Backpack essentials
By
Petro Gouws
1. Cold milk
I pour fresh, cold milk into a 500ml Coke bottle and carry it in a thick sock that I store in the bottom of my rucksack. At campsites I hang it in a tree. The milk will stay cool for three to four days, even if the weather’s warm.
2. A homemade Dirkie
Condensed milk in a screw-top bottle is also great. Condensed milk tea tastes wonderful and it’s also very nice with coffee. It’ll also keep very well.
3. A Coke hot-water bottle
Another Coke bottle (don’t use a different kind; the plastic is too soft) can serve to keep you warm. Fill it with boiling water and again wrap it in a thick stocking. It keeps me nice and warm in my sleeping bag when it’s chilly outside.
4. Real butter
We take along a brick of real butter. On the Naukluft hike it lasted eight days. Even Butro melts when it gets too warm. Butter gives flavour to any food.
5. Wide-range antibiotics
I always take this with me on a hike. It has kept many of my walking partners out of serious trouble when we were far from help. A wound that eventually needed six stitches had no infection after four days, even though we needed to cross more than 20 rivers on the way.
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