Review: Survival Storehouse Tactical Tin

Survival Storehouse kindly sent me one of their Tactical Tins recently and i'm pleased to present you with my review of it now. 

The tin itself is a standard 200 rnd .30 cal / 7.62 ammunition can, brand new and stickered with the BDH manufacturers ingredients and nutritional facts details. I love ammo cans; robust, resilient and ergonomic, lending themselves to stacking and packing. They also feature a rubber gasket on the removable, latch locking lid for an air and watertight seal. This means from the get-go you have a  sealed, crush-proof and portable storage for your food. The added weight of a steel can is mitigated by its utility and reliability. 

Inside the can are 12 individually packaged high density food bars. I've covered these before here and the ones included in the Tactical Tin are identical, produced by the same manufacturer in China, but the ones included in this Tin were manufactured in August 2024, with a 20 year expiry, good out till 2044! 

The vacuum sealed Mylar sachets each contain 4 individually plastic wrapped biscuits, each block of four weighs 200g (7 oz)  and each 100 g ( two bars) contains 2000 Kilojoules or approx 300 calories. (2000 calories / day is USFDA recommended)

Ingredients: wheat flour, palm oil, sugar, glucose syrup, water, salt, food additives, baking soda, edible essence. This is the standard flavor, but they also come in chocolate or peanut butter varieties. Which I haven't yet had a chance to try. 

I find them very tasty and keep a couple in my car, in my day to day get-home bag and even at my desk at work. Great for a pick me up snack or a "forgot breakfast". 

With up to 20 year shelf life from manufacture date if stored in a dry cool place. These are a reliable and long term food supply, packed with energy and vitamin enriched. Shipped from Survival Storehouse's warehouse in Australia. The combination of the bomb-proof ammo-tin and the super dense food bars makes the Tactical Tin an ideal first stop in any prepping adventure. Perfect for back of the closet, car trunk or bunker load-out!

Review: Great Outdoors Silver Grande 9L tent

Having an ultralight bivy tent is all good and well for a bit of  a solo over-nighter off the trail when ounces mean pounds, but there is also a time and a place for a big tent that will fit the whole family, and gear. Sometimes you need to go big, and one such biggness is the Great Outdoors Silver Grande 9L a four room, 9 person tent.We jokingly refer to this beast as the Tent Mahal. All told this huge tent weighs 29.7Kg (65.5 lbs) so its definitely more suited to back yard or drive-in camp sites, though i have carted it in to a couple of sites in a trolley and/or hand wagon. 

This rather palatial tent with measures 6.4m (21') in overall length (2.1 x 2.2 x 2.1) and 3m (10') wide in the middle, 2.15m at the end rooms. The front room adds another 2.1m to the width to a total of 4.3m (14'). The side rooms are a little bit shorter than the main central room, which tops out at a very respectable 2m15m (7') tall enough for me to stand and stretch in nay room, quite a luxury. Each room has a door out wide zippering allows for good clearance around the bathtub bottom of the tent. The three off-rooms all open onto the central room with a low-trip edge of similar width as the external doors for ease of access. 

The internal doors are made of the same lightweight and breathable fabric as the inner walls of the tent, and self-stow in fabric pockets beside each door.  Each outside door features a flyscreen outer, with the opaque option as an in-set. these all wrap up with their self-storing toggle and loop attachments. The interior is really very spacious and airy. The walls are at a high angle, so you maximize the available space, which is often lost in lower dome tents. The internal walls are all a very light, breathable material, and well fitted. 

Each of the off-rooms have window panels on the sides which can be rolled up to add airflow and views. Structure is provided by two sets of colour coded fiber-glass poles, and each is designed to slot into sleeves built into the inner shell, and mount on captive pegs attached to split rings, attached to the base, in the corners of the main room. These also have clip-on stays to keep the inner walls taut. The off-rooms each have a similar system, forming an arch over the external doorway. Plenty of peg-loops around the edges provides for a well pegged-down base. 

