cheapest, yet highest performing combination of MoBo, CPU, RAM, and PSU.
Skip this bit if you have already lost interest.
Power Supply: Seasonic SS-350TGM 350W 80Plus Gold Modular TFX PSU
CPU: Intel Core i3 4150
RAM: Corsair CMV4GX3M2A1333C9 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3
MoBo: ASRock B85M-ITX Mini ITX Motherboard

Photos of the process:

Most of the parts assembled...

Getting a basic idea of the fit size.

this box is going to have to change.

CPU, cooler, and RAM installed

All wired up to check possible Tetris outcomes. This is looking impossible; especially considering possible meltdown

Time to 'mod' this box a bit more

Becoming hilariously less box-like every moment

The new box with some mounting brackets

some bare wood screws poking through to check that it will all fit before the (hopefully) final mounting.

OK checking wiring is all working.So far so Good

Ok it is actually fitting in there, this is unbelievable. I feel like it will burn down the house.

Running through early installs. Tennis ball propping lid open. I will have to build an arm for that.

I will update the blog once I have installed all the required software and am happy with how it is running.
I am hoping to run Myth TV with XBMC and Steam streaming through Ubuntu. Might take a bit of tweeking :)