Willis's Walkabouts Newsletter 55, August 2011

Last Trips for 2011

For the first time in our 25 year history, we will have had more people do our trips in the early part of the year than in peak July and August. We've also had more late bookings than ever before. If we don't have the bookings we need to run a trip at least two months in advance, that trip is very unlikely to run. There are now only three Australian trips available before Christmas.

September

Finke Gorge & Watarrka National Parks: 11 September - 1 October
After years of drought, the Centre is green again for the 2^nd year in a row. By September, the wildflowers should be in full bloom and the waterholes beginning to get warm enough for a swim. If there's any way I can get away from the Kakadu Bushwalking Review, I'm going to lead this one myself — it's too good to miss. In fact, I want to do it so much that I've agreed to run section two for three people at no extra charge.
Two of the largest parks in the Centre are well known for Palm Valley and Kings Canyon, but not so well known for their excellent bushwalks — that means we are likely to have the walking to ourselves.
Special Offer. Anyone booking this trip is welcome to a free ride from Darwin to Alice Springs before the trip and from Alice Springs to Darwin afterwards.

The Build Up

Our Build Up trips are the most laid back and relaxed that we offer — early starts, early finishes and long lunch breaks sitting by tranquil pools. On Kakadu Highlights No. 11 and Kakadu Highlights No. 12 you finish the trip with a night on a houseboat.
Special Offer. I (Russell Willis) enjoy the Build Up walks so much that I’ll run either Kakadu Highlights 11 or Kakadu Highlights 12 for as few as 2 people at no extra charge. Join me and see why I think this is such a special time of year.

Note. This year, I can only run one or the other of these, not both.

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Overseas Trips Update

Patagonia 2011

The situation remains the same as in April. We have two trips on offer but only one can run. The two people who paid deposits still haven't expressed a definite preference. I've had several more enquiries since April, one of whom has just said that a deposit is coming. If I don't have five deposits by mid August, I'll have to cancel the trip — all the more of a pity as I was hoping to lead it myself.

• An 8 week expedition similar to most of the ones we've done in the past.
• A shorter 4 week expedition where we hire a vehicle and do some shorter walks (up to 3-4 days) as we explore Chile's Carretera Austral.

Given my involvement with the Kakadu Bushwalking Review, my preference is for the shorter trip. If that runs, I would be happy to organise an unguided walk in Torres del Paine in southern Chile for anyone who is interested. Torres del Paine is spectacular, but it is also the most popular trekking park in South America. You don't need a guide to do it on your own.

Although we'll be further south, the Puyehue volcano eruption will certainly have an effect on our trip. At times its ash has been so extensive that it's closed airports in Australia as well as in Chile and Argentina. I camped on the edge of Puyehue with one of my groups in the snow in December 2003. I suspect it's a bit warmer now. For those who are interested, here are two good links.

• Puyehue volcano brings Mordor skies to Chile (New Scientist)
• Eruption of Puyehue volcano
  This site by Earthquake Report has a great collection of photos and day by day reports.

If you are interested in our Patagonia trip this year, you'll need to contact me as soon as possible.

Scandinavia 2012

My Swedish friends have come back with some suggestions and the first draft trip notes are now on line. This trip will contain more true wilderness bushwalking than many people think is possible in Europe. Please let us know if you'd like more information as it comes to hand.

Africa

Our southern Africa trips will not be running again before March 2012. If you are interested in something sooner and want a trip with plenty of walking without carrying a full pack, you might want to have a look at Safari & Travel. The owner is a South African currently based in Kununurra. I've spoken with him on several occasions— his trips sound interesting to me so if any of you do join up, I'd like to hear what you thought of them.

As for our own African trips, this short video will give you a taste of what's involved — and show you what makes our trips different.

Crisis Vacationing

I had never heard of the concept of "crisis vacationing" until I came across an article which included the following paragraph.

