Fess up......what have you lost in the bush?

Blood and brains. Yeah, I fell about four metres off an escarpment back in 2002 - can't remember why, amnesia. Serious wrist fracture, sprains, cracked skull. All good now except some wrist pain during seasonal changes or humidity. I think my brain is still ok ...

A 1.5 litre Aluminion Water Bottle on the Mangahou Flats track. A really cool huge pack cover in the Kaimais, to be fair, I found the pack cover in the Whirinaki park 4 weeks earlier. Many many maps. My problem is not what did I loose, but forgot to pack.

Made a gift of a brand new Tikka headlamp to the next person who visited Dundas Hut in the Tararuas last year. Right bang on the bunk... I knew exactly where it was, but by the time I realised I was at Tarn Ridge and it too much of a mission to fetch it.

I lose stuff all the time! Single crampons twice...most of the above mentioned stuff. Forever buying new spoons. However I did a 54 day traverse and lost nothing once... I find quite a few Swiss army knives, pack covers, headlamps and torches and Frank is good at finding Leathermans - 3 so far. The worst thing and the best thing I've lost is the Olympus tent. It got us into using a 1.5kg tarp instead! Sure, I miss the $300 altimeter watch but I'm enjoying the Timex marathon watch I found not long after that!

Sunglasses...one time we met a possumer and were talking about a little overgrown seldom used track. I mentioned how I'd lost my new very expensive sunnies there. He said "I found those". I got them back from him but lost them not long after!

I've lost watches, & various technical instruments like hypsometers or transponders over the years but in every case bar one when a watch was washed down a fast flowing stream I've managed to re find the lost items. Once I lost a wooly hat to bush lawyer but found it on the next trip hanging at eye level in the scrub. I've found plenty of stuff in the bush. Some rich pickings after army exercises & walking the Deception route after the Coast to Coast race. Once up the Mikonui when out hunting I found a good skinning knife next to the remains of a deer carcass. About three years later when hunting in the front country near Hari Hari I met another hunter & we got talking about where we'd been. He described an unusual knife he'd lost when in the Mikonui & I produced the knife that I'd found. It was one and the same! I offered it back to him but he wouldn't take it and I still have that knife.

Good score this trip: found 1)a nice knife which I used to render large lumps of unusable wood into bits that kindled the coal range nicely for the coal. 2)A topomap of the area we were in. I kept that as I've lost quite a few maps in my time. 3)A $2 coin found while sweeping out a hut and 4)a tiny screwdriver which Frank used a couple of days later when his glasses fell apart. I guess the loaf of Pam's white bread which was 3 days past it's best by date might count. It came in handy as we were held up an extra day by rain. No sign of mould...scary!

Now that we are on to finding things, I can tell you a little secret. If you are on the Tongariro Crossing after you come up from the Mangatepopo and cross South Crater there is a ridge that climbs up to Red Crater. This is where the wind often first hits trampers doing the crossing. It is well worth a trip down the eastern side of this ridge as it is full of gear. You will find pack covers, hats, jackets, all sorts of things. I believe DOC call it "second hand gear gully" or something like that.

I lost a brand new $125 polarising filter on Mitre Peak last weekend. I mostly lose polarising filters and lens caps. Lens caps I understand -- bump them and they fall off -- but filters have to be unscrewed so I don't know how I keep losing them. Left my new headlight in a hut one time and rushed out and bought the same one again so it's like it never happened. And yes, I try to carry out rubbish I find when I can, particularly to compensate for all the lens caps I litter.

pmcke....Re the Tongariro Crossing.....now you tell me! Did the Northern Circuit last week. The hut warden at Oturere found a bright yellow golf ball (kid you not)on the eastern side of the ridge earlier that day. He was puzzled who would take a golf ball up there...Am sure there is a story there but not sure what it is....