Each room features clips in the corners to suspend a light or string a clothes line to air out what have you. The main room has two "window" panels in the roof and the fly has two clear PVC panels corresponding for light and ventilation. The windows throughout make for a very well lit and comfortable home away from home. 

The main room has two zippered ports in the bathtub floor wall to feed power or other cables in without exposing yourself to too many bugs and critters. Perfect if you have a powered site, a generator or the like. You might even feed an LPG hose to a cooker if in-tent cooking was your thing, though I wouldn't recommend it myself. There are also two sets of four mesh pocket sewn into the main room walls for all manner of small items; phones, sunglasses, tissues, spare socks, gloves, caps. This little touch helps organize personal effects that might otherwise vanish until pack-up time. (I once "lost" a wallet, went as far as cancelling all my cards only to find it under the tent when we packed up). The fly is silvered on the inside which adds significant protection from the sun, and radiant heat, and as previously mentioned has clear PVC panels matching the windows on the sides and top of the inner layer. 

The zippers are set under a lip for rain shedding and have a reflective cord loop for easy pulling at night. Numerous guy-lines are built in to strategic locations and the ground- reaching corners feature a heavy-duty shock-cord loops for pegging it down. The "front door" has a door-matt built in, perfect for keeping muddy feet out of your nice clean tent. The fly features a pop-out pavilion with two poles to form an annex that is billed as being able to join up with the back-cabin of a truck or van, for even more enclosed space, though i haven't had the ability to try that out. I have managed to set the whole thing up on my own, under good conditions, but it's easier with help. I have set the fly up the wrong way around several times, prompting me to write on the corners of the fly and tent ("tab A, slot B" type notes for next time I set it up. The tent nominally fits in a light nylon carry bag, with carry and drag straps, and a wheeled base, but I have had great trouble re-packing it every time. 

After use, I like to lay the fly out to dry, ( and the inner, too,inverted if possible) if space and time allows to have it dry for pack-down. In summary this is a great tent, spacious, roomy and airy, but its very large and heavy. With all the pegs in place, and well guy-lined down, the chain-of-domes structure is very stable in even quite high winds, and in the light rains I've had it up in we've had no leakage or seepage problems. Given its capacity, it could even do as a short to medium term bug-out home, once a suitable location has been scouted, whilst more permanent habitations are established. This was a second hand gift from a festival going friend of ours, and i probably wouldn't have bought one as large on my own. Looks like its no longer on the market, but if you have the need for a big tent, something like this would suit you well.

Home Front: Big Dumb Blocks

As first seen on Breach Bang & Clear: Big Dumb Blocks

Following the recent mass-casualty vehicle attacks in Charlottesville and New York City, I'm prompted to finish a piece I've been working on related to these tragic and horrific incidents.

Back in January 2017, a dude out on parole thought he'd dodge a police pursuit by driving through a crowded pedestrian mall in Melbourne on a Friday afternoon during school holidays. Within the thronging crowd, 35 were injured — two critically — and by the end of the rampage, four people (including ten-year-old Thalia Hakin, 22-year old Jess Mudie, 33-year old Matthew Si, and an unidentified 25-year old man) died on the scene.

Five-month-old Zachary Bryant later died in hospital, while his two-year-old sister survived her injuries. Ten days after the attack, 33-year-old Bhavita Patel died in hospital.

Police officers rammed the car and the driver was shot in the arm before being arrested. He was charged with six counts of murder and 28 counts of attempted murder.

Read the full article here on Breach Bang & Clear

Home Front: storm's a commin'

I'm really proud of this post, which I'd delayed publishing for logistical reasons, but found out had been picked up by 5.11 TACTICAL, as a "Breach-Bang-Clear Senior Staff Contributor" , which I am doubly proud of! So, without further ado, here's my take on being ready to be smacked with several mega-storms one after another.

Recent meteorological events in my old hometown of Houston, and the subsequent humanitarian concerns that came with the destructive flooding being experienced in the lowlands of Houston, have all gotten me thinking. Irma GERD is hitting Florida and the Caribbean, and... Well piloted, Captain, Delta DL302!



