Willis's Walkabouts Newsletter 74, November 2014

The Kakadu Draft Plan of Management

The new Kakadu Draft Plan of Management is scheduled to be released soon. It should cover the next ten years. My next newsletter will follow as soon as possible after that.

Please watch for the newsletter and please have your say. Not making a comment tells the authorities either that you are happy with everything in the plan or that you don't care.

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Kakadu — On Your Own, With Us, With Someone Else?

A recent email from someone who did a Kakadu walk with a bushwalking club earlier this year gave me the idea for this section. If you or anyone you know is thinking of doing a walk in Kakadu, you ought to read what follows.

On Your Own

You can organise your own bushwalk in Kakadu. If you or anyone you know is thinking of doing so, here is some essential information.

• Transport.
  • All walks are a long way from Darwin.
  • There is no public transport to the start of any walk.
  • If you don't have your own vehicle, you'll have to hire someone to drop you off and pick you up or hire a vehicle to do it yourself.
  • All walks start from gravel roads. If you hire a car, you'll need a 4WD as NT hire car companies don't allow conventional vehicles to go off the bitumen.
• Permits.
  • The law requires everyone who does an overnight walk to have a permit.
  • To get a permit, you need to submit an application which includes a map of your proposed route. All overnight walks are supposed to stick to certain approved routes. Unfortunately, these are not generally publicly available.
  • None of the approved routes are marked in any way. Someone in the party must have good map and compass skills or no permit can be issued.
  • You can get permit applications and other essential information from the Kakadu National Park Camping and Bushwalking page.

With Us

I think there are some very good reasons why most people should book with us and one good reason why some should go elsewhere.

• Our Experience. I did my first overnight walk in Kakadu in 1974. I ran my first commercial trip in 1984. I have almost certainly done more bushwalking in Kakadu than anyone else now alive. Every one of my guides has the benefit of that experience.
• Variety. Other companies offer one or maybe two walks which they do over and over again, dry season only. We offer more than a dozen, picking the best possible walks in each of Kakadu's six seasons. (We've even got special web pages devoted to three of those seasons, links near the bottom of our Kakadu page.)
• Cost. If you take advantage of our advance purchase discounts, we cost less on a per day basis.
• Your Experience.
  • See our Kakadu and Top End Reports page for things others have written about us.
  • The Kakadu Circle Photo Galleries part 1 and part 2 are more like illustrated trip reports than simple photo galleries.
  • Want more? Dozens of our past clients have said that they would be happy to talk to people who want unbiased information about what it was actually like. Does anyone else offer that?

Final thought. There must be a reason why we have the highest percent of repeat clients of any Top End tour operator.

With Someone Else

I'll begin this section with an email someone from a Melbourne Bushwalking Club sent me in early October.

"Group 1, Stage 3 walkers made the papers! Wrinkles and all!"

"In the article titled "Beyond Utopia" in Saturday's The Age, Traveller section it states that when the writer reached "Nirvana" he notes an "East Melbourne bushwalking club" was already ensconced in the prime camp spots and goes on to say: "Even more disturbing, after 6 days in the wilderness, is the sight of them stripping down to their wrinkles to skinny-dip in 'our' pool." Their pool? Wrinkles? Disturbing? Outrageous! :)"

"The article promotes the walk lead by two guys (one from Tas, one from Vic) who walked in the area 3 years earlier and have now "worked closely with national park authorities to develop this adventure." Makes it sound like they've discovered something new, yet Russell's been leading the same route for decades!"

Here's a link to the article, Trekking in Kakadu: Beyond Utopia.

So, why walk with someone else?

• You want someone else to do everything for you. They provide you with three meals a day and most of your equipment. We ask you to provide your own breakfasts & lunches and gear.
• You want two guides instead of one. While occasionally we have two guides on a trip, we don't on most.
• You want to be sure of a small group. While most trips go out with less than a full group, we can take as many as 12 clients.
• You want to be sure you don't catch sight of a naked body in your group. We don't care whether you wear bathers or not.
• You want to spend more money. Their nine day price is about what we charge for 14 — and they don't give you a 20% discount for booking and paying in advance.

If you don't want to go with us, don't just look at the company above, check out Gecko Canoeing and Trekking, another local company which offers treks in Nitmiluk as well as one in Kakadu.