"The concept of "crisis vacationing" may sit a little uneasily with some folk. These would be the same people who steered clear of Balinese beaches after the 2004 tsunami, who avoided Thailand after last year's protests and who gave Mumbai a wide berth after the 2008 terrorist attacks. Heading to these places so soon after either man- or Mother Nature-made disasters strike is just cold-hearted, they contend, a slap in the face for those innocents suffering under the weight of the misery visited upon them. Here's why they're wrong..."

The beginning of the article containing the quote is about Greek economic woes. The quote is the ninth paragraph. Whether or not you agree with the economic theories being espoused, I think that the author has a very good point. If you are going overseas, why not consider going somewhere where you can make a difference. Here's the link to the full article. I think that the part from the paragraph above is well worth a read.

Following the volcanic eruptions in Chile, our Patagonia trip might qualify.

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Using Our Taxes to Export Jobs to China

The mind boggles. How about a government agency spending your tax money in an effort to ensure that Australian jobs go overseas and that cities and farmers have less water in the future? Personally, I can't understand the logic behind it. Is it simply ignorance? Someone trying to ensure that someone else makes a quick buck at the expense of our future? Or are we becoming more like America where they have the best politicians that money can buy?

One of my guides, Don Butcher, has put together a nine-page paper explaining what's going on. It's full of photos and links to other sites where you can find more information. I'd like to say more, but I'm at a loss for words. Have a look at Don's report and see for yourself.

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Animals We Eat & Those That We Don't

It would be pretty hard not to be aware of the controversy surrounding live cattle exports. It seems to me that there is a bit of a double standard here. Last year, the NT ombudsman issued a report about a property belonging to Charles Darwin University where there was "a catastrophic failure in ensuring reasonable animal health and welfare". What happened in the Indonesian abattoirs was bad. What happened to the cattle slowly starving to death in the NT was, in my opinion, even worse. No one was charged over the incident.

Some animals are more equal than others. Those we eat have far fewer rights than those we don't. The link at the beginning of this paragraph tells of a young woman who spent a night in gaol for killing a hamster. While I can't condone what she did, I can't see how it rates a night in gaol when you look at what happened on the NT cattle property.

Taking it to an extreme, one author who had become a vegetarian mused that he "couldn’t actually explain to myself or anyone else why killing an animal was any worse than killing the many plants I was now eating." Plants may not have faces, but they like life too.

Evolution has designed all animals, people included, to depend on eating plants or other animals. Where do you draw the line? What is acceptable and what is not? Once upon a time, it seemed perfectly acceptable to dissect a live, unanaesthetised animal to see how it worked inside. Now it's not. Maybe someday we'll only eat food grown in vats, nothing that once had a life of its own. Maybe, if things continue in their current direction, that will be all that remains.

It's worth a thought.

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Photography

The ultimate camera?

It's not quite on the market, but the prototype is there — a camera where you can shoot first, focus later.

Want a new camera?

If you are interested in buying a camera other than a very basic point & shoot, I strongly recommend that you have a look at the dpreview.com website and, in particular at their Buying Guide. You can list the features that you are looking for and see what cameras offer them. You'll also find in depth reviews of most of the better ones. I've bought my three (so far) digital cameras based on what I've found there and will do the same for my next one.

Bushwalking Photography

As long as I'm mentioning photography, I should mention our Kakadu & Nitmiluk Photographic trip. This one is in the Wet but, if the demand is there, we can offer a similar trip in the Dry.

Video

More and more cameras will shoot video as well as still photos. I did some experimenting on my last trip to South Africa. Tracey Dixon kindly did some editing. You can see the resulting short video on our website. If anyone else has some good, short video footage from any of our trips, I'd love to see them.

