A great page from Gary!
It’s funny it got me thinking; I’ve pretty lucky and have driven 4x4s all over both New Zealand and Australia. Been to some pretty remote places in both. And had a few problems along the way too
Managed to float a truck down a river once, been bogged to the axles countless times, have broken just about every part of a vehicle at one point or another. The worst that can happen (obviously it’s unlikely that you are going to seriously injure yourself, so ignoring that possibility) is that you might lose your vehicle. It’s a small possibility but the more off the beaten track you go, the more it is possible. I’ve never owned a car that I haven’t been prepared to lose. It would be a bit of a pain in the arse, but not the end of the world! But it reminds me a little of a time when I was hiking and fishing in NZ in a “wilderness” area when I met someone quite new to it who showed us his BPerb(?) - Some sort of satellite emergency device which if he pushed a button special airforce people would parachute in to save his arse. (I actually asked, much later, what would happen if someone pushed a button in the Malaysian Jungle where I fish - apparently they would notify the water police on the lake; believe me if you won’t see them for at least a day!!! And I know some of those guys very well!) Anyway I always remember him talking about how rugged and dangerous it was up this remote stream near where we were camped together that he had just fished and how it was essential to have an emergency satellite device.
Jesus. I spent 20 summers fishing and hiking all over NZ. I certainly fished places in that time, where had I broken a leg I would have had to have lived there until it had healed. Really - there have been a couple of places where no one would have found me. I personally don’t think I would have any problems surviving. There are no dangerous animals, indigenous peoples lived there before we arrived; it’s safe. I feel much safer in the “wilderness” than I do in a city. To be honest, if anything that was my “home” that he get afraid of. Weird. And I get the same thing here in the jungle - where man has been comfortably existing for 80,000 years. What would happen if... I would just set up home and deal with it
Anyway the reason I was writing was more about relative comfort levels. If you’ve done something a few or many times - for example crossing rivers in a 4x4 or driving across the Australian Outback, or camping in the NZ Mountains then this is all part of your comfort zone. At first for me, living in the Malaysian Jungle was a bit “scary” - strange animals; tigers, elephants, snakes, scorpions, ghosts (apparently there are lots of ghosts in the jungle including the infamous Hantu Tetek who is a female ghost with enormous tits that she uses to suffocate her victims as they sleep in their hammocks - I’ve been trying to find her for ages) but after a while you realise that the jungle is not a scary place and everything in it is much more afraid of you. It becomes your comfort zone.
I’m looking forward to making the sea my comfort zone in a few years time. Currently it scares the shit out of me, the idea of living in a catamaran sailing the world. There are huge storms, tidal waves, pirates, sea monsters - but I know that after a few years of doing this it will become my comfort zone too.
I bet people think you’re nuts, Gary! Going off into the Everglades wilderness, where you could get lost or eaten by alligators! Where people do go wrong of course, is not giving themselves the clothing or the tools to turn a short trip into a long visit when things go unexpectedly wrong. I always have a knife, a small first aid kit and the means to make fire. If you can make fire, find water and build a shelter then you’re one step closer to making any wilderness area part of your comfort zone.
Cheers, Paul