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Our National Parks Need Your Help

Victoria

With the Victorian election about to occur, it's timely to consider what the different outcomes may mean for Victorian parks. The VNPA recently began an appeal which begins, "How many cups of coffee does it take to save a national park?"

If you live in Victoria and have any desire to see the Victorian parks preserved, you owe it to yourself to click the link above and have a read. Commercialisation of parks is ongoing in most of the country. If that matters to you, you need to express your opinion. If you say nothing, you are telling the politicians that you approve of everything they are doing to our parks.

The document above refers to the VNPA Nature Conservation Review 2014. Click the link in this paragraph and you can download the public summary, full report or any part of the report which interests you.

Queensland

The situation in Queensland is much the same. They are currently running a campaign called Saving the Last of the Last. If you live in Queensland, you might want to consider givening them a hand.

It gets worse, much worse, as it's your tax dollars at work destroying the environment. Here's a bit of a message I just received from GetUp. "Queensland Premier Campbell Newman has just announced he will help pay for Indian coal mogul Adani to build Abbot Point and the Carmichael mine. In other words, Premier Newman will sell public assets to subsidise a foreign billionaire to build a massive coal port on the Great Barrier Reef coast. He hasn't given any specific figures, but we do know Premier Newman will give money that could be used on education, police or healthcare to subsidise a coal mine most analysts agree will never turn a profit."

As far as I can see the federal and most state governments are either intent on destroying Australia's tourism industry or they simply have no concept of the jobs their actions will destroy.

If you would like to help oppose this waste of taxpayer money, see Stop Campbell Newman funding Adani with your money.

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Ludwig Leichhardt

More than a century and a half after his disappearance, Leichhardt continues to fascinate many people. Jim Happ from the Maroondah Bushwalkers recently sent me a short paper he'd written, What happened to Ludwig Leichhardt?. It's worth a read.

In October, the ABC ran a story, ANU map sheds new light on Ludwig Leichhardt expedition.

Finally as I think I mentioned in a previous newsletter, Dan Baschira, a friend who works at Charles Darwin University here in Darwin, has written a book which talks about Leichhardt's trek across what is now Kakadu, the first time it was seen by a European. There is even a link to a downloadable version of the book.

For those who are interested, the whole Leichhardt Land website is worth exploring.

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Terrorism as Theatre

"Passion, deep belief, political protests and so forth have little meaning nowadays if they cannot be broadcast. Likewise, torture and gruesome death must be communicated to large numbers of people if they are to be effective. Technology, which the geeky billionaires of Silicon Valley and the Pacific Northwest claim has liberated us with new forms of self-expression, has also brought us back to the worst sorts of barbarism. Communications technology is value neutral, it has no intrinsic moral worth, even as it can at times encourage the most hideous forms of exhibitionism: to wit, the Foley execution."

If you want to make sense of something that doesn't seem to make sense, I strongly recommend Stratfor's Terrorism as Theatre.

If you'd like an in depth view of things that don't make the news at home, go to the Stratfor website and sign up for their free newsletter, Geopolitical Weekly. The link above will show you a list of recent issues. Two that I particularly recommend are
Traveling through multiple Europes and
The Similarities Between Germany and China. The Australian economy is more tied to the Chinese economy than to any other. If you want a sense of where China is likely to be heading, you should read Stratfor.

If you want more, they have a paid service as well.

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Flying

With the Christmas holidays fast approaching, many of you will be flying somewhere. Here are a few articles which might be of interest plus a website that could make a big difference to your comfort.

Airline Seats

The smaller the seats, the more bodies that an airline can squeeze in. The more bodies they can squeeze in, the lower they can afford to drop their prices.

• On Jammed Jets, Sardines Turn on One Another *
  Airlines are making seats smaller, and increasing the number of passengers, to raise revenue.
• The Down Side of Reclining *
  The airplane-seat debate has become a bit of an aviation crisis, so maybe it's time for Congress to take up the issue.

If you don't like the size of the seat, remember you often have a choice. The Seat Guru website allows you to compare seat sizes on major international airlines. You may have to look around a bit to find what you want, but it's worth it.

When I recently flew from New York to Darwin, my best choices were Qantas, China Eastern and Singapore. The distances between economy rows was 31" on Qantas and 32" on the others. The Qantas seats were 17½" wide, China Eastern 18", Singapore 19". The space difference isn't large, but it does make a substantial difference to comfort. (Besides having the largest seats, Singapore had the shortest time. I went with Singapore.)