The Ultimate Walkabouts Photo

I don't have it! It's driving me crazy. I have taken thousands of photos over the years — thousands of photos without a single one that really sums up what Willis's Walkabouts is about. I've got lots of photos that are good, but none that are great. There's always some little thing that's not quite right. If you have a good photo that you think really shows what our trips are like, a photo that you would be happy to see appear on our website and/or in one of our ads, I'd dearly love a copy.

People, water, packs, smiles, campsites, relaxing, camp fires — those are some of the things which stand out to me. Maybe something else stands out to you. I don't think you can get everything into a single photo but surely someone has managed something that's better than anything I've done to date.

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Willis's Walkabouts — Where To?

History

I came to Darwin in early 1974 and immediately fell in love with the Top End bush. Within a few months, I helped found the Darwin Bushwalking Club. As first club president, I helped pioneer many of the routes local bushwalkers use today. For a variety of reasons, my job was becoming less and less attractive. I began to wonder if I might be able to make a living by sharing my love of the bush with a wider group of people. I started Willis's Walkabouts as a one man operation in Kakadu and the Kimberley in 1986. The business grew steadily through the mid 1990s. At its peak, I had ten vehicles and up to 8 trips out at one time. Then, the kind of trips I offer began to fall out of favour and the numbers began to drop.

Although the numbers were dropping, the percent of repeat clients steadily increased until it averaged between 40% and 50% each year. A vast majority of the others came because of recommendations from their friends. In terms of marketing to the masses, I was a failure. In terms of offering something different, something that a select group of people would come back again and again to experience, I was, and remain, a success. I get to meet all sorts of interesting people while bushwalking in all sorts of wonderful places.

Willis's Walkabouts is small.

I don't think many people realise just how small we are. This year we will run 13-15 trips. I'll lead six to eight myself. Given the sudden drop off after June, we may have less than 100 clients in total this year. Several people have suggested that I need someone in the office full time. Unfortunately, the business is far too small to employ a full-time office person. I can get someone in for about an hour a day on weekdays while I'm out bush, but no more. That means that the communication with potential clients must suffer to some extent. Hopefully I've managed to do an acceptable job. At this point, I can't see an alternative.

Access may change.

The arrival of Kimberley Air Tours with their float planes has opened up a number of new opportunities. We used them on our Drysdale River trip in June. Float planes cost a lot less than helicopters and are almost as flexible. That's a huge plus. When I was in the Bungles in April, I noticed some float planes flying overhead. I later learned that they were part of one of the most unusual Bungles scenic flight tours, landing on Lake Argyle along the way. If you are ever in Kununurra and considering a scenic flight over the Bungles, they are certainly worth considering..

The Kakadu Walking Review may increase, decrease or leave access the same. The move to joint management for most of the other parks in the NT may change access to some of those parks. Ownership changes in the Kimberley may restrict our access to some of the places we've been going for years. Excessive, in my opinion, concerns about wet season safety could cause further restrictions. It's too early to tell what the end results will be. All I can say for sure is that some things will change.

As an aside, excessive concerns about safety, driven, at least in part, by concerns about litigation, may be doing more damage than the damage they are supposed to prevent. A simple example, can a playground be too safe? If enough people are interested, I might expand on this idea in a future newsletter.

Print advertising doesn't work.

With fewer and fewer people citing our print advertising as where they first heard about us, it is time to take stock of where our advertising money is going. Currently our print advertising can be grouped into three segments.

• Conservation Associations. While I believe in supporting these organisations, I need to decide if the current level of support via advertising is a viable one.
• Bushwalking clubs and organisations. The ads here are relatively inexpensive and keep the club members aware of Willis's Walkabouts. At least I think they do. I'd be interested to hear from people who see my club ads as to whether or not they think they are worthwhile.
• Major magazines. The two most expensive magazines in which I advertise, Wild and Australian Geographic have both gone to six issues per year. I get some business out of both of them but I don't think I can afford to advertise in every issue any more, at least not at the same sizes as at present. Should I go to regular, smaller ads, or less frequent ads of the same size? .

