Food and wildlife

[sweetade]

I'd like to know how seriously to take the risk of animals raiding my food on the OLT. Usually I'd just keep it in my pack inside my tent (I do not plan to sleep in huts). Do I really have to hang it up in a dry bag?
Also if leaving the pack on the track I believe there can be problems with birds accessing food - what do people advise about this?

[Nuts]

Take all precautions, sounds like the critters are in a frenzy this year. Not in the lid, no wrappers in jacket pockets, not near the top or sides, every morsel or remnant deep inside and crumb accounted for.

[sweetade]

Take all precautions, sounds like the critters are in a frenzy this year. Not in the lid, no wrappers in jacket pockets, not near the top or sides, every morsel or remnant deep inside and crumb accounted for.

Thanks for the heads up. But would you mind clarifying... are you talking about how to store food in a pack inside a tent? ... or are you talking about leaving your pack on the track?
Will it be OK to store food "deep" inside a pack inside a tent?

[Nuts]

Either. The main culprit at campsites will be the possums. They will prowl around your tent perimeter and have a go at things close to the outside/ tent body chewing tent and food source all at once or ripping a hole to get to food (or even food wrappers) stored eg. inside the pack but close to the outside of the pack and tent perimeter or in a coat pocket laid along the inner perimeter, here's a couple of samples from this summer:

Screen Shot 2017-01-10 at 7.18.48 PM.png (426.03 KiB) Viewed 11434 times

(those also included damage mentioned above, as well as the tent damage. A chewed pack lid and a rain coat pocket with a choc bar wrapper).

If the food is deep inside your pack and or well away from the tent perimeter they'll generally consider it too difficult.
You can store your pack outside but again food well away from pack outer or lid. You can store food bags in the huts..

Keeping a clean camp helps too, try not to spill anything while cooking.

At the popular side track turnoffs it's mainly Currawongs or Ravens, they will search the pack lid pockets opening zips etc and beak their way into the stuff stored near the top of the main pack looking for food, even pulling at cordlocks if they see something of interest. In a separate bag, deep inside the pack is also best here.

[sweetade]

This all sounds rather daunting.
I'm not quite clear what I'm looking at in the photo, but whatever it is sure isn't pretty.
Are there any problems with storing food in the huts? If not, that might be the best solution.

[Nuts]

Haha, I thought you may say that, hard to relate 'thinking like a hungry possum'. I find it much easier in person.
The picture is of a inner tent, at possum height, near where the tent side/mesh meets the floor.
The huts aren't far from the designated campsites and its fine to store food in there (just put it in a fabric bag rather than loose food items, leave it on a bench)

[sweetade]

The hut option sounds like the way to go, then. I certainly don't want to risk my brand new tent being eaten. Let alone losing my food supply ...
Sorry to be pedantic, but why do you suggest a cloth bag in particular for storing food in the huts? Why not plastic?

[Nuts]

Probably as much a carry over from the days critters roamed around inside the huts but also so as make your food supply discrete.

[sweetade]

I don't quite understand why a fabric bag would be more secure from critters than a tent.
Are you also saying there are no critters in the huts nowadays?

[Nuts]

There are no critters in the huts these days (unless someone leaves a door open) (and no, theft of food is extremely rare).
In a tent, they generally won't bother unless food is very close to the sides.
In the huts they would usually have had a lot of easier choices than chewing into a fabric bag.

[Mark F]

Always hang my food or have it in the tent (not in the vestibule). I keep my food in a cuben fibre bag made with the 1.4oz material. I haven't had any problems with animals but that may be luck. I expect the strength of the cuben should fend off most critters but would like to see what happens with the sharp beaks of currawongs. I expect they will pierce the fabric but not be able to expand the resulting hole.

[Nuts]

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