New Tramper, looking for gear list?

I've found Chinese made compasses tend to point to the Mao ;-)

Gotcha, looks like those compasses are around $40 on trademe, tomorrow when I wake up I'll see if any of the stores carry the same ones for cheaper. Cya tomorrow guys :)

If you're looking at Silva compasses, I reckon the Silva Field is a good bet for tramping, especially if you're not sure what you want. I have several. Just beware as covered earlier that if you get a parallel import then it might be weighted badly for use in NZ, but I've never heard of anyone actually having this problem. The Silva Ranger also seems to be stocked by many retailers for a similar market, which is slightly larger and has a magnifying glass, which I guess is intended to be used with maps. Beyond that there are sighting compasses (with the mirrors), which I suppose some people use but I've never seen anyone using them. Personally I've never found a need for the extra, so for me anything beyond a simple needle on a baseplate is just extra size and weight which I'm happy to avoid. Another advantage with a simple baseplate compass, with a rectangle shape, is that it's much easier to line up on a map with a bearing.

I've had a Silva Ranger for more years than I can remember and has always done the job. As a general observation from a personal point of view (so you can take this as you want!). I wouldn't go nuts on gear from the start. I've really enjoyed upgrading my gear over the years and noticing the difference each upgrade can make as my gear becomes lighter, more comfortable and more specialised to certain situations. I don't know if I would have had the same fun if I'd just gone out and bought great gear right from the start!

oh I'm definitely not going nuts, I actually haven't bought anything for a while, other than the boots. I'm a sit and think kinda guy. I'll browse around, a lot, first. Ask opinions etc, I'll go as cheap as I can with out sacrificing necessary quality. *Edit* the one on trademe is a Field Silva for $40, just going to wait for a couple local companies to get back to me first to see if they can do it cheaper. Ok new question lol. After having a look around, I can't actually find anywhere that will teach you have to read a map and navigate in the bush. Should I just try to learn online or? I presume I know the basics, but I don't want to presume anything, really.

"I can't actually find anywhere that will teach you have to read a map and navigate in the bush." Have a look at this: http://www.fmc.org.nz/sales/safetyinthemountains/ Only $10 + shipping Better still, if you join a tramping club that is affiliated to FMC you will get automatic membership to FMC via that club and be eligible for discounts on gear, DOC hut passes, travel, etc. Plus their quarterly FMC Bulletin, which is always interesting reading. And you get a free copy of Safety in the Mountains as part of FMC membership. Many clubs run bushcraft training courses once a year at reasonable cost, a mixture of theory (lectures) and practice (in the great outdoors), run by club member volunteers with good knowledge and experience. And you will learn some practical tips and techniques from experienced club members at any time of year on club trips. Relevant topics and exercises: off-track navigation, gear to take for various conditions, river crossing, snow travel gear and techniques (for trans-alpine tramping and/or climbing trips), shelters and bivouacs, fire-lighting, first-aid, etc. There is also, as you suggest, a wealth of information on the internet, but take it with a grain of salt, especially if it is not written with NZ conditions in mind.

Yeah my bad I should have been more clear. I meant local services, I learn so much better in person when I can see, feel, talk, and ask questions.

As mentioned by Antico, a tramping club would be a good place to start then or you could visit your local DOC office for some pointers. Could also try one of the outdoor retailers. This will depend very much on the individual you talk to, however. Some can be very knowledgeable, others not so much, and some will be more helpful with providing information and tips than others. It also never hurts if you do actually purchase some gear there and without trying to drag every price down to the rock bottom amount you found on a parrell-importing or overseas website. (No offence intended by that but I used to work in an outdoor retail store and got a little sick of spending a lot of time and effort helping customers out with gear and information only for them to wander off and buy it online.)

Yeah there is a local store here that is getting stock of the silva on Monday, it's $7 more than on trademe, but I know it's coming from a reputable source and hey it's local right? Rebels also had a special on today so I picked up a 60x120 micro-fibre towel for $15 too, bit by bit I'll keep adding things. Start doing local say trips until I'm ready for something a bit more adventurous, this summer might start shaping up to be a good one.

Hi @Murdoch. "After having a look around, I can't actually find anywhere that will teach you have to read a map and navigate in the bush. Should I just try to learn online or? I presume I know the basics, but I don't want to presume anything, really." It really depends on what you're wanting to learn and do with it, I think. Some people can't even use a compass at all, which is their choice and fine. I think the more important thing is to remain within the limits of your ability, and that might not involve much or any compass use early on anyway. It's easy enough to learn how to get a direction from a compass by reading an instruction leaflet that might come with the compass, and from that it might be possible to orient a map. Maybe that's all you want, but that's only a small subset of how a compass can be used, and how a map can be used for that matter. Both of these are also only a subset of navigation as a whole, which in a fuller form is an entire mindset of keeping complete track of the environment around you as you move through it, blah blah blah. Tramping clubs are good if you can find one you fit with, and if the club has a culture that involves good navigation, but it's still useful to observe and question as diverse-a-group of people as possible. Otherwise it's easy to just pick up bad habits from people who might never have realised they were doing something badly. Sometimes entire clubs can be silo'd in their ways, depending on how they operate. For a course I'd have suggested a Mountain Safety Council bushcraft course, but they stopped their course programme recently. A possible alternative, though, might be to flick an email to Outdoor Training New Zealand, and find out if they have any specific plans to run a relevant course near you in future. OTNZ is still getting off the ground, after inheriting a heap of qualified volunteer instructors that the MSC threw out when it decided to go a different direction. http://www.outdoortraining.nz/ There'd be a heap of books out there. The only one I've bothered to read myself is the Collins Ultimate Navigation Manual by Lyle Brotherton, which I found on some excellent recommendations. It's an excellent consolidation of all the different techniques and skills involved both in compass use and anything else to do with micro-navigation (that's what he calls it.) .. so it wouldn't make you a brilliant navigator automatically by reading it (despite claims of the author) but it'd give you a great grounding of just how much stuff you can try and experiment with. If you can't find it in a library, I bought it from Amazon but I'm not sure if it's still in print. There's an eBook version but there's heavy colour and graphic content so only bother if you have reader that'd support that. I reviewed it at http://www.windy.gen.nz/index.php/archives/3240 With that book I'd ignore his learn-by-yourself course plan and also most of the GPS stuff, though. Not because it's not important so much as because I thought he got far too detailed and instructive about the specific methods with his own specific device. Enjoy.