Log book antics.

[bushwalker zane]

I was up Rats Castle today and was surprised to find a log book at the top! Flicking through, I saw a few names that looked familiar. I had a good laugh

[stepbystep]

The Ironstone Hut book is a cracker...I like to read the entries in an accent I imagine the writer would speak with. Best one i saw was the European tourists who ran out of whiskey but found some treasure in a matchbox, and smoked it. They seemed rather chuffed!

[bushwalker zane]

That's fantastic! When I was working the overland regularly, I'd love to read the ongoing stories people would write. Some of the poetry was fantastically funny!

[Thornbill]

Hut log books can be particularly good. People have the chance to sit down after their day, gather their thoughts and write something great. I was lucky enough to spend some time on Macquarie Island and one of my favorite things to do of an evening when in a hut by myself was to read the old log books. They've all been kept going back decades. Some of the descriptions and similes used by folks who'd spent all day outside in hectic sub-Antarctic weather were priceless.

I'll always remember one: "Surely, if we can land man on the moon, we can make waterproofs f***ing waterproof!"

[north-north-west]

I love these old books. Spent half a day holed up in Petersens once, while it blizzarded outside, reading the book and playing patience. Sadly too many have been replaced by the soulless sign-in-&-out sheets. Understandable on the OT, I suppose, but a regretable loss.

[Johnnie Walker]

The logbooks from the Heysen trail are scanned and on-line, see http://heysentrail.asn.au/heysen-trail/logbooks-from-huts/
Great initiative! Are there more organizations / parks doing this?

[Tortoise]

I love these old books. Spent half a day holed up in Petersens once, while it blizzarded outside, reading the book and playing patience.

+1 Lots of happy memories of mountain huts and wonderful times being cosy inside while storms raged. It was especially cool to go back to a less frequented hut a decade or so later, and find that the same logbook was still current.

Some of the poetry was fantastically funny!

Wish I'd kept a copy of a great one I read somewhere, pondering the cuboid nature of wombat poo, and the experience of passing such objects.

[icefest]

Wish I'd kept a copy of a great one I read somewhere, pondering the cuboid nature of wombat poo, and the experience of passing such objects.

There's a poem on cuboidial wombat poo on one of the OT toilets.

[Tortoise]

Wish I'd kept a copy of a great one I read somewhere, pondering the cuboid nature of wombat poo, and the experience of passing such objects.

There's a poem on cuboidial wombat poo on one of the OT toilets.

Maybe that was a quote from it! I remember quite a long poem in a hut in the Snowies, I think it was.

[bushwalker zane]

Wombat poo poem in the toilet on the left hand side of the toilet block at Pelion.

'As you splash along the track,
Eyes alert and ears pinned back,
You may have seen those queer square turds,
And thought; if not expressed in words,
"The stress of such a deification;
Baffles ones imagination."
But it is not done to entertain us,
The wombat has an oblong anus.
So if your slumber is disturbed,
By cries and screams; don't be perturbed,
Eyes tight shut, teeth grit in pain,
The wombat's gone and shat again.'

Good times!

[walkabout]

Love it!
I saw fuzzy cubed poop in the Himalayas - not wombats, snow leopards!

[bushwalker zane]

:lol: Love it!
I saw fuzzy cubed poop in the Himalayas - not wombats, snow leopards!

Snow Leopards do poo-cubes?!

[slparker]

Wombat poo poem in the toilet on the left hand side of the toilet block at Pelion.

'As you splash along the track,
Eyes alert and ears pinned back,
You may have seen those queer square turds,
And thought; if not expressed in words,
"The stress of such a deification;
Baffles ones imagination."
But it is not done to entertain us,
The wombat has an oblong anus.
So if your slumber is disturbed,
By cries and screams; don't be perturbed,
Eyes tight shut, teeth grit in pain,
The wombat's gone and shat again.'

Good times!

that poem is priceless, and very clever, but i think they've mixed up deification with defecation.... unless they were out there so long, or were so hypothermic, that they started to worship wombat poo.

[Overlandman]

There was a guide on the OT called the Blue Mule.
He use to write some good stories in the hut log books.
I thought he was a wally because he would take up valuable pages.
Turns out he was a good guy.
Regards OLM

Last edited by Overlandman on Tue 23 Feb, 2016 7:31 am, edited 1 time in total.

[bushwalker zane]

that poem is priceless, and very clever, but i think they've mixed up deification with defecation.... unless they were out there so long, or were so hypothermic, that they started to worship wombat poo.

Ha! Whoops, that's what you get for not spell checking before posting

[north-north-west]

There was a guide on the OT called the Blue Mule.
He used to write some good stories in the hut log books.
I thought he was a wally because he would take up valuable pages.
Turns out he was a good guy.
Regards OLM

That's going back a bit. I remember reading some of his entries. He had a LOTR thing going on at one stage. Refered to . . . possums, I think it was . . . as orcs. I always wondered just what he was smoking.

After tripping for the umpteenth time on that trip I started calling myself the Black & Blue Mule.

[icefest]

That does sound pretty fun.

