Bushwalk Australia

After having done this walk again recently, I was absolutely gobsmacked at some people's personal hygiene.

Don't get me wrong - I'm no germa-a-phobe. In fact a nurse or doctor or food hygiene specialist would probably suggest I have no idea.

But these are some of the things I saw:
1. People swimming upstream of water collection points (ignoring signs)
2. People leaving cutlery all over dirty benches
3. People walking past the toilet water tanks and all the way back to the hut and using the drinking water tanks to wash their hands (only acceptable if toilet tanks are empty)
4. People using the manky chux bench cloths to wipe out their crockery
5. People walking out of the toilet and not washing their hands at all (no gel or water)
6. People placing their toothbrushes on the mouldy, dirty wood by the tank taps
7. One gentleman picking his nose and eating it while walking down the stairs from the toilets

I have no doubt that all the gastro on the track is caused by stupidity.

I washed my hands using the toilet water tanks and then applied hand gel.
I had separate hand gel containers for toilet time and food time.
I didn't put anything that would go on my hands or near my mouth on the benches and always used gel before preparing or touching food.

It's not that hard, is it?

Ewww, picking ones nose and eating it

I'd agree, and far more likely short term, poor hygiene around the huts and toilets than that attributed to watercourses along the way (these days).
I'd avoid the huts and touch nothing but your own toilet paper (even sleeves to open doors etc).. and yes, the hut doors get left open, possums lick down the benches, birds get in.. even i'd imagine exotic diseases otherwise unseen (from so many OS travelers) or eg. bed bugs/ bugs, bacteria, fungi come and go.

I'd hesitate to call that fellow a gentleman!

South_Aussie_Hiker wrote:7. One gentleman picking his nose and eating it while walking down the stairs from the toilets

best laugh I've had in a long while.......

Not to mention a recent trip to the Walls where another 'gentleman' was seen standing in Lake Meston near the shore (just down from the Hut) urinating in the water completely naked! The sight was bad enough let alone the effect the urine had on the trout.

philm wrote:Not to mention a recent trip to the Walls where another 'gentleman' was seen standing in Lake Meston near the shore (just down from the Hut) urinating in the water completely naked! The sight was bad enough let alone the effect the urine had on the trout.

Not condoning bad Hygiene however I doubt that human urine into a lake as big as Meston would have much effect on its potability (and you have the creek just near the Hut for drinking water), and I agree that the nudity would have been a visual pollutant especially if he was not an Adonis but just old and creased like me

corvus

It was more about the intention of filling up the water botttle in the lake - perhaps not the best spot to relieve onself! I didn't fancy drinking pure Tassie lake water mixed with freshh urine - after all there are plenty of other spots to relieve onself.

Fair points, some people are dirty pigs, actually pigs are cleaner.

I agree that flagrant pissing in the Lake is not a good look and I personally would have remonstrated with the arrogant perpetrator however I believe that if he had gone for a swim he would have peed anyway just like many of us have done, dare I say in swimming pools
Having said this healthy Human Urine is not toxic and in some instances it could be life saving this is worth checking out I believe.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urine
corvus

corvus wrote: dare I say in swimming pools
Having said this healthy Human Urine is not toxic
corvus

What it does to the chemicals in pools, may be another question!

Study finds pee in pool water yields toxic byproduct: http://arstechnica.com/science/2014/03/ ... byproduct/

Gosh! What a buggy thread.

Bear Grylls would have by-passed the lake and just drunk it neat

Interesting debate - perhaps I should have suggested that he drink his pee instead of putting it in the lake
Perhaps this is a test of true manhood in the bush.
Fortunetely in Tassie there is no shortage of water so the debate on drinking urine is not really relevant.

I guess I' m a purist and yes 1 person peeing in a large lake is not going to make a big difference but what about 50 or 100 people - no a good practice. I think leave no trace has a nice meaning here.

After all you can say the same about people leaving their number 2's in inappropriate spots - the odd mount of poo is not going to cause environmental damage but it looks *&%$#! awful and is not good to step on

philm wrote:I guess I' m a purist and yes 1 person peeing in a large lake is not going to make a big difference but what about 50 or 100 people - no a good practice. I think leave no trace has a nice meaning here.

There'll be microbial traces. I vote take-it-out! Bring pee bags and flush them at the nearest public toilet.

That solution may challenge the ultra-light walkers!

GPSGuided wrote:

philm wrote:I guess I' m a purist and yes 1 person peeing in a large lake is not going to make a big difference but what about 50 or 100 people - no a good practice. I think leave no trace has a nice meaning here.

There'll be microbial traces. I vote take-it-out! Bring pee bags and flush them at the nearest public toilet.

Lead on by example GPS
Peeing in the lake is very poor form but carrying it out is rediculous.

Some interesting info here:
http://www.nhs.uk/chq/Pages/how-long-do ... -body.aspx

The main thing I'd be concerned about on the trail are gastro, which is fecal-oral route.
I think keeping your hands clean after using communal facilities is enough, taking care of your hands is good practice anyway.

The reason I brought it up was because the hut volunteers at Waterfall said you should boil all water from the tanks because while their stomachs are well adjusted due to extended exposure, the tank water and collecting water from streams creates all the gastro problems on the track.

I completely disagree. Unless a possum has died in the water tank, the tanks (and well flowing streams) are completely safe.