I've had the good fortune never to have had to evacuate an area, though my family's rapid departure from Dubai on December 31, 1990, some three weeks before one of the grandest fireworks shows in history happened just over the horizon in Iraq, was close. I've also had the need to be ready to go, when I lived in the forested Dandinong ranges following the black Saturday fires of 2012. However, frequent moves and travel while growing up equipped me with a certain mindset. Pack light, take only what you can carry, and carefully choose what valuables you really need. When things took a turn for the worse for me emotionally at the end of my marriage, I packed bags, loaded essentials in my car and was out of there that same evening. Better for everyone in the end. I was lucky that some good friends of mine had a spare room and the open hearts to let me crash with them for a couple of months so I could get my life in order. I'm deeply indebted to the Moffits and will be for some time.

I'd hope that if I lived in a disaster-prone area I'd be ready whenever hurricane, cyclone, tornado or volcano season rolled around, and not only would I have a bugout destination but also a route and plan. However, nature gives not one damn for me or my plans, nor (I suspect) for yours. It's up to you and me to rescue ourselves.



The Houston floods have shown that freak events can essentially turn a modern metropolitan city off, and reduce it to third world status. Without wanting to go into the politics of civil engineering and infrastructure shortfalls, I think it's fair to say that while some of what was happened in Houston or New Orleans could have been mitigated, nature will find a way. So what can we do about it? I think the answer to that is threefold:



1) Threat assessments;
2) Risk mitigation & planning; and
3) Practice.

1) Threat assessment.

Where I live several state and federal agencies exist to deal with this kind of thing. The SES (State Emergency Service) and CFA (Country Fire Authority) have great resources available to determine whether certain areas are at risk from fire or flooding, and can deal with those threats. Victoria has occasional very mild earthquakes, nothing to brag about. We do occasionally get heavy storms pushing up from the Antarctic but again, pretty mild compared to the North Sea gales or Atlantic hurricanes. We're well too far south for any tropical action, unlike our Queensland bretheren. We do get some big winds and heavy rains occasionally though, so in the Hills (to call the Dandinong ranges mountains is generous) power is often cut due to tree-falls. A caved-in roof during a winter storm is never a good thing, nor are washed out roads. In the lowlands that water has to go somewhere, and we are pretty lucky in that current and former governments have maintained infrastructure to deal with it. However. Knowing is the first step.

Melbourne Water is proposing to update existing planning controls for land in Bayside that's susceptible to flooding. The controls, called the Special Building Overlay (SBO) and Land Subject to Inundation Overlay (LSIO), aim to ensure that land covered by the overlays is developed in a way which reduces the potential for flooding and minimises the risk of flood damage to property. Since the planning controls were introduced in the early 2000s, Melbourne Water has developed better mapping and more accurate flood modeling. As a result, the SBO boundaries are being updated and the LSIO removed from the Bayside Planning Scheme.

The changes to the boundaries of the SBO mean that some properties will be within the overlay boundaries for the first time, some properties will no longer be covered, and other partially-included properties may have more or less of their land covered by the overlay.



For properties within the SBO boundaries, a planning permit is required to construct a building, carry out works and subdivide land. This enables drainage and flooding issues to be addressed early in the development process by, for example, raising building floor levels. It also ensures that flood waters are not obstructed or diverted by new development, causing an increased problem for existing development.



2) Risk mitigation & planning.

What are my big threats to house, home and family? Well, my ex-wife and our 9-year old daughter live in the Dandinongs, in the midst of very tall trees in the temperate rainforest. There is a summertime fire risk mitigated by maintenance of the grounds to remove deadfall and reduce fuel sources, plus they have an evacuation plan and use the CFA fire-risk scale system as a guide and routinely "get off the mountain" in times of high risk. In winter they face storms and damage from runoff. Frequent power outages are a hassle, especially as the water to the house is via an electric pump from a rainwater tank. Landslides are a potential risk but more substantial is the risk of a tree falling on the house. Aggressive tree felling is not much of a solution given the local ordinances. When I collect and return our daughter, I'm mindful of the risk of roads being cut by treefall and associated downed power lines or washed out roads, but day to day it's not much of an issue. In the case of my own home, having checked the floodplain maps of the Melbourne Water Board, I can see we're just outside a predicted 100-year flood area. One end of our street is not though, so I'm going to err on the side of "Yep, we'd flood."

