Australian Hiker

Every time that I/we do a longer hike we take stock of what equipment we are using and in my case I always look at what new toy that I can use. Gill on the other hand has to be persuaded to shift away from her old faithfuls usually only upgrading small items here and there’d only when neccesary. This upcoming hike on the 100km Victorian Great Ocean Walk Gill will be wearing out her older pair of Altra Lone Peak 6 shoes and then purchasing a new pair when she gets home while in my case I will be using a brand new pair of Altra Olympus 4’s with my current pair at the end of their life. Mind you in my case I’ve had these shoes sitting in my cupboard for over a year having purchased two pairs at the same time due to the ongoing issue of getting available stock in my sizing. We’ll also both be using newly released Osprey packs (Exos/Eja 48’s) and have been training with these packs in the weeks leading up into the start of this hike. We’ve also both decided that after 6 years of faithful service it was time for new rain jackets and this was brought about more by necessity when I recently walked to work in relatively heavy rain and for the first time ever my old faithful jacket didn’t perform as expected.

While this change over of gear can often be based purely around vanity but particularly in my case given that I walk around 3000-4000km on average each year my gear gets heavily used and in the case of footwear I do go through a number of pairs each year. On the reverse side of this I also have a number of pieces of equipment that like my old rain jacket and my trekking poles that have provided many years of faithful service, only being replaced when absolutely necessary.

Are you a ‘toy’ collector or a ‘diehard faithful’ when it comes to your hiking equipment?