THE MEANING OF OZ - All you need to know!

would you prefer an overnight of MINUS 18 C ?
that's what our forecast is

the down-comforter will come in handy !

GREETINGS FROM THE MUSKOKAS - ONTARIO
( just about 100 km north of totonto )

Hi msolga. The change did move in last night with lots of thunder and lightning. Had some nice rain as well, infact lightly raining now (8.30am) but uncomfortable humid. Now doubt things will get better during the day.

That looks pretty cool in your part of the world hamburgboy.

Good morning, Dutchy.

It's much cooler this morning here, too. Thankfully!

And a few drops of rain just fell. Then stopped. But it looks promising! (Says she, hopefully. )

Well I don't know if Dutchy might prefer it, but I wouldn't, hamburger. I just can't imagine it. Keep warm!

Well, no.
We're (in Melbourne & Adelaide) in completely the wrong place for them.
But the rate the climate has been changing, it may not be too long before we're tropical.

4.30pm and right down to 20 degrees msolga, time I put my jumper back on.

Lots & lots of rain this afternoon, Dutchy.

IONUS. IM fascinated by stories of walkabout and living with natures resources. Ive eaten grubs and locusts in Nigeria and found that, like clams or other squishy seafoods, it can be enjoyable once you get past the revulsion of eating a "bug". I will never ever eat a Palmetto bug (THATS just a fancy name for ROACH).

Dont much like deer meat its too mealy in texture. Ive had it a million ways all by different people whove asserted that their way was best. I almost gag on deermeat (much like liver).

I like moose, antelope and some other where the meat is more or less a lean cut of real meat and not that mealy texture.

Around here , terrapins and snapper turtles make great hearty soups. The only thing is that, when you catches em, (I suppose when your in the bush you dont have time) we will always let em live in a spring fed pond for a few weeks , that makes their taste improve greatly and the meat texture isnt so gooey.

Terrapins are great just as is. Lots of cooking and lots of tabasco and its a real treat.

Whatabout roots and water bearing plants? Do you have to forage for a drink?

I have heard that locusts may have been a very nutritious part of early hominid diet. Never ate one myself.

There are some plants that bear water but they are few and far between. I watched one clown doing a survival guide and it was hilarious. You have to carry your water or dig for it. Knowing where to go and when has been handed down for thousands of years. The aboriginees even avoided belts of uranium because there were evil spirits there that made you sick. The army has aboriginees writing survival guides for different areas of Australia.

One thing you might be interested in : We have an ant in North Queensland that walks around with its bum kicked up in the air. Its bum is bright green and if you collect enough bums and crush them into water ....wait for it....it tastes like lime cordial !!!! I was shown that by some ineffectual from the Aust Uni Canberra. Of course I thought he was stark raving mad till I tried it.

I've been wondering if the 15,000 year old aboriginal dreamtime had any predators to contend with.

The first Aboriginees had a goanna that made other monitors (Komoda Dragon) look like babies. It's head was bigger than a man's body and weighed somewhere between a modern rhino and elephant. There was a marsupial dog (the Tasmanian Tiger) that was a meat eater but not as dangerous as the lizard. There was also a marsupial lion that was a little smaller than today's lions.
The dreamtime keeps getting pushed further back, now it is around 50,000 yrs ago but some evidence suggest 80,000. Whichever, they were capable sailors as there has never been a land conection with Asia during modern man's existence.

Some (lots) of root bearing plants hold enough water to to subsist on. Native orchids are an example in this area, bulbine lillies, Murrnong (yam daisy), vanilla lillies, chocolate lillies are others. There are around 20 or so edible root vegetables in my general area. Knowledge of your specific area and the plants that exist there is paramount though, as is knowledge of what signs to look for to enable you to find these root vegetables in the dry season when there is no above ground material showing. Aboriginal people did not use the roots of plants that were flowering or in seed as this would reduce the population.

In the desert country...
Baobab trees (I understand) often have pools of water in their branches Still other trees hold enough water for a drink in their root systems.
Water storing frogs can give you a drink (but finding them is a bitch).
Watch the direction of flight of zebra finches, budgies, corellas and other birds prior to dusk and at dawn.
soak up dew from grass with a rag or furry animal skin then wring it out into your mouth or a container.


In this day and age... drain all the coolant from your radiatior and replace with plain water before you go. Even if its rusty or bad you can evaporate it and recondense.
Dig a small pit. place any water source; leaves, grass, flat container of radiator water, damp rags into the pit. Place a collection tin in the center of the pit and cover the pit with a plastic sheet. Place a stone in the centre of the plactic sheet directly over your collection container to create a depression in the plastic sheet. Go sit in the shade. The sun will evaporate water from your water source then recondense on the plastic sheet. water will run down the incline made by the stone and drip into the container.

Or you could go to the pub.

I am familiar with most plants that water can be extracted from, but I still say that ingeneral they are few and far between. They might assist an individual in survival, or in some areas even a small family, but for a tribe they are not applicable. Digging is the main method.

For me, I have had enough survival training (there is only one survival exercise run by the Defence Force I did not participate in) and your idea of the pub sounds great to me !

You may well be right. Hope i never need to test it though.

So, two fingers of green ants can be refreshing. I watched once as one of our camp guides, a Northern Nigerian tribesman, would dig these roots and make a kind of milky drink from the pounded pulp. I know that the bushmen of the Kalahari in Botswana have identified several species of bulbs that provide water (and several that are poisonous). SO we stuck to our water direct from a buffalo that was part of our drill water. (Lots of times we went for a week without being able to produce any larger volumes of water from our own drill holes, course we had plenty of tar seeps.

We have a stupid TV show in US called "Survivorman", (similar to Bear Grillis "MAn v Wild". Except the survivorman goes out of his way to eat some really vile ****, like once he killed , cooked and ate a skunk. That was about the stupidest thing anyone could do because the stench (caued by a sulfur compound family called mercaptans) these mercaptans can actually make you quite sick because the body has evolved a gag reflex for certain chemicals. ANyway, all through the show you could see that he was really punked from eating that skunk. Just because youre out in the woods doesnt mean you have to avoid eating stuff that actually tastes good.

The fossil record and evidence of aboriginal habitation goes back (to date) about 60K years and I was getting surprised at recent articles that were pushing first habitation back even farther. Thats at times that go beyond the credible accuracy for C14. (They do "3 point" calibration of C14 for times at 40 , 50 and 55 K years and they can estimate at times beneath those dates, but its really very inacurrate).

Im gonna have to call in your information about the giant goannas. I havent read anything (but thats from US literature) about goannas getting that big in the Pleistocene. Those fuckers can really run if theyve a mind to chase something. If you can find some literature on that, Id love to collect it for some of my class syllabii on specific "index fossils" for an area.

The bushmen of the Kalahari have several plants in the bromeliad family that are sources of poison water. They are very liquid rich but can really ruin your day.

The only problem with radiator water ius the coolant. It can be poisonous. I know a friend who, while packin in the Maine wilderness, had his radiator hoses eaten by local porkypines. The poor dum shits were found nearby a few days later. They died of liver failure from the antifreeze.
Can you guys go without coolants in your cars?

They have one at the Queensland Museum, that is to say a life size reconstruction. I checked their web site but they dont have any photos, however they may be able to help you.
http://www.southbank.qm.qld.gov.au/
There is also a bit on them at Wiki.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megalania[url][/url]
If in need of further Google giant goanna, also known as Megalania.