Wild is worth an extra mention. They plan to do a profile about me in the next issue. If you'd like to know more about where Willis's Walkabouts and I came from, it should be worth a read.

If anyone who gets this newsletter has some suggestions as to how I might better organise my advertising, I'd love to hear them.

Tourism organisations are emphasising social media like Facebook more and more. I suspect that I should be spending more time — and money — mastering Facebook than on print advertising. Facebook, and possibly Twitter as well, might be a way to better connect with a larger audience. Suggestions in this regard are more than welcome.

I've currently got two main pages Russell Willis which is being used by lots of people to talk about all sorts of things and Willis's Walkabouts which gets very little use but which should be the Facebook contact for the business. As I said above, suggestions welcome.

The future

For 2012, I plan to offer much the same program as this year, subject to access still being available. Two of the trips which haven't run for several years are already looking moderately likely. But, beyond 2012, who knows?

One of the younger guides has expressed an interest in becoming more involved with the business as her children get older. If that were to prove economically viable, Willis's Walkabouts might well be around in a similar form in ten years time. If not, it's more likely that I'll simply phase down, offering fewer and fewer trips until the business fades away and the small niche that I've occupied ceases to exist.

One major problem that may lead to phasing down sooner rather than later is an increasing tendency for people not to read everything we send out. This year, I've had more people ask me questions about things covered in the material that I'd sent out than ever before. Given the nature of the trips we offer, that material is important. If anyone has any suggestions as to how I can get more people to read things carefully, I'd really like to hear them.

Finally, one of my goals for later this year is to revise my Bushwalking Guide. Suggestions are welcome.

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Changing Times — Interesting Times

"The times, they are a changing" — changing far more than Bob Dylan or anyone else could have anticipated back in the 1960s. Many of the things we take completely for granted weren't even ideas back then. While writing the bit about advertising in the Willis's Walkabouts — Where To? section above, I got to thinking about the future of magazines. That reminded me of an article called Nine things that will disappear in our lifetime.. It makes interesting reading. I've added some of my own thoughts which, I hope, will add to the discussion.

I couldn't get the links to work in a PDF, but you might find this PDF easier to read than the "nine things" web page above.

That article was primarily about technology. I think those changes are only a small part of the picture. Whatever your views about climate change and global warming, I don't think anyone can deny that the past ten years has seen more extreme climate events than any other ten year period for which we have decent records. If the majority of climate scientists are right, we are going to see ever more weather extremes. As mentioned above, the drawing down of water tables around the world will lead to major changes in agriculture. Rising food prices can have a devastating effect on the world's poor. What happens in a country like China if food prices go too high for the poorer people who still make up a majority of the population?

The old consumer economy is gone, and it’s not coming back. Real median income in America has actually fallen over the past ten years. If it weren't for the mining boom, we'd probably be in the same position. Here's quote from a Commonwealth Bank paper from September 2010.

"The structural shifts in the economy and financial markets are likely to reinforce the move to a two-speed economy. Over time, the commodity boom will benefit the resources-rich States and Territories – QLD, WA, Northern Territory (NT) and probably South Australia (SA) as well. The other less-endowed States will comparatively underperform as a result."

"The wedge is accentuated by the greater exposure of the non-resources States to financial market consequences:

• Higher household debt levels in New South Wales (NSW) and Victoria (VIC), for example, leave those States more exposed to higher average interest rates;
• The greater importance for NSW and VIC of non-resources, export-focused sectors such as agriculture, manufacturing, tourism and education services leaves those States exposed to higher average exchange rates."

And on it goes. Here in Darwin, house prices finally started to fall earlier this year. Caravan parks have empty places in July for the first time in years while free camping areas beside the road to the south of town are chock-a-block. I don't have a lot of faith that politicians in America or Europe will make the hard decisions needed before harder ones are inevitable. It may not be pretty, but it will be interesting to watch how things unfold over the next few years.

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