I have no doubt that all the gastro illness on the OLT is the result of poor personal hygiene and the oral fecal route as suggested above.

Lophophaps wrote:

AndyR wrote:Bear Grylls would have by-passed the lake and just drunk it neat

LOL! My PhD dissertation is "On the ethics of eating leaders when lost in the wilderness." Brief mention is made of drinking body liquids. Should the biggest person be killed first, as there's more to eat, or the smallest, as it will be easier? My first aid kit includes gamma-hydroxybutyric acid.

How far through you dissertation are you, I wouldn't mind having a read when you are done/displaying a draft pre publication.

How did you get GHB? What would you use it for while hiking, I've only ever heard it used to increase HGH secretion/for sedation.

neilmny wrote:Lead on by example GPS
Peeing in the lake is very poor form but carrying it out is rediculous.

Seriously. I really don't see the issue, apart mental stress, of drinking from a lake that had pees in it. The dilution factor is so great and the likelihood of animal poos and pees would predominate. Further, human have drunk pees in situations without adverse outcome. Pees should be sterile in health individuals and microb contribution to what's already in the lake is trivial.

GPSGuided wrote:

neilmny wrote:Lead on by example GPS
Peeing in the lake is very poor form but carrying it out is rediculous.

Seriously. I really don't see the issue, apart mental stress, of drinking from a lake that had pees in it. The dilution factor is so great and the likelihood of animal poos and pees would predominate. Further, human have drunk pees in situations without adverse outcome. Pees should be sterile in health individuals and microb contribution to what's already in the lake is trivial.

I think its mainly one of those 'one person isn't going to hurt but if everyone had that mentality we'd be screwed' type deals, so best to discourage such practices where possible.

South_Aussie_Hiker wrote:The reason I brought it up was because the hut volunteers at Waterfall said you should boil all water from the tanks because while their stomachs are well adjusted due to extended exposure, the tank water and collecting water from streams creates all the gastro problems on the track.

I completely disagree. Unless a possum has died in the water tank, the tanks (and well flowing streams) are completely safe.

I have no doubt that all the gastro illness on the OLT is the result of poor personal hygiene and the oral fecal route as suggested above.

I'm involved in a volunteer role that puts me on a large piece of crown land one weekend a month. We have sheds and rely solely on solar and rainwater collection.
I'm not even sure that a dead animal in large tanks would make people sick. We have found dead possums and rats in our tanks on a few occasions and hardly even tasted the difference in the water lol
Not sure if the volume of water, or other factors (low temperature of the water etc) had an impact but no one has been sick thus far.

Only time I saw hygiene issues was when two French Canadian girls shat themselves on the Bert Nichols helipad as a chopper came in to land!

Lophophaps wrote:

AndyR wrote:Bear Grylls would have by-passed the lake and just drunk it neat

LOL! My PhD dissertation is "On the ethics of eating leaders when lost in the wilderness." Brief mention is made of drinking body liquids. Should the biggest person be killed first, as there's more to eat, or the smallest, as it will be easier? My first aid kit includes gamma-hydroxybutyric acid.

Is this just a theoretical study or is there a practical component?

Lophophaps wrote:

AndyR wrote:Bear Grylls would have by-passed the lake and just drunk it neat

LOL! My PhD dissertation is "On the ethics of eating leaders when lost in the wilderness." Brief mention is made of drinking body liquids. Should the biggest person be killed first, as there's more to eat, or the smallest, as it will be easier? My first aid kit includes gamma-hydroxybutyric acid.

Lophophaps,
I guess you are jesting about GHB eh!!

In New Zealand and Australia, GHB, 1,4-B and GBL are all Class B illegal drugs, along with any possible esters, ethers and aldehydes. GABA itself is also listed as an illegal drug in these jurisdictions, which seems unusual given its failure to cross the blood–brain barrier, but there was a perception among legislators that all known analogues should be covered as far as this was possible. Attempts to circumvent the illegal status of GHB have led to the sale of derivatives such as 4-methyl-GHB (gamma-hydroxyvaleric acid, GHV) and its prodrug form gamma-valerolactone (GVL), but these are also covered under the law by virtue of their being "substantially similar" to GHB or GBL and; so importation, sale, possession and use of these compounds is also considered to be illegal.

Just asking
corvus

Apart from the obvious hygiene rules, at least for me, when filling your water bottle from a stream. You should fill it from an eddy off the main flow and on the surface, giardia bugs and most others are heavier than water and sink to the bottom here. But in the main stream they are more likely to be kicked up in the flow and into your water bottle.

I hope the bloke peeing in the lake does the right thing next time and he squats down to create a local warm spot like a normal person would

Lophophaps wrote:The dissertation has a new name, short and sharp: "Making jokes more obvious."

Damn, I'll have to find some other light reading, I guess the GHB was a joke too then.

Spoke to a person today who overheard me saying I was doing the ot this weekend and in recalling his trip he mentioned bad gastro. He had it bad in melbourne and spent the flight over in the toilet with gastro. He was amazed that his 'whole group and a number of other hikers' caught it off him. He was adamant that nothing was going to stop him doing the trip and was not at all phased about infecting everyone else or the negative impact it would have had on their trip. That was maybe two months ago he wasn't sure exactly. Some people are special aren't they.

His group should have banned him or at the least put him in isolation and prohibited him from using the huts!