What have you lost and/or found when travelling?
Submitted: Thursday, Jan 24, 2008 at 15:10
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Moose
Just wondering what sort of interesting things you may have found in your travels that others have lost or left behind . Or, have you managed to leave anything of value behind?
The only things of consequence that we've lost were a set of double, cast iron, jaffle irons and a set of binoculars. Had used the jaffle irons to make a
lunch stop snack and set them down on a log to cool. Then drove off and didn't realize until we were too far down the road. The binos somehow fell out of the truck in some long grass and once again we didn't realise until it was too late.
Have found heaps of stuff: truck loads of tent pegs; a couple of swags (probably fell off back of utes - left them there as we don't use swags); a canvas water cooler bag; plenty of kids toys; odd pieces of cutlery; minor tools; and a pocket knife. But the weirdest was a set of good clothes (neatly folded) and dress shoes beside a lagoon (not in croc country) with no-one around, no
camp-site - just the clothes. Reported it to nearest cops and never heard anything more about it.
Cheers from the Moose
Reply By: Peter 2 - Thursday, Jan 24, 2008 at 15:37
Thursday, Jan 24, 2008 at 15:37
Yes we've found a bit of stuff over the years, tent pegs, thermos full of hot coffee, tools, spare wheels etc.
The best find was a motorbike, toolbox with tools, gennie in a box, rear bumper and associated bracketry on the
Gibb river road. Dragged it all off the road, made a note of the distance to the next creek and motored on. Pulled into a
clearing around an hour or so later and there was a bus/motorhome pulled in as
well. While the wife was making lunch I wandered over to have a look at it, sure enough signs of broken steel at the rear etc. The owner walks out of the scrub and we start talking as you do and I said to him how's it going etc and then steered the conversation towards gennies, motorbikes etc and he says I've got all
mine on the rack at the back, come and have a look, should of seen his face when he walked around the back!!
Needless to say they took off up the road back the way they'd come very quickly.
We've left things sitting behind on rocks to dry too!!, no fun when you leave ALL your tentpegs behind when you go to put up the tent the next night ;-))
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Follow Up By: Member - Duncs - Thursday, Jan 24, 2008 at 16:18
Thursday, Jan 24, 2008 at 16:18
I know I have left some tent pegs behind but never all of them at once.
A few years ago I was travelling down to
Maldon in Vic to keep a mate company on a car retrieval run. At the last min we dicided to throw my little hike tent and a bit of gear in just in case we had an opportunity to spend a night in the bush.
Well the opportunity was manufactured so we pulled up near Yarrongabilly Caves for the night. I know it's hardly on the direct route from
Maldon to
Sydney but I did say the opportunity was manufactured.
When we went to put the tent up there were no pegs in the bag. With storm clouds brewing we found a pile of old fencing wire and I was able to cut it to length and bend it to shape for light pegs using my Leatherman. We got a little wet but overall it could have been a lot worse.
I had loaned the tent along with another one to a friend who was taking a group away. When he packed up he put all the pegs in one bag and packed it with the other tent.
My best find was on a canyoning trip, I found a bum bag with a tape harness and a really nice decender in it. I really felt for whoever lost it because it was on the way in to the canyon. It was a long and difficult walk to the first abseil and they were going to be very dissapointed.
Duncs
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Follow Up By: Member - John and Val W (ACT) - Thursday, Jan 24, 2008 at 18:21
Thursday, Jan 24, 2008 at 18:21
Travelling out of
Palm Valley a few years ago we passed a tour bus going in, in a big hurry. A few Kms down the road we passed some plastic boxes and apples and oranges strewn across the road. Some scattered
tools further along, and then a jump starter sitting in the middle of the road. This we took to the police at Hermansburg. Guess there were some tourists who missed out on "little lunch" that day.
Val.
| J and V
"Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted."
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Reply By: Members - Chris/Lindsay (VIC) - Thursday, Jan 24, 2008 at 15:41
Thursday, Jan 24, 2008 at 15:41
Last winter we found a really useful sleeping bag cover in the snow at Mt. Skene in VIC. I actually was planning to buy one and it did the trick nicely.Have lost a lilo on the
Finke River road, motorbike pants on the
Lake Leake Rd. in Tassie[not wearing at the time!!], suntan cream on the
OOdnadatta Track, etc. boring stuff but great
places! Haven't found that much. Most useless thing was an
Adelaide Crows scarf on the highway near Horsham the day after they won the final about 10 years ago. Maybe hubby drives too fast. You can always stock up on shampoo and soap in beach caravan parks over summer. Cheers, Christine
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Reply By: Member - Roachie (SA) - Thursday, Jan 24, 2008 at 15:48
Thursday, Jan 24, 2008 at 15:48
We've found a double cast iron jaffle iron and a pair of binoculars!!! (just kidding)........;-))
The only thing of any consequence I've left behind was my Maverick's jack handle up in
Barrington Tops in the mid 90's. I'd been using it's convenient hook to lift the
camp oven on/off the fire and left it there when we packed up hastily in the rain the next morning.
