Willis's Walkabouts Newsletter 33, January 2008

Welcome to all those new to this email list. Read on to find out the winners of our questionnaire competition and much more.

In This Issue...
The $3000 Questionnaire

Many, many thanks to all those who filled in our questionnaire. It will take time for me to wade through the results, but there should be some changes to our program as a result.

262 people filled in our questionnaire before the deadline. The prizes were drawn by the president of Tourism Top End on 24 January. I had so many responses, that I decided to add two $150 voucher consolation prizes. The winners are:

  1. $3000 voucher - Nell Iliffe of Pearl Beach NSW
  2. $1500 voucher - Marion Bowers of Telina QLD
  3. $ 750 voucher - Catrin Eichner of Mülheim Germany
  4. $ 150 voucher - Valerie Patterson of Rosemeadow NSW
  5. $ 150 voucher - Meredith Verge of Greenwich NSW

At the time of writing, I'd received another 16 questionnaires after the contest deadline. If you haven't filled one in and would be willing to do so, I'll still give out $50 vouchers to everyone who fills it in while it remains on line. It costs me a monthly fee to leave it there, so it won't be there beyond early March.

If another 50 people fill it in, I'll have another prize draw for a $500 voucher. Everyone who has filled in a questionnaire but hasn't already won a prize will go into the draw. If you know someone who might be interested in the kind of trips we offer, please encourage them to log onto our website and do the questionnaire.

Click Here to take our survey.
Last Chance for the Wet Season

Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass –– it's about learning to dance in the rain!

I've been extolling the virtues of walking in our wet season for years. It's paid off and two great trips are now definite departures. Unless something goes wrong, I'll be leading both.

  • The Green Kimberley: 3-16 February already has three bookings on section two and one on section one. We'll guarantee departure for section two with only one more booking. We'll run both sections if we get an average of four over both sections. This is a great trip which hasn't run since the 1990s. It's a very small group, only four of us on section one and six on section two. A slightly larger group would be better, so ...
    Special offer 1. 25% off section one on its own. No other discounts apply with this offer.
    Special offer 2. 15% off section two or the full trip. No other discounts apply with this offer.
    Special offer 3. Book either the full trip or section two in combination with the Bungles in the Wet trip and we'll give you an extra 15% off whatever discount price you are entitled to plus we'll include a night's accommodation between the trips.
  • The Bungle Bungles in the Wet: 17 February to 1 March 2008
    Only two places left. It will be hot. It will be humid. It will be spectacular!
    This trip has been a long time dream of mine. It's the first time it's run in the ten years it has been in the program. Who knows when it will run again. Get in now or you could miss out.
    Our Bungles in the Wet Photo Gallery gives you a hint of what you can expect.

The Wet has been pretty good so far. Here are the rainfall records for the three weather stations closest to where we'll be walking.
Walk Nearest Weather Station Total Rain
December		 Total Rain
January 1-24
Green Kim Sec 1: Carr Boyd Range Kununurra 111 mm 239 mm
Green Kim Sec 2: Cockburn Range Wyndham 122 mm 175 mm
Bungle Bungles Warmun 211 mm 126 mm

Visit the Met Bureau WA Daily Weather Observations page to see the latest figures. Click on the letter of the place you want, then scroll down and click on the town.

There is only one other almost wet season trip which has any chance of running.

When I sent out my last newsletter, Mitchell Plateau No. 1: 30 March - 12 April had three probable bookings. Two of those have dropped out. April isn't really the wet season any more, but it is earlier than we've ever been to the area. The waterfalls should be running at a far more spectacular level then we've ever seen them before.
Special offer. I want to do this trip so much that I'll run it at cost with no wage for the guide. Book now and take a 15% discount. If I have three confirmed bookings by 30 January, the trip will run. If not, it will be cancelled.

If you'd like a better idea of what the weather is likely to be, have a look at the Met Bureau Mitchell Plateau page. The nightly minimum temperatures aren't too bad and there isn't much chance of prolonged rain.

Finally, for those who didn't receive the last newsletter, five of our clients have written up wet season trips that they did with us between 1992 and 2007. A sixth has prepared a photo gallery. Have a look at their stories and photos and decide for yourself.
This link will take you to the list we published in an earlier newsletter.

