A note on the high cost of bushwalking

[Moondog55]

This isn't a whinge about gear either or the cost of fancy dehy food.
I've just done a lot of work sewing up a base-camp tent, assembling some food, repairing some gear and making or modifying some new clothes. Total outlay about $ 117- which includes the cheap tent off eBay. I could live for more than a month on the staples I have in the stash.
What is going to cost the most money is the fuel to drive up the mountains, unlike polyester fibres fuel in not recyclable and from Geelong to Falls Creek is 433 kilometres and at 7.5 kpl that is a lot of fuel.
So basically my highest cost is going to be petrol to get there and back.
115 litres of fuel minimum ( lots more if the road is fogged in/icy/covered with snow/ very windy ) at $1.50 per litre that is over $170-

[sthughes]

Crickey what do you drive that uses 22L/100km?!

Get a Prius and you'll only spend like $35-40

[Moondog55]

13l / 100 klicks or for us oldies 22 MPG

Ford XG 6-cylinder ute that needs Super grade fuel for best economy so horses for courses
I wouldn't have a Prius for all the peanuts on the farm, we also have a very economical vehicle ( Renault Megane 9lper 100 klicks ) but it wont tow a trailer or carry a tonne of cement

[ULWalkingPhil]

9L per 100km.
Suzuki Vitara V6

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk 2

[Miyata610]

Why are you taking a tonne of cement to falls creek?

[ninjapuppet]

Why are you taking a tonne of cement to falls creek?

its always better to be prepared.

I had a cayenne that used 22L/100km and found I was always mentally calculating how much it would cost for me to get A to B. Now I switched to a diesel golf that uses 5-6L/100km and dont really care too much about fuel prices going up.

Yeh, fuel is that one thing that i used to *&%$#! about when comparing the aust alps vs just flying over to nz with sales. Last week, Jetstar had 2 for 1 deals, $450 return for 2 people syd-christchurch!
seriously, $225/person return !?!?
the australian alps is so far from civilisation that its only really worth it to go with someone to split the bills.

EDIT: and you're lucky the victorian alps dont slog you with $26/day in the winter.

[Moondog55]

Try $35.50 a day- the thieves even want $13- to walk through the gate with a rucksac on
When I go back I'll *&%$#! hitch-hike or try and persuade an old friend to let me park in her driveway for 6 weeks

[Strider]

Crickey what do you drive that uses 22L/100km?!

115L for the return trip brings it down to 13l/100km.

[Moondog55]

I get slightly better economy, but only on the hills; if I leave the cement out.

[photohiker]

Catch the train to Albury and the Bus to Falls. ?

[Moondog55]

I would if it were cheaper

[wayno]

there was an article i read of a swedish guy who, packed up everything he needed for an expedition to climb everest and cycled from sweden, climbed the peak and cycled home again all self contained... no sherpas or porters....
sort of makes it hard to argue about having to spend on fuel to get to the mountains....

[Moondog55]

I have nothing but admiration for people who do that, and 30 years ago I may have done it myself.
For me to do it now would mean buying an "uber-bike" which would probably cost more than mu old ute.
Partly this is a comment on changing circumstances.
This isn't the place to start a discussion on alternative fuels or excessive population growth in Australia tho

[wayno]

too many people in aus? how can that be when it's so big? is it possible to get a motorbike to get to your destination?

[JohnM]

too many people in aus? how can that be when it's so big? is it possible to get a motorbike to get to your destination?

Take away the huge bit in the middle that can't sustain a human population, and Australia is not so big.

Bushwalking's still comparatively inexpensive. Fuel costs are obviously going to be the killer (which means that despite the wishes of the OP, I don't see how this can't be a thread about alternative fuels. If the only thing that's making bushwalking too expensive is petrol, change to LNG or LPG. Petrol and Diesel prices are only going to go up and up).

Obviously, fewer longer trips make it cheaper. If you're doing round trips of 800k for a weekend's walk, that gets pretty exxy.

[wayno]

thre was a thread on what vehicle do you drive and that was allowed, there wwere a few responses.... how do you afford to travel to your destination is relevant, can't bushwalk if you can't get to the bush and most people use vehicles at some stage to get there... otherwise will have to change teh site to "bushwalking by walking there.com"

[wayno]

i dont tend to bushwalk on weekends anymore, partly laziness. i just take advantage of when i go somwehre on holiday and fit some bushwalking in then kill two birds with one stone... the money i save from not travelling to bush walk throught teh rest of the year goes on the holiday whre theres not much extra travel involved to get into the bush....

[Moondog55]

I'm happy to talk about alternative fuels, I just thought such discussion was outside of the normal forum discussions.
I'm a fan of LP gas inoculation or CNG (or Hydrogen for that matter) myself but for some reason the systems cannot be purchased or fitted in this country.

The South-East corner of Australia is suffering badly from the huge growth in population, something that most people want to slow down a little to ease the pressure on house prices while us oldies fade out and die.

Still waiting for the paradigm shift in energy sources to kick in

[sthughes]

Crickey what do you drive that uses 22L/100km?!

115L for the return trip brings it down to 13l/100km.

Ooops, never did like maths much

I don't have a Prius either, but they are impressivley economical at 3.7l/100km, as do a handfull of small diesels. I have an Outlander and get between about 9 & 13l/100km depending on the road and the way I choose to drive. Used to be able to do better before I put slightly oversized tyres on. But of course that doesn't include the tonne of cement in the trailer....

Can't wait for a Chevvy Volt style electric hybrid in a practical AWD vehicle so I can do the daily commute on fully electric and then get kick asse fuel economy on longer trips.

