Bushwalk Australia

I'm putting together my plans for a solo south-to-north AAWT in November 2016, and specifically am detailing food drop contents.

Apart from the obvious food and fuel resupply, does anyone have any suggestions for items? Maybe some comfort items for that night?

Thanks for your suggestions.

OP Rum
TimTams

Think about food textures as well as taste. One of the things I am often seeking is food that is crisp and crunchy. I often carry the small packets of potato chips - great kJ per gram so these can be carried for a few days depending on your willpower.

Things I have included are tinned fruit or juice, corn chips and salsa. Fizzy drinks can also be good if you can cool them.

I thought this was just another *&%$#! booze thread, then realised it's a typo.

Definitely Tim Tams.
Fresh fruit - some items will last a week or two appropriately protected.

Clean socks and jocks - it's great to be able to change and leave the dirty stuff to be picked up later, with the rubbish. You can also exchange section maps (and batteries if using disposables).

Mark F wrote:Think about food textures as well as taste. One of the things I am often seeking is food that is crisp and crunchy. I often carry the small packets of potato chips - great kJ per gram so these can be carried for a few days depending on your willpower.

Things I have included are tinned fruit or juice, corn chips and salsa. Fizzy drinks can also be good if you can cool them.

On extended walks I always carry rice crackers, wafers and ginger nut biscuits. Packing in light cardboard and a layer of paper protects them, mostly. Except for plastic, the packaging can be burnt or buried. The energy is good: 1780, 2080 and1780 kJ/100 grams respectively. On my last walk I had some of all the above and fruitcake left on day 14, carried from the start. It was a heavy pack at the start, but I ate well.

It just so happens I'm preparing food drops right now filled with goodies for a rest day at each drop...here's a pic.

GBW wrote:It just so happens I'm preparing food drops right now filled with goodies for a rest day at each drop...here's a pic.

I reckon you'll be struggling to fit the fire, music and table in the drums. The power cable will need to be long as well.

Great to see it laid out like that GBW. ! The fruit packs look good. What's the canned item?

Potato chips essential, stubby of excellent beer (can be cooled by wrapping it in a Chux, hanging in a shady tree and dripping water over it - gets cooler the better your patience is!), wine sachet, box custard, shampoo (not for eating - but truly amazing)

Bill P wrote:Great to see it laid out like that GBW. ! The fruit packs look good. What's the canned item?

The large cans are an assortment of Campbell's Chunky meals, tinned chicken, mandarins in syrup, instant chicken/rice dishes, cheeses, chips/twisties. Most of the stuff towards the bucket is what we carry and the rest is to enjoy some lavish morsels on our day of leisure. If someone wants to meet me with a roast chicken or two and some freshly baked bread rolls feel free...and some coleslaw!

Don't mean to send this thread off course, but is that a message on top of the drums for inquisitive eyes GBW? What do you write to convince them to leave it be?

Cauchs wrote:Don't mean to send this thread off course, but is that a message on top of the drums for inquisitive eyes GBW? What do you write to convince them to leave it be?

Hopefully this works if someone stumbles across it...

It's amazing how good simple baked beans or Stag beef chille can taste after week or more of 2-minute noodles

Chocolate-coated coffee beans are fairly lightweight....good for a treat.

Yeah! Chocolate coated coffee beans: great idea!

On multiple night hikes I eat Pasta sauce in a plastic sachet with some parmesan cheese and some dried chillies.It makes Pasta yummy. You can buy the pasta sauce sachets at W**lw*rths stupormarkets.Also dried soya bean curd ribbons or sticks are high in protein and go well with Pasta . They take about the same time to cook at Pasta , in the same pot . They do not perish or go off as far as I know.
Another thing that makes rice, lentils and dried vegetables interesting is the stir through spiced rice mixes you can buy at some Indian grocery shops.
The dried vegetables and dried bean curd products are easily obtained from Vietnamese grocery shops.
see the link for rice mix :
http://www.veenas.com/mambalam-iyer-s-p ... -200g.html
The jar is plastic . A heaped teaspoon of this stuff makes boiled rice, orange lentils and dried peas etc, interesting . The spices and oil are ready mixed.
I find fresh fruit is always a treat on a long trek. UHT long life tetra pak Big M flavoured Milk is a storable item but not something you'd wish to lug with you .Any Indian milk based desert kits ( Kheer or Payasam ) can be worthy treats . Forget about the sugar content in those Pakistani milk based dessert packet mixes :-p.

Ordinarily I would never eat those ready to eat Indian dishes that come in a foil sachet but after 2 weeks of the same old you ,let me guess, know what on a long trek I would welcome those heat and eat Indian dishes. Check out the MTR range at an Indian grocery shop.
http://www.mtrfoods.com/products/ready-to-eat
I live on plain yoghurt at home so if there was anyway to add that to a food drop I would like to know. I did eat dried and salted Yoghurt balls in Uzbekistan. They were yukky!.

paidal_chalne_vala wrote:Ordinarily I would never eat those ready to eat Indian dishes that come in a foil sachet but after 2 weeks of the same old you ,let me guess, know what on a long trek I would welcome those heat and eat Indian dishes. Check out the MTR range at an Indian grocery shop.
http://www.mtrfoods.com/products/ready-to-eat
I live on plain yoghurt at home so if there was anyway to add that to a food drop I would like to know. I did eat dried and salted Yoghurt balls in Uzbekistan. They were yukky!.

Pretty sure you can get yoghurt making kits that have a dried instant culture, just like yeast. Surely this would work with uht or powdered milk to make yoghurt ? Depending on the temperature you could be eating fresh yoghurt in a few hours.

You can also dehydrate greek yoghurt !

A packet of freeze dried strawberries and a small bottle of orange liqueur and a tetrapack of UHT cream Although I had to make do with Tang

Chocolate puddings or custard and tinned apples.

Moondog55 wrote:A packet of freeze dried strawberries and a small bottle of orange liqueur and a tetrapack of UHT cream Although I had to make do with Tang

Is that some kind of lightweight version of Strawberries Romanoff Moondog? Escoffier would be impressed!

Completed the AAWT North to South in November 2014. My food drop treats included a packet of salt and vinegar chips, a huge chunk of dark fruit cake and a small bottle of drambuie. It's amazing just how much I looked forward to the treats. In hindsight some variety would have been better. Think of something really tasty, and normally too heavy to carry in a pack. Also, watch out for heat. I cached some salami in my food drops and by the time I opened them, about 8 weeks later, the salami was very slimy. Didn't want to take the risk. And finally, some more tips.. (1) don't hide your drops too well. You will never find them. (2) set a waypoint for each food drop and take a photo. (3) remember that if you are walking before Xmas but don't pick up your empty drop till the new year, in the high country you may be pushing through thick grass that simply wasn't there a few months ago.

Have a great trip.

Do those buckets look familiar Mutley?

GBW wrote:Do those buckets look familiar Mutley?

Haha, yes they look very familiar.

Best of luck with the trip. It's been under 2 years and I am longing to do it again.