Sometimes it's worth checking other classes. I had to fly between New York and Sweden. Norwegian Air was the cheapest. I had a lot of baggage as I was leading a tour. Their premium economy (their highest class) gave me all my baggage for free and was still cheaper than any other airline's standard economy. How could I choose otherwise?

Of course, if money is no object, you don't have to go 'cattle class'. To the best of my knowledge, Etihad's The Residence. A one way ticket from Sydney to London will set you back a bit over $32,000 — if you can get one. When I got curious enough to try and find out how much it cost, most of the dates I checked at first were booked out. That says something about our society.

Hi Tech in the Sky

Airlines Take the Bump Out of Turbulence *
"Stronger computing power, improved satellite and radar technology and more sophisticated scientific models give airlines a greater understanding of flying conditions."

Oversize Expectations for the Airbus A380 *
"Why is the giant A380 jet wowing passengers, but not many airlines? Its maker may have made the wrong bet on air travel's future."

Flight Safety with a Difference

Some flight safety videos are a bit more interesting than others. Click the link and see if you don't agree that this is one of the best.

Why Fly at All?

In some parts of the world, you have a choice. On our recent trip to Scandinavia we took two overnight trains. Even with sleeping compartments, they were somewhat cheaper than flying. For me, trains are more comfortable and allow you to actually enjoy a bit of the landscape through which you are passing. They also cut out the trips to and from and the queues at the airports.

Australia does have one long train trip which is a bargain, especially if you are a senior. The one way fare, sharing a two berth compartment, on Queensland Rail's train between Brisbane and Cairns can be as low as something like $250. The journey becomes part of the experience.

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Our Place in the Universe

I always like to include something I find inspirational from the natural world. I hope you enjoy these.

The Known Universe
"This incredible video from the American Museum of Natural History takes viewers from the Himalayas through our atmosphere and into the inky black of space, right out to the afterglow of the Big Bang. Every star, planet, and quasar seen in the film is possible because of the world’s most complete four-dimensional map of the universe, the Digital Universe Atlas, which is maintained and updated by astrophysicists at the American Museum of Natural History. If you don’t feel small after taking this journey, then you may have a major ego problem!"

That was the big picture. The photos from the 2014 National Geographic photo contest show a more intimate side.

This National Geographic Wild video has more wonderful shots of the other life that inhabits this wonderful world we live in.

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News About This Newsletter

Contents

Before I finish one newsletter, I'm already working on the next. I often find that I have too many interesting things for a single newsletter. I'm also always looking for other interesting items I can add. I'm particularly interested in environmental issues, especially those which might affect bushwalking and in the technology which is shaping our lives. As I said in the last newsletter, Suggestions welcome.

Sending the newsletter

While I now send most of the newsletters using MailChimp, I still send about 200 newsletters using a program which is hosted on the same server that hosts our website. In both cases, the newsletters are sent from walkabout@bushwalkingholidays.com.au. This is the contact address on our website. If you would like to continue to receive these newsletters, please include this address in your "friends list" so that it isn't blocked.

For some reason, some servers block the newsletters no matter what you try and do. I send these in small groups from my normal email. It's not a simple problem. If anyone thinks they might have an idea how to overcome the problem, I'd love to hear from you.

Emails sent to walkabout@bushwalkingholidays.com.au are currently automatically forwarded to rrwillis at internode.on.net. If you want to send an email to that address, replace the word "at" with the symbol @. I am trying not to put that address any place where it can be harvested by spam bots.

We don't want to add to the mass of email spam. If you don't want our newsletter, please send us an email and let us know. We'll then delete your name from our newsletter list.

Our email address is walkabout@bushwalkingholidays.com.au.

Note. Both MailChimp and the other program we use to send some of these newsletters have an automatic delete at the bottom. Clicking that link will delete you from the mailing list on the server but it will not delete you from our main database. One of the programs will not allow the auto delete to send me an email notifying me that a deletion has been made. If you want to be sure that you are removed from all further mailings, please send an email to walkabout@bushwalkingholidays.com.au

If you know someone you think would enjoy this newsletter, please forward it to them. The more people who get it, the more likely it is that I'll be able to run the trips which might interest you.

I will finish with the same quote from my late nephew that I used the last time, "Love your life."
Russell Willis

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