[wayno]

prius
the batteries last about twelve years then will cost 15,000 to replace
then theres the toxic minerals in them that need to be disposed of
the electric engines only work at certain speeds so it depends on what sort of driving you do as to how eficient they are
theya re using up rare earth minerals pushing the price of those minerals up. as the minerals become harder to find a greater volume of earth has to be moved to obtain the same amount of minerals.
then theres the argument in nz of the govt wanting to mine for those minerals in our national parks..
the real worth of electric vehicles is highly debateable. to really mass produce them may create a big a problem as theya re trying to solve.

[Moondog55]

Agreed, battery-elecric vehicles are an expensive eco-unfriendly dead end. Hydrogen tho is a very viable alternative, either as a fuel cell or as fuel for an internal combustion engine. You can run almost any old fashioned ICE using hydrogen, the problem is developing a distribution system and shrinking the onboard storage system.
In the short term why not stretch the remaining fossil fuel?/ We have lots of technologies for doing so but we don't use them.
Making vehicles lighter would be a start

[sthughes]

In 12 years I would have done 360,000km so wouldn't care too much about new batteries. Besides I would have saved $14,000 on fuel anyway!
Yep lots of toxic stuff, just bury and forget and all is good. Just like nuclear waste.
I don't care when the electric engines work, the fuel economy is what matters. But for me doing mostly highway work I'd be much better in a diesel. Horses for courses.
Yes rare earths are, well, rare. And mostly Chinese for now, but Western Australia is gonna crank up soon I believe. Oil will be getting rare soon enough, at least in the sense of still being economical to burn it for a 20% energy return. Also rare earths are used in refining petroleum and in existing ICE cars to reduce fuel consumption.
They also want to drill for oil in national parks to feed non-electric cars. Seen what's happening in Canada these days?
Yes mass producing electric cars may cause some big issues. A skip to hydrogen would be better (but with plenty of it's own issues), or a leap forward in battery efficiency and environmental impact would be better still.

Don't worry I'm just playing Devils Advocate I'd take a Golf or even Fiesta Diesel over a Prius personally. I think if some of the new ICE designs work out commercially it may delay the necessary switch to EV/hydrogen (or whatever) for quite a while. Like it or not it appears batteries are gonna play a big part in the short to medium term. Interesting times.

[Moondog55]

Even diesel engines benefit from gas inoculation, actually probably even more than petrol engines and you CAN get diesel-pane kits here, so a medium sized turbocharged diesel-pane engine would be my choice too.
If I could get an LPG inoculation kit for the Ford my fuel consumption would decrease by about 30% and fuel costs would halve and the engine would run cleaner too.

[photohiker]

prius
the batteries last about twelve years then will cost 15,000 to replace
then theres the toxic minerals in them that need to be disposed of
the electric engines only work at certain speeds so it depends on what sort of driving you do as to how eficient they are
theya re using up rare earth minerals pushing the price of those minerals up. as the minerals become harder to find a greater volume of earth has to be moved to obtain the same amount of minerals.
then theres the argument in nz of the govt wanting to mine for those minerals in our national parks..
the real worth of electric vehicles is highly debateable. to really mass produce them may create a big a problem as theya re trying to solve.

Not a fan of the Prius, but on the other hand the numbers quoted are not accurate. Prius battery is pretty small by EV standards, and costs AU$3k

http://news.drive.com.au/drive/motor-ne ... 18h9n.html

Wayno, the electric engines work at all road speeds. The point is that the vehicle needs the petrol motor to run in high load situations because the battery is not big enough to sustain the load for long.

For me, the problem with Hybrids is that they are still fossil fuel cars. Their efficiency is challenged by good small euro diesels any day without the hassle of dealing with the extra complexity. Right now, I think it's either efficient fossil fuel car or EV if you can feed it with electricity from a non fossil-fuel source like PV or wind power.

Rare earth prices are artificially driven up by the country that has the stranglehold on them at the moment: China. Won't last long, there are multiple plants coming on stream in Au and around the world.

And lastly, the problem that electric cars are trying to solve is the reliance on imported fossil fuel and associated carbon emissions. In Australia, it's a bit of cart before the horse because we don't have an adequate renewable energy powered electricity grid yet.

[Moondog55]

Not forgetting we haven't bothered to invest in farmed fuels like sewage generated methane and algae farms to grow petrol

[sthughes]

But irrespective of carbon emissions and other environmental issues EVs are a whole lot cheaper to run right now. However they have extrordinary purchase prices (Mitsubishi iMiev for about $55k anyone?).

Mmmm algae may have a big future. Just a shame things like that don't seem "cool" to most people.

The US government did go into farmed fuels. However they seemed to miss the point a little thinking people were better off burning corn than eating it, and all to retrieve less energey than what went into it!

[Moondog55]

Yeah the WHOLE POINT of farmed fuels is extraction of the maximum amount of both food energy and fuel energy, the Sandinavians seem tco be headed in this direction more quickly than most. London seemed to be headed in the right direction under Boris with multiple small tri-generation plants, buy I think the forward planning has got lost.

[DonQx]

Back to fuel economy.

We've got a '96 Toyota Starlet. Uses a bit less than 6L / 100 km.

Best car we ever bought.

Market value according to redbook.com.au $1,100 - $2,400.

Can carry 2 kayaks, or 2 people with full camping gear & 2 bikes on the back to Canberra & back, or 4 walkers with 4 decent sized backpacks (2 on roof).

Expecting it to last at least another 10 years and 100,000 km.

[Moondog55]

I made a mistake when I gave back to my dad his little 1976 Toyota Corolla station wagon.

[prickle]

................ diesel-pane kits .

Hi Moondog

What is a diesel-pane kit ???

Stuart