Australian Hiker

Now I have all my gear and my first run of food sorted, it’s time to do a test pack to see if I can fit everything into my chosen pack. Whether the gear fits or not is already known but what this does is give me an opportunity to again go through my packing list to make sure that everything is there and there are no issues. I know from previous experience that I can fit 11 days of food into my current pack (although it’s a tight fit).

Also doing a test pack allows me to weigh my entire pack including all consumables such as gas, food and water. My rest days are scheduled around hitting towns where I can get both internet signal and also pick up my next food drop and as such, my biggest food carry on this trip is 9.5 days with a couple of eight days of food carry along with some shorter runs in between,

For this trial pack my total pack weight, including 3 litres of water, gas canister, and four days of food is 16.5 kg. My biggest food carry, which will be on day 14 when I leave Quorn will bring the weight to 20.2 kg which I will definitely feel. Thankfully I’ll loose around 625 grams of weight on each day!