Since that newsletter, yet another person has sent in some photos and a report. Kakadu Super Circle No. 1, 2004. This is a large 1.2 MB PDF. If you don't have a broadband connection, it will take a fair while to download.
The Mitchell Plateau

We've been running trips to the Mitchell Plateau since 1987. Mitchell Falls are now in a national park, but that park is quite small and doesn't take in much of the plateau. I hadn't realised just how under threat the area is until the local people at the Kandiwal Aboriginal community alerted me to some of their problems. I started doing some research and began to wonder just how long some of the better parts of the area could survive.

First some general background. Here are the best websites I've found for good general information about the area.

That's the good news. The bad news is that there are major development proposals which will affect the area if they go ahead.

Big business gets along with big organisations. The following link takes you to an open letter from the Kandiwal community to the prime minister. It's worth a read. Kandiwal letter.

In the long term, I'm not sure what this does to our trips. For now, we'll work with the Kandiwal community where possible and continue to offer four Mitchell Plateau trips.

The End of Club and Private Bushwalking in Australia?

Give the bureaucrats a inch and they'll take a mile, or, in this case, the right of clubs and private groups to run bushwalks.

A group called the Outdoor Recreation Council in Victoria has been pushing for the imposition of something called Adventure Activity Standards. These would require certain minimum standards for people leading bushwalks. That's fair enough for commercial operators such as ourselves, but they want the same standards applied to bushwalking clubs. Eventually the same standard could be applied to private groups. South Australia joined up last year. To quote an article in Wild, "That makes two States which now have ‘bushwalking standards' that recommend teenagers don't walk in a suburban park without an adult leader." (Wild #102, p 19)

Bushwalking Victoria, the body which represents both club and private bushwalkers in Victoria, and the Federation of South Australian Walking Clubs were both so frustrated by the process that they pulled out of the discussions. Unless people start telling their political representatives that the imposition of these standards is not appropriate for club and private groups, it's likely to happen.

A group called Adventure Victoria has been in the forefront of the opposition to the imposition of these standards on non-commercial groups. If you want to find out more, I highly recommend you visit their website. This has a lot more information than I can include in a newsletter like this.

Overseas Trips

We have two overseas trips scheduled to begin before late November.

Time is quickly running out for the High Arctic Summer trip scheduled for July-August this year. If neither of our two options has the bookings we need to run the trip by 30 January, the trip will be put off until next year.

  • Hiring a car and doing 1 to 5 day walks in the Yukon and along the Dempster Highway
  • Baffin and Ellesmere Islands. We'll charter aircraft and get as far as 80º N if we do this. If it runs, it will cost at least $10 000 in total and we'll be doing at least one walk of 10-14 days.

I've recently received new information from the charter company that would take us to Ellesmere and from Parks Canada. I hope to update the trip notes before the end of the month. Please contact us if you think you might be interested. Both options offer some great walking. Option 1 is substantially less expensive.

The trip notes with maps is a large 1.1 MB file. If you don't have a good broadband connection, it will take a long time to load. The only difference between the two sets of notes is the maps.

We have the opposite problem with our Great Walks of South Africa trip beginning in September. This trip is now fully booked. We will, however, take a waitlist so please have a look at the trip notes if you think you might be interested.

I expect to offer a South America trip in late November or December. I hope to have something in March after I return from the Kimberley trips.
Stoves on Aircraft

If you are coming on one of our trips, you don't need to worry about a stove. If you are flying interstate or overseas to do a walk where you need a stove, you might have a problem bringing your stove. The Australian Civil Avaiation Safety Authority (CASA) website says that bushwalking stoves and fuel bottles "require the explicit approval of the airline or aircraft operator that you are going to fly with. You will need to contact them to find out how they would like you to pack, prepare and carry these items."

They also say what you need to do "to nullify the hazard with camping stoves and fuel tanks". If you think you might have a problem, it might be worth printing the following (either from this newsletter or from the CASA website) and bringing it with you when you travel.

