We must be whimps

I couldn't agree more.
However they were probably well prepared all the same. I think these days there are plenty of people completely unprepared, and even the best vehicle won't save them. Witness the fact that people still travel and even walk in the desert with no water.

Very good point get a hold of this months overlander and have a look at Norm needham going to the cape 30 Year ago not a lift kit in sight.
We see it every trip on the gear people take and by day 3 they wished they hadn't.

All the best
Eric

Hi Axle
Is it because the oldtimers knew the limitations of their vehicles and were smart enough to know when to stop, get out and check what is in front of them rather than believing all the stuff seen on TV ads??? (you know, stock standard straight out of the showroom vehicles doing things that even tricked up Series vehicles would never do)

Mind you when you are driving something that was originally designed in the late 40's and has only been improved on since you dont have too many problems, do you? (50 plus years of improving must count for something)

Apart from that, most of the old timers were able to fix anything with a pair of pliers. some No 8 fencing wire and lots of inginuity, something that appears to be lacking in todays lifestyle.

Keep the shiny side up.

Nah... no wimp here...

I KNOW what's good.

Mitsubishi Delica
Cooper Tyres ST
Waeco Fridge CF 35 & CF 15
Black Wolf Turbo 300 Tent

Now, where's that Kevlar bullet proof vest, 'cause I'm gonna be needin' it right about now...

Wolfie

I was young and foolish in the 1970's and with 2 mates toured central australia in Dec/Jan in a 1969 KE16 Corolla wagon. WE were inspired by Jeff Carters great book of the Australian Outdoors. I made a sump guard, bullbar, tropical roof, and had a 27MHz CB for emergency. Carried a few spares, and 50 litres of water. Used the scissor jack as a bead breaker. It got bashed around underneath, but the vehicle was so light and skinny that you could get over sand dunes with a runup, and had one wheel up on the side of the track when you needed extra clearance.

No fridge or esky - just used 2 water bags, and ate a lot of camp pie and surprise peas and powdered milk. Spent a lot of time cooling off in swimming holes and met some pretty wierd and wonderful people.

Naturally, I'm too soft now to ever do that again. I take the best of everything, and our camp chairs even recline now. We have smoked salmon and mackeral at beer o'clock, and rib eye on the BBQ. I guess thats the difference 25 years makes :-))

Anyone else remember the 70's???

Cheers
Phil

"when I was a kid I had to walk All the way to the television to change channels".... Saw that in a far side cartoon and sums it up for me, things that make life easier are good in my book. Its not that I didn't enjoy the old trips in my dads old cruiser, but for me and my family give me the rooftop camper, aircon, sat phone and MOST of the other crap we seem to have to take (some could be culled, but I hate needing something that can do a job right and its t home in the shed.....

The technologies I use made it safer and more comfortable fo me and my family. Give me cold beer and a nice meal any day, not food I could 'survive on but it tastes like.....'

Andrew

G'day Axle,

was going to put in a one liner but there does not appear to be too many pythonites here so I'll put the lot in.

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
Aye, very passable, that, very passable bit of risotto.
SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
Nothing like a good glass of Château de Chasselas, eh, Josiah?
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
You're right there, Obadiah.
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Who'd have thought thirty year ago we'd all be sittin' here drinking Château de Chasselas, eh?
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
In them days we was glad to have the price of a cup o' tea.
SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
A cup o' cold tea.
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Without milk or sugar.
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
Or tea.
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
In a cracked cup, an' all.
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Oh, we never had a cup. We used to have to drink out of a rolled up newspaper.
SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
The best we could manage was to suck on a piece of damp cloth.
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
But you know, we were happy in those days, though we were poor.
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
Because we were poor. My old Dad used to say to me, "Money doesn't buy you happiness, son".
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Aye, 'e was right.
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
Aye, 'e was.
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
I was happier then and I had nothin'. We used to live in this tiny old house with great big holes in the roof.
SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
House! You were lucky to live in a house! We used to live in one room, all twenty-six of us, no furniture, 'alf the floor was missing, and we were all 'uddled together in one corner for fear of falling.
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
Eh, you were lucky to have a room! We used to have to live in t' corridor!
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
Oh, we used to dream of livin' in a corridor! Would ha' been a palace to us. We used to live in an old water tank on a rubbish tip. We got woke up every morning by having a load of rotting fish dumped all over us! House? Huh.
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Well, when I say 'house' it was only a hole in the ground covered by a sheet of tarpaulin, but it was a house to us.
SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
We were evicted from our 'ole in the ground; we 'ad to go and live in a lake.
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
You were lucky to have a lake! There were a hundred and fifty of us living in t' shoebox in t' middle o' road.
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
Cardboard box?
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
Aye.
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
You were lucky. We lived for three months in a paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six in the morning, clean the paper bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down t' mill, fourteen hours a day, week-in week-out, for sixpence a week, and when we got home our Dad would thrash us to sleep wi' his belt.
SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
Luxury. We used to have to get out of the lake at six o'clock in the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of 'ot gravel, work twenty hour day at mill for tuppence a month, come home, and Dad would thrash us to sleep with a broken bottle, if we were lucky!
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
Well, of course, we had it tough. We used to 'ave to get up out of shoebox at twelve o'clock at night and lick road clean wit' tongue. We had two bits of cold gravel, worked twenty-four hours a day at mill for sixpence every four years, and when we got home our Dad would slice us in two wit' bread knife.
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Right. I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night half an hour before I went to bed, drink a cup of sulphuric acid, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad and our mother would kill us and dance about on our graves singing Hallelujah.
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
And you try and tell the young people of today that ..... they won't believe you.
ALL:
They won't!

Some fair points have been raised so I would like to buy into this discussion. I, too have roughed it when young and can remember well sleeping in a floorless tent (that's right ladies - on the DIRT) and using the backpack as my pillow. These days my camping is much more civilised mainly because it is available and I can afford same. So I pondered if our forefathers would have taken all the C R A P I take these days if they were available then and I reckon they would have been loaded like Roachie (sorry Bill but I needed an extreme analogy). The reason is they were practical men and adventurers, so lets see shall i take a camel train or a modern 4wd, what do you think Mr Burke and Wills? What about a GPS? This'll make sure we won't get lost - oh no, I'd sooner navigate by the stars - don't think so! They used the best equipment available to them - as we do now.

So I don't think we are soft at all, just travellers of our time but I do feel that the practical skills so well displayed by our forefathers is somewhat wanting as there are plenty of smart people that can't change a tyre. But then a lot of these people are not attracted to 4wding and the bush like us (OK I know there are some). But really would you want to do a repair with 8 guage wire instead of a welder if given the choice (I have both in the car and can do a mean cobb & co) - just to show that your not soft?

Kind regards