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Old 02-18-2016, 10:57 PM
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Targan Targan is offline
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Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Perth, Western Australia
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I've seen some crazy, crazy shit during my times in the great Australian outback. To be honest most Australians aren't rough, tough supermen, but that's because most Australians are born and bred city dwellers who don't have a clue about even the basics of outback survival. People who were born and raised in the bush, they're a different breed. I feel I can say these things without bias, because I'm a city dweller who has spent time in the bush and been around real outback people and spent time as an Army Reservist. I won't say I could just walk off into the Never-Never and survive for years, but I wouldn't be one of the typical Australian city people who would literally die within two days of being dumped in the middle of nowhere.

People from other countries who have spent time in similar environments would probably do ok at least for a while in the Australian outback, particularly if they asked the right questions of those with experience before they went bush. Australia has a huge variety of climate types too, so there's no one-size-fits-all skill set that will get you through. The south coast of Western Australia, large parts of Tasmania (where Legbreaker lives) and parts of Victoria have cold, wet forests and woodlands and particularly in the case of Tasmania there's some pretty rugged terrain. Exposure would be the biggest problem in those regions. As is widely known, large parts of Australia are at least arid, at worst full-blown desert, out there if you can't find water you're doomed real fast. Then up in the tropical zone there's thousands and thousands of klicks of coastal mangrove, swamps and tropical rainforest. Anywhere near bodies of water up there you have to be really careful about crocodiles, but there are other things that'll have a crack at you too, including feral razorback pigs and water buffalo. And of course all across the nation there are any number of venomous snakes and spiders that don't leave you with much time to seek treatment before you die in misery and agony.

Every year there are cases of people that drive out into the middle of bloody nowhere, woefully under-prepared, and then their vehicle breaks down and the silly buggers start walking. A day, a week, a month later the Aboriginal trackers eventually find their corpses, in various stages of desiccation, pitifully curled up under a bush or whatever shade they could find.
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