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The
Melbourne Bushies - Fifty years along the track (1940-90)
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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. |
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