Where I live is fairly suburban so I don't have to worry about bushfires come summer, but we're not far from the beach, just above sea level, so a hefty storm surge could potentially reach us. I don't worry about a tidal wave as the Port Phillip Bay is shallow and protects us from the Bass Straight, so anything big enough to cause a tsunami would bring its own special dooms. Knowing that, if a big flood event was coming, or even imminent, our best bet would be to pack up and bug out. The house, being old and rickety, couldn't be trusted to withstand even a knee-deep flood, let alone the hip, head or street sign deep waters as in Houston.



The question then becomes "what to pack?" Assuming the house would be a write off and most of our possessions would get trashed it might be tempting to try to take everything, but that's just impractical. A moving van would be needed and would take a day or two to load up anyway. Alternately, in a "do it NOW" situation, the decisions become easier. Only the most valuable and irreplaceable things would go, as well as things needed to get us through the disaster. Photo albums, back-up HDD's and some heirloom antiques are a good start, along with some important legal documents: deeds, birth certificates, divorce papers and the like. Clothes and day to day essentials like toiletries and medications are no different from any vacation packing and need to be weather appropriate. We'd be bugging out in my Toyota RAV4, not much of a bug-out vehicle but comfortable even crammed full of family and gear when we go on our camping holidays, so we have an idea how to pack it. This brings me to one of my bug-out or camping packing tricks.



Tactical Milk Crates. These seemingly ubiquitous, stackable, skletonised plastic boxes, designed to carry sixteen 2L jugs of milk, are often repurposed as student household furniture and storage. The modularity of these makes them good for packing anything small enough to fit. They'll hold 42 regular 420g-sized cans. That makes for 17kg of beans and diced tomato, in one big water-insoluble brick. That's a lot of meals. Two people could carry it fairly easily between them.


I also pack my camping gear in them: hammocks, lanterns, propane store and fuel canisters, pots and even pans. I have one for sleeping bags, one for power generation technology and one for "household" camp-accessories. Coupling this with our big-assed tent and camp bed, I'd say I could bug out in relative style with my whole family using about six milk crates of gear. The boot of my car can fit none to twelve crates with relative ease, so that leaves us with, let's say, three to six crates worth of refugee loot we can pack and go with, less if we pack extra food and water .



Given those numbers, each member of our four-person family gets about one crate of space as their allowance. Extra space can get stuffed full of blankets and jackets, filling all those gaps and pockets with padding and the like. One thing to note is that milk crates, being skeletonised, are not even remotely waterproof. Lining them or wrapping them with heavy duty trashbags should do the trick, and includes some trashbags in your gear by default.



As an addition to our bugout plan for floods, we have my two-person kayak. Having a non-wading means to cross waterways is key. We have maritime-rated flotation vests for everyone in the family, especially the kids, plus helmets, be they bump or bike helmets (remember: expanded foam floats). Rope and climbing harnesses don't go astray either, and I figure I have enough rigging gear to set up a rope bridge over any river narrow enough to sling one across. Take a page from the SES floodwater guidelines: "Never drive ride or walk through floodwater - if it's flooded, forget it."

Have a go-to destination in mind, maybe more than one, and plan out different routes, in case of traffic snarls, cut roads or bridges or obstacles to your egress. Keep your vehicle fueled and fit for travel. Stock up on packable food. A couple of bricks of cans at your local big-box produce store per trip will put you in good stead.