The orcs running around on the roof, stealing food etc

[whynotwalk]

Back in the 80s the Eliza Hut logbook on the Anne Circuit had a brilliant "thread" about the antechinus that used to (& still does) disturb sleepers there. One entry began as "Log of the Starship Enterprise", and went on to describe the only life form here as a nasty nocturnal rat. With supplies on the Enterprise running low, the "crew" started contemplating catching and cooking said "rat". They talked about how they would slice and lightly sauté the critter.

I'm thinking it was a pretty wet walking season, because other walkers soon took up the recipe challenge. I seem to recall complicated rat curries; rat parmigiana; rat cutlets etc. But the one that had us rolling about with laughter was the ratatouille recipe. Happy days!

cheers

Peter

[Hermione]

[quote="icefest"]That does sound pretty fun.

The orcs running around on the roof, stealing food etc [/quote
Possums as orcs, pretty entertaining! Both my daughters, but especially the youngest have developed a particular aversion to possums whilst at Uni in Melbourne (apparently they can be quite aggressive). With the result that they get quite perturbed by the nocturnal visitations experienced on the busier walking tracks in Tasmania.

[north-north-west]

Back in the 80s the Eliza Hut logbook on the Anne Circuit had a brilliant "thread" about the antechinus that used to (& still does) disturb sleepers there. One entry began as "Log of the Starship Enterprise", and went on to describe the only life form here as a nasty nocturnal rat. With supplies on the Enterprise running low, the "crew" started contemplating catching and cooking said "rat". They talked about how they would slice and lightly sauté the critter.

I'm thinking it was a pretty wet walking season, because other walkers soon took up the recipe challenge. I seem to recall complicated rat curries; rat parmigiana; rat cutlets etc. But the one that had us rolling about with laughter was the ratatouille recipe. Happy days!

cheers

Peter

Blimey! That book was still there the first couple of times I was up at High Camp. Another bad weather afternoon and evening of prime entertainment.

[north-north-west]

Possums as orcs, pretty entertaining! Both my daughters, but especially the youngest have developed a particular aversion to possums whilst at Uni in Melbourne (apparently they can be quite aggressive). With the result that they get quite perturbed by the nocturnal visitations experienced on the busier walking tracks in Tasmania.

It's probably changed, but back when I was growing up brushtail possums were utterly despised by the majority of Tasmanians - and I'm no different. I try to tell myself it's wrong but the indoctrination lingers on. Or maybe it's just the blasted critters' personality . . .

[Happy Pirate]

So what happens to old log books I wonder. Its a shame they can't stay in the huts after they're full.
I remember in my early days with ABW on our Vic Alpine hikes in the 80s we called ourselves "Friends of the Alpine Tree Penguin" and had some pretty funny entries.

[stepbystep]

Pretty sure PWS collect them. I've heard rumours of a book to be published with the best of the best. Probably won't happen and political correctness will probably dilute the more entertaining ones

[Tortoise]

So what happens to old log books I wonder. Its a shame they can't stay in the huts after they're full.
I remember in my early days with ABW on our Vic Alpine hikes in the 80s we called ourselves "Friends of the Alpine Tree Penguin" and had some pretty funny entries.

I've been wondering if anybody from the 80s /90s in NSW /VIC high country frequents the forum. We were the Damsels Undistressed, with the steaming cup of tea. I remember the Lads Unperturbed (who got their dates muddled,and thought we'd been moving very fast when finally they caught up with us after a week), and a bunch of others whose adventures we followed over the years, but never met. Like the Eco-vandals, who I believe were much nicer than their name suggests - just dreaming of tunnels through mountains and flying foxes over valleys and such like. From time to time we thought it wasn't such a bad idea.

[Graham51]

My all-time favourite entry was in the log book at Lake Meston about 1994. It said:
"We have been fishing at the north end of the lake. We caught three - one 2 pound, one 1 pound and one as big as Stewie's d---."
We had a good laugh at the time and still think of it whenever reading any log book.

[Jayps68]

From the aforementioned dunny wall at Pelion... At the time, I thought the wombat poem so funny I took a snap for posterity. May have been a result of the dehydrated Thai green curry we had for dinner that night after a long day in the bucketing rain, probably not the best dinner option, got pretty well aquainted with that drop that night ... I still think its funny though, so maybe the effects of the curry weren't as intense as I recall...

Attachments

[Lophophaps]

Wrong thead.

[north-north-west]

Wombat poo poem in the toilet on the left hand side of the toilet block at Pelion.

'As you splash along the track,
Eyes alert and ears pinned back,
You may have seen those queer square turds,
And thought; if not expressed in words,
"The stress of such a deification;
Baffles ones imagination."
But it is not done to entertain us,
The wombat has an oblong anus.
So if your slumber is disturbed,
By cries and screams; don't be perturbed,
Eyes tight shut, teeth grit in pain,
The wombat's gone and shat again.'

Good times!

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/nov/18/scientists-unravel-secret-of-cube-shaped-wombat-faeces?CMP=soc_567&fbclid=IwAR0MPlgf9rJZdnQI1Rs8U3PEmb583wENt1_dL0-koLkFiPJFuciHkj6oQts

[ILUVSWTAS]

Love this thread..

One of my favourite entries is in the high camp hut on the way to Mt Anne.

It reads....

Anne you are strikingly beautiful but you are so very hostile. I think ill spend more time with your sisters Eliza and Sarah Jane.