"The International Air Transport Association (IATA) have made the following suggestions to nullify the danger from a fuel tank or stove that has contained flammable liquid fuel: The empty fuel tank or container must be allowed to drain for at least 1 hour. The fuel tank and/or container must then be left uncapped for a minimum of six hours to allow any residual fuel to evaporate. Alternative methods, such as adding cooking oil to the fuel tank and/or container to elevate the flash point of any residual liquid above the flash point of the flammable liquid and then emptying the fuel tank and/or container are equally acceptable. The fuel tank and or container must then have the cap securely fastened and be wrapped in an absorbent material such as paper towel and placed in a polyethylene or equivalent bag. The top of the bag must then be sealed or gathered and closed with an elastic band or twine."
Fire in Northern Australia

The CSIRO produced a set of seven leaflets (a total of 12 A4 pages) called "Fire in Northern Australia." They talk about burning in general, fire research, greenhouse gases, fire and plant nutrients, effects of fire on streams, effects on savanna vegetation and on animals. If you have a particular interest in the subject, I have a few spare copies which I'll give away on a first come, first serve basis. Please send me an email if you'd like a set.
Our 2008 Program and Prices.

Prices are rising. Ouch!

Food, fuel, wages, you name it. Almost all of our costs have risen, some substantially. Our prices will have to rise too, but ....

Book now and save. I've been too flat out to finalise all our prices for 2008 so, if you book and pay a deposit on any 2008 trip before we announce a price rise and you'll lock in the 2007 price unless our quoted costs go up by more than 20%.
2008 Trip Availability.

Only three trips are available before April. They are the three trips listed above in the wet season section of this newsletter.

Only one trip is available in April.

  • The Bungle Bugles and Osmond Range: 13 April - 3 May
    Three sections any of which can be done on its own. People who visit the Bungles early in the year find much more water and enjoy many more swims than those who come late in the Dry. Combine this with the very different Osmond Range to the north and you have a truly great trip.
From May onwards, every other trip listed on our website and in the draft trip list we posted out in early December is still available. Some already have bookings, some do not. Those that do are listed on the Tour Availability and Specials page on our website. This list will be updated regularly.

We will cancel any trip which has no bookings approximately two months prior to departure. You can see what's still available at any time by going to our Trip List page and clicking on the area which interests you.

Every trip in the list below has at least one booking. King George and Kakadu Highlights No. 5 each need only one more booking to become definite departures. All the other trips listed need at least two more bookings.

Peak Season Availability. The last five trips listed above overlap. To run them all, we need at least five guides. Many of our guides have other jobs and are unlikely to be available at short notice. If we don't have the bookings to guarantee departure at least three months in advance, we may not be able to get a guide. If you are interested in any of the above or in any of the other listed trips which overlap them, please contact us as soon as possible.
Our Office Will Be Closed.

Partly closed, that is.

After 12 years running the office, Joanne retired last August. Since then, I've been manning the office when I've been in town. At this time of year, there isn't enough business to justify employing someone full time (assuming I could find someone capable of doing the job). I'm going to be away from 2 February through 2 March. I've got a couple of people (including Joanne) who have agreed to look in, take bookings and answer urgent queries while I'm away. Some things may have to wait for my return. Please be patient if you want to contact us during February.

Is that any way to run a business? That depends on why you are in business. I am one of the few long-time NT tour operators who still spends as much time as possible out on tour. The others spend most of their time in their offices and doing whatever they can to promote and grow their businesses. Why don't I do the same?

I enjoy bushwalking. For me every trip different; every trip is an adventure. Prior to setting off for Everest in 1922, George Mallory was asked why he was doing it. His reply sums up the way I feel about the walks I lead. "What we get from this adventure is just sheer joy. And joy is, after all, the end of life. We do not live to eat and make money. We eat and make money to be able to enjoy life. That is what life means and what life is for."
Special discounts -- combine them and save even more.

Book now and save! As in the past, if you are one of the first three people who quote this newsletter when booking any Australian trip within two weeks of when we sent it out, you will get an extra 10% discount on any trip where your total discounts are 10% or less. You'll get an extra 5% off if your total discounts are 15% or more.

Note. There has to be a limit. The maximum total discount on any trip is 35%.

News About This Newsletter

In the past two weeks, I've spent many hours updating our newsletter email list yet again. The only way for me to check was do do it line by line manually. Because of this, I suspect it still needs some work. If I've managed to send you two newsletters, if I've sent one to an address you'd prefer me not to use or if I've accidentally added you back after you asked to be deleted, please accept my apologies. Let me know and I'll correct it for the next time.

This newsletter is sent from rrwillis@russellwillis.com. If you would like to continue to receive these newsletters, please include this address in your "friends list" so that it isn't blocked.

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@ais.net.au.

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Best wishes to all.
Russell Willis