Home sweet home:Some members of the party learned to make a palace from the bracken.Credit:Sticks and Stones
Would you know what to do if you got lost on a bushwalk? Or if your car broke down beyond repair on a quiet country road on a scorching hot summer's day? Do you pack a Plan B when travelling to remote locations?
Nope,me neither.
Enter Sticks and Stones Adventures,based near the Victorian town of Yackandandah,who offer a weekend of bushcraft and basic survival skills useful for just about anywhere from the great Australian outback to the Amazonian jungle. They call the experience A Night in the Wild.
Fish ready for the fire:Nature provides everything we need.Credit:Sticks and Stones
An archaeologist from Melbourne,four friends from Beechworth in need of a break from parenting and I are driven from the Twist Creek base camp to a park-like clearing on a bush block adjoining Stanley State Forest.
"Nature provides everything we need,"our guide,Charlie Wilcox,says on arrival. The rest of us raise our eyebrows at each other. We hope it can provide;all we've been allowed to bring is a sleeping bag,water bottle,warm and waterproof clothes,a hat,toiletries and a knife.
"People usually don't go off the tourist trail because of fear,"Charlie continues."But if you don't go off the trail,you miss out on great places."He'd know:he's been connecting with the Australian bush since birth and,as an adult,chose to survive self-sufficiently for four months on an uninhabited island off the Queensland coast.
Looking for direction:Orienteering isn't one of my strengths,but I came to the right place in the end.Credit:Elspeth Callender
Charlie starts us off easy with water collection from trees using the transpiration method,which involves sealing branches within a plastic bag to catch the water that evaporates as the plant photosynthesises. I've always wanted to know how to do that. We also learn how to find true north using an analogue watch. Then we pair up to make distress signals,construct sleeping shelters and build an animal trap for when things get really desperate.