Bear in mind that in most cases the milk crates yo use stacked behind a grocery store are not abandoned but remain the property of the milk company. That's why I suggest them as as evacuation expedient solution. Should the situation arise getting it done is key. There are commercial options for packing gear, look into those if your budget allows.

http://modernfarmer.com/2013/08/illegal-use-milk-crates-anything-besides-milk/

3. Practice

Evacuations are not easy things; they're panicked, rushed and anxious times. Much like in combat, fine motor skills will be affected, rational thought will be interfered with. Kids will cry. Things will be left behind. Organize your bug-out kit early and have it sorted and ready to go. The more you can do early, the better off you'll be under the pressure of "time to go!" Remember, it's going to be harder if it's night, or storming and wet, more so again if the water is already at your ankles or the embers are falling.



There's no harm in doing dry runs either, especially if you can get the whole household in on it. Packing for a camping trip is a great opportunity to do so, with the payoff of the trip itself and "let's get on the way quickly" as incentive. This needn't be a "duck and cover" air-raid drill with stopwatch and sirens but instead some trial runs, from a dead stop to a "half the gear is already packed." I'll let you gauge how long it will realistically take you to be on your way, with the barest of essentials from when you decide that your position is no longer tenable and it's time to make a move. Make tasty meals from your stashed bug-out meal ingredients to get a handle on what you can do to keep morale up whilst on the go.

Lastly, have plan for your pets. Take them with you, or set them free to fend for themselves, whatever your conscience allows.



Be safe out there, and be prepared.

Review: StatGear - SuperVizor rescue hook

I have a collection of rescue hooks, from my EDC Benchmade Figure 5 that sits in my pocket along with my CRKT Eat'n'Tool along with my bigger Gerber model which lives on my webbing, and my dear-departed Benchmade 8Med and Gerber cutters. I've been fortunate not to have to use any of them in a crisis, but I've found great utility in having them for cord, strap and packaging cutting.

The SuperVisor Kickstarter took a familiar concept, and found a particular aspect to improve. The SuperVizor is pitched as an auto-escape tool and was designed by a Avi Goldstein, a NY-City Paramedic who has cut his teeth with several Kickstarter projects now.

It has a sleek, minimalist design which includes a 440 stainless steel seatbelt cutting blade and a tungsten carbide tip window punch at the tip. Having a dedicated window punch was a rally nice addition, especially when considering the likelihood of needing to break glass in similar situations you'd need a seatbelt cutter.

The hook has a molded nylon finger grip for the index and middle fingers and a little tab on the outside for the ring finger to lay on for extra stability and leverage The back of the hook has crenelations for thumb positioning and grip. The blade was wide enough to take bunched seatbelt webbing without an issue, but not so wide as to be a safety worry.

The real innovation, other than the glass-punch is that as part of the set, it includes a nylon sheath with an elastic strap, with hook-and-loop closure to keep the SuperVizor attached to the sun visor of your car.

I have a Zulu Nylon Gear MOLLE visor so if I wanted I could (and have in past) mounted a rescue hook directly to the MOLLE, but in this instance, and in most people's PALS/MOLLEless car interiors, you can securely affix the SuperVizor to the sun visor and have this tool at your fingertips to extract yourself, and your loved ones, in the event of a crash or off-the-road misadventure. The sheath has a small retention tab to hold the hook in place, and secures very firmly to my visor, I've not had any concern wit hit falling out, or shifting in my peripheral vision, even over some pretty poor roads.

There is a current Kickstarter going on, for the same set up, but with an expanded range of colours, so if you're keen, look them up here.

Movie Review: Mad Max: Fury Road

On our way in the BattleWagon to see Fury Road at the Drive-In

 As first seen on BreachBangClear (they've gotten a lot of content from me recently, yay)

I've been pondering what, if anything to write about this movie. I grew up mostly overseas, away from my native Australia. When Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome came out in 1985, I was 9 and living in the UK, about to move back to Australia for the second time. Being a 8-9 yo Australian ex-pat in the UK at the time I had this, the 1981 Galipoli movie, and pre-Crocodile Dundee Paul Hogan as my cultural identifiers. The Mad Max movies were rather seminal in my appreciation of what it meant to be Australian (read into that what you will), my views on prepping, survival and self-reliance. So, as you might imagine, I had high hopes, and expectations for the new movie.

