Margaret Thompson with A-frame pack. Day walk, probably in the Switzerland Ranges, circa 1962. Darrell Sullivan

stretched across it. The load was carried in a canvas bag lashed to the frame.

In the early sixties H-frame packs, called `Mountain Mules', made by the New Zealand manufacturer Bevan Napper, began to appear in Australia. These, along with check woollen shirts, usually indicated that the owner had been on a New Zealand holiday. In 1962 Kimpton's in Collingwood began manufacturing Mountain Mules, available in two models: standard and tanker. The tanker had a tap in the hollow frame to enable stove fuel to be carried in it. Paddy Pallin and `Flinders Ranges', a South Australian company, followed with H-frame models and soon A-frames were a thing of the past. The internal-frame pack developed in the late seventies.

Because heavy loads could be carried more comfortably in an H-frame pack, their advent turned the emphasis away from lightweight bushwalking. Before then it was a matter of pride how lightly one could travel. Really keen walkers would trim excess straps and would even cut down the handles on their toothbrushes.