On the found side.... I found an oldish,
well-worne Dryz-a-bone hanging in the
fork of a tree in the Victorian High Country in about 2000. I still have it and class it as "mine" now.
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Follow Up By: Outnabout David (SA) - Thursday, Jan 24, 2008 at 18:23
Thursday, Jan 24, 2008 at 18:23
Don't forget you once left 10 litres of oil behind.!
Oh thats right it came from a Nissan so that would be of no consequence.
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Follow Up By: Des Lexic - Friday, Jan 25, 2008 at 13:58
Friday, Jan 25, 2008 at 13:58
David, I think you missed the point. The thread is about ACCIDENTLY leaving things behind. Somehow, I can't conjour up the oil being accidently left behind. LOL
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Reply By: Max - Sydney - Thursday, Jan 24, 2008 at 18:33
Thursday, Jan 24, 2008 at 18:33
We lost the kitchen out of our Aussie Swag camper on the way to
Steep Point a few years back. Packing up at
Hamelin Pool that morning, when one of those bar stewards who leave it till you are flat strap to get on the road came up to chat. "How's the Aussie Swag? How hard to pack up? etc etc"
Being polite, we stopped to chat - and when he had gone completely overlooked the latch pin that you must put in the slide out kitchen when travelling. Got almost out to the point - in those days it was not advisable to take a trailer all the way, so we were going to leave the trailer in a
nice camp on the
cliff top and do the 15 kms each way with just the car.
The fun started. Jan got out of the car to direct me into
the spot we chose. "WHERE'S MY KITCHEN????". The kitchen had broken the door lock about 30 km before, and as we went along it had spread knives, forks, plates, cooking gear and salt & pepper shakers along the track then finally broke a weld and fell out.
That was the end of the trip to the point. We went back, found the kitchen 15 km down the road and the rest of the stuff along for the next 15 km all except one sharp knife. We then headed back to Hamelin with the kitchen tied back and in for a hard afternoon of cleaning, scrubbing and rigging up a temporary stove.
When we got to
Geraldton a few days later we got it welded and fixed it up for about $80. Had to get one latch posted from
Brisbane - but Aussie Swag sent it for free as they had the perfect story to tell customers to always
check the latch pin!!
Not surprising then that people who have been in the same park for two or three days who come along to chat because they have the same caravan as we do get short shrift these days. I cannot understand why they wait till they see you packing up. We will chat - while we are packing.
But all in all , it was the hilarious highlight of our 14 month "big trip" and we finally got to
Steep Point six years later - leaving the van at Hamelin and taking a tent. And it was worth waiting for.
That's our lost something story. LOL
Oh and we have found more tent pegs than we could ever use over the years! That's all.
Max
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Reply By: Member - Kiwi Kia - Thursday, Jan 24, 2008 at 20:16
Thursday, Jan 24, 2008 at 20:16
Found a nice looking mans watch at Claytons
Bore on the
Birdsville track. Had a look in the visiors book and saw the last entry in the book was that days date. Noted the surname and that they were from
Adelaide, intended to
check the phone book when we were passing through there in a few weeks time. Motored on up the track and about an hour later came across a vehicle towing a caravan. Across the back of the van were the first names of the couple towing the van and the uhf channel that they monitored. The first names matched the initials we had noted from the visitors book at Claytons
Bore so I called them up and said giday Dave and asked him if he had the time, Dave came back and said he did, silence, I then asked him if he could tell me the time and he says.... "Ive......lost me watch. We stopped, had a natter and handed his wife's last Christmas pressie back to him.
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Reply By: Motherhen - Thursday, Jan 24, 2008 at 22:47
Thursday, Jan 24, 2008 at 22:47
Hi Moose - We found a table once - or bits of deal along the road on the way to
Exmouth which we recognised was once table. We were tenting, and a second table would have been nice; one for cooking and one for dining, so we went back and collected the bits. Being slats, mostly unbroken, it could be re-assembled quite easily.
We then drove up the scenic Charles Knife road and on the way down the
hill, stopped at a good
vantage point for photos (pre digi-cameras so was conservative about wasting film back then).
As we stopped, a dusty old Cruiser heading up the track stopped on the other side. As my husband went to the south side view, i lined up the view on the other side of the road. The man looked to the south, and the lady to the north. Then they noticed their table had gone from their roof rack.
"We've lost our table" he said "No you haven't" my husband replied, and the conversation sort of repeated itself.
Meanwhile on the other side of the track the lady said similar, adding "it was my mother's table - we've had it for years' "no you haven't lost it" i said "yes we have" etc.
They had been travelling through the station tracks and had only been on the bitumen (something they tried to avoid) for a few kilometres. They could not believe their luck that we had found it and collected all the pieces.
Now we have a bigger table! I hope they are still doing the back tracks with mother's trusty old dusty table.
Motherhen
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