I'm not so much going to critique its story or plotlines (which I enjoyed), its cinematography (amazing) or even the sets, props and setting (tremendous) although I will touch on them all. Instead, I'm going to write about the -cultures- portrayed. Hopefully, that will pretty much leave you with a spoiler-free review, rich with material to consider.

It's good to be part of the Gang

The World: The opening introduction sets the scene for the movie, and the setting. Oil Wars, then Water Wars as resources literally dried up, and were lost, first by the wars themselves, which escalated to nuclear exchanges, then the environmental disasters that followed. Fallout is not explicitly mentioned, but I'll get to that when it comes to the people.
Civilization - All regulated civilization, recognizable national governments and services are long gone by the time the movie begins. Cities are emptied and abandoned, roads and infrastructure are gone. Manufacturing is all but gone, salvage and recycling are the golden rules for materiel.
Weather - With the loss of potable and agricultural water, which appears to be a widespread and catastrophic, we see vast deserts and dust-bowl type conditions. Vast storm fronts roll over the land, with sufficient force to destroy medium sized vehicles outright, and with enough frequency that travelers have masks and goggles handy and use them with casual efficiency that tells of lots of practice.
Water - Water is almost, if not more a valuable resource in this world as fuel, much in the way that it is represented in Thunderdome, (and Tank Girl). It is the basis of the major antagonist's (Immortan Joe) power, and is used to great effect by the gratuitous display of turning it on and off for his followers.
Food - As I often say, where there is water, there is life. Where there is no water, there is no life. With no arable land and no water, where does the food come from? They grow it, very, very carefully and securely. This brings us to the Factions.


The Factions:

Swiped from Village Roadshow

The Citadel - Immortan Joe's Citadel is based around what appears to be the remnants of a aquifer pumping station. They have vast reserves of water, literally to tap, and we get a good look at the layout of their stronghold. High, virtually unassailable mesa honey-combed with tunnels and caverns, including hydroponic farms, controlled environment vaults and enough space to house an army. They have water, food and manpower. Throngs of peasants live outside the Citadel, dependent on the water and food provided, and also opportunities to improve their station in life. Soldiers, workers, breeders and "milkers". (yep, be on the look out for the hu-cows), and "Mothers-Milk" references. Without water and food, there are no people.
Guzzoline Town - Source of fuel for triumvirate of power, they produce the guzzoline (read petrol/gasoline) guzzled by all the various bikes, cars, trucks and rigs in the movie. They do trade with the other two major Factions with their valuable commodity, and presumably, have to import everything else. Without fuel, you can't move anything across this wasteland. You can't mobilize your armies, warbands or scouts.

Swiped from Village Roadshow

Producing fuel takes skill, and resources to produce, so their power base is secure and essential for all three Factions.
Bullet Farm- We don't see much about Bullet Farm, but from what we do see, and the name, we can assume that they are a weapons and munitions manufacturing facility. In the wasteland, we see that ammunition is precious, and not always reliable. Having a manufacturing base lets you arm your army, so the have a solid power-base as well, but are ultimately dependent on both the Citadel for food and water, and Guzzoline Town for fuel and transport. They can certainly arm and front a mighty force, but without fuel of food, they wouldn't be able to function. Nor could The Citadel or Guzzoline Town protect their interests without Bullet Town's bullets.
Raiders - Bands of scavengers, unaffiliated with any of the three Factions still roam the wasteland, preying on the convoys, picking off stragglers and no doubt raiding the three Factions from time to time. Highly mobile, poorly equipped and desperate They probably represent the most regular threats to the Factions or others in the Wilderness.
Loners - This is where Max falls. He's on his own, doing his own thing, surviving just for himself, and by himself. He is outside of civilisation, such as it is, and wants nothing more than to be alone. Who knows how many loners still exist out in the world, but odds are, they're few in number, given the hardship they face.

Swiped from Village Roadshow

Classes:

Swiped from Village Roadshow

Faction Head - The Triumvirate are lead in turn by Immortan Joe, The People Eater and The Bullet Farmer. They rule their own domains, and only by their truce, and personal history is their world held together. Immortