Wandering Wonderer - Rambling Dave
Hello, I'm David Saxton from Kent & East Sussex area in England, UK. This website has been set up mainly for friends and family who want to know where I am or how I'm doing while I'm away, but anyone who stumblesupon me, hello as well! I'd like to give a big thank you to my grandparents, my sister and my parents, my friends and of course, everyone at The Compasses pub in Tunbridge Wells. Without all your help and support I wouldn't finally be heading out on my journey.
The idea of being off on my own in nature is something that has always appealed. I grew up next to the Ashdown forest and spent as much time wandering and wondering as I could. Sometimes I would see a lone person, set-up in a tent mostly out of sight of dog-walkers and think to myself how nice it would be to just live wandering and wondering. With a simple tent to sleep in, your only worries would be food, water and entertainment.
Learning to find food and water is something we're all capable of, so it's been the idea of entertainment that has kept me from taking the idea seriously, but with recent advances in technology, living out of a bag in the woods can be a lot more luxurious than I could have thought.
Entertainment, for me, consists of conversations with other people, or one of the following: Reading, playing and listening to music, writing, relaxing watching films, doing chi work and thinking. Some of these you need very little for, but others like reading and music, you need to carry a lot, or go somewhere to charge something. Fortunately, portable efficient solar chargers are available and affordable!
My Power Monkey Solar Charger makes many things possible. I have an iPod with 80gb of music I love and 40gb of films and tv shows I love. I also have a Sony e-Reader PRS505 with 2,000 books I have either read or have ever wanted to read. The iPod can be charged twice from a full Power Monkey, and the e-Reader can be charged three times. So with music, film and reading all taken care of, I have my flute, a notebook, my hiking staff and my memories of tai chi class to carry me through. Plenty of entertainment I think!
I'm taking enough money to buy food along the way, I'm not ambitious enough to actually expect myself to live off plants and rabbits for a year, although I may try! Water won't be a problem thanks to my Surviva-Pure water canteen that purifies all water (except sea water) immediately with a pure fresh-water taste. I can scoop up dirty swamp water and happily drink away. That saves me having to carry 2-3 litres of water everywhere I go and saves me 2-3kg in weight!
It's been a dream of mine for a long time to go off wandering, but I'd never really known where I'd do it. Japan had always been a strong contender; it's a beautiful country with a fantastic history and I'm learning Japanese. Films like the Last Samurai have always made me want to go to Japan and wander in the places that they were filmed. However, it's not easy to be allowed into Japan to just wander around for a long time and I wanted to go for a time that would allow me to really get away from things. It was when my friend, Paul was granted a working-holiday visa for Australia within a few hours of applying online that I began to think about Australia and New Zealand.
Australia is famous for people going walkabout, which is basically what I want to do, but the more I looked at it the less appealing it became. The lack of water and extreme heat throughout most of the country was a bit of a concern for someone who's planning to be on their own for extended periods. Then there's the poisonous and deadly beasts of various shapes and legs that live in Australia, most of which only live there! I read once that every time Australian Entomologists go out to the outback, they discover new species of insect. I don't have any phobias of spiders or creepy-crawlies, but I just know I'll wake up one morning and forget to bang my boots out and put my foot on a small but deadly beast! So Australia was out. Then I discover that a lot of films, like The Last Samurai, were actually filmed in New Zealand!
My eyes turned to New Zealand, not knowing too much about it but being sceptical at first nonetheless. What I discovered continues to surprise me now. They have some of the most beautiful walks in the world, including the Milford Track, often referred to as 'The Finest Walk in the World'. A huge range of landscapes and climates stretching from sub-tropical forests, volcanic platforms, moor and heathland to alpine-style mountains and fjord-lands.
Hiking is called Tramping in New Zealand and it's one of their oldest and fondest forms of fun, they do it with gusto too! All along the length and breadth of the country are tramping huts, set within a few hours to a day's walk from each other. I found out you can get an annual pass to stay in these huts for the equivalent of £40 and they can be used in about 75% of all huts, and about 90% of the one's I'd want to use. Plus they have free camping laws, meaning that so long as you're not on private land, you can put up a tent anywhere that's at least 100m from the road.
They have no scary animals at all, in fact, the only mammals are rabbits and the occasional deer and pig. Oh, and whales and sea-lions. Everything else are birds and non-poisonous insects. New Info: There is a relation of the Red Back spider, but it only lives in sand dunes, hasn't killed anyone in 200 years and is classed as an endangered species in New Zealand. 80% of New Zealand's native plant life is found nowhere else is the world!
So, New Zealand it is and with a year working-holiday visa already in the bag, I'll be gone for a while!
The idea of being off on my own in nature is something that has always appealed. I grew up next to the Ashdown forest and spent as much time wandering and wondering as I could. Sometimes I would see a lone person, set-up in a tent mostly out of sight of dog-walkers and think to myself how nice it would be to just live wandering and wondering. With a simple tent to sleep in, your only worries would be food, water and entertainment.
Learning to find food and water is something we're all capable of, so it's been the idea of entertainment that has kept me from taking the idea seriously, but with recent advances in technology, living out of a bag in the woods can be a lot more luxurious than I could have thought.
Entertainment, for me, consists of conversations with other people, or one of the following: Reading, playing and listening to music, writing, relaxing watching films, doing chi work and thinking. Some of these you need very little for, but others like reading and music, you need to carry a lot, or go somewhere to charge something. Fortunately, portable efficient solar chargers are available and affordable!
My Power Monkey Solar Charger makes many things possible. I have an iPod with 80gb of music I love and 40gb of films and tv shows I love. I also have a Sony e-Reader PRS505 with 2,000 books I have either read or have ever wanted to read. The iPod can be charged twice from a full Power Monkey, and the e-Reader can be charged three times. So with music, film and reading all taken care of, I have my flute, a notebook, my hiking staff and my memories of tai chi class to carry me through. Plenty of entertainment I think!
I'm taking enough money to buy food along the way, I'm not ambitious enough to actually expect myself to live off plants and rabbits for a year, although I may try! Water won't be a problem thanks to my Surviva-Pure water canteen that purifies all water (except sea water) immediately with a pure fresh-water taste. I can scoop up dirty swamp water and happily drink away. That saves me having to carry 2-3 litres of water everywhere I go and saves me 2-3kg in weight!
It's been a dream of mine for a long time to go off wandering, but I'd never really known where I'd do it. Japan had always been a strong contender; it's a beautiful country with a fantastic history and I'm learning Japanese. Films like the Last Samurai have always made me want to go to Japan and wander in the places that they were filmed. However, it's not easy to be allowed into Japan to just wander around for a long time and I wanted to go for a time that would allow me to really get away from things. It was when my friend, Paul was granted a working-holiday visa for Australia within a few hours of applying online that I began to think about Australia and New Zealand.
Australia is famous for people going walkabout, which is basically what I want to do, but the more I looked at it the less appealing it became. The lack of water and extreme heat throughout most of the country was a bit of a concern for someone who's planning to be on their own for extended periods. Then there's the poisonous and deadly beasts of various shapes and legs that live in Australia, most of which only live there! I read once that every time Australian Entomologists go out to the outback, they discover new species of insect. I don't have any phobias of spiders or creepy-crawlies, but I just know I'll wake up one morning and forget to bang my boots out and put my foot on a small but deadly beast! So Australia was out. Then I discover that a lot of films, like The Last Samurai, were actually filmed in New Zealand!
My eyes turned to New Zealand, not knowing too much about it but being sceptical at first nonetheless. What I discovered continues to surprise me now. They have some of the most beautiful walks in the world, including the Milford Track, often referred to as 'The Finest Walk in the World'. A huge range of landscapes and climates stretching from sub-tropical forests, volcanic platforms, moor and heathland to alpine-style mountains and fjord-lands.
Hiking is called Tramping in New Zealand and it's one of their oldest and fondest forms of fun, they do it with gusto too! All along the length and breadth of the country are tramping huts, set within a few hours to a day's walk from each other. I found out you can get an annual pass to stay in these huts for the equivalent of £40 and they can be used in about 75% of all huts, and about 90% of the one's I'd want to use. Plus they have free camping laws, meaning that so long as you're not on private land, you can put up a tent anywhere that's at least 100m from the road.
They have no scary animals at all, in fact, the only mammals are rabbits and the occasional deer and pig. Oh, and whales and sea-lions. Everything else are birds and non-poisonous insects. New Info: There is a relation of the Red Back spider, but it only lives in sand dunes, hasn't killed anyone in 200 years and is classed as an endangered species in New Zealand. 80% of New Zealand's native plant life is found nowhere else is the world!
So, New Zealand it is and with a year working-holiday visa already in the bag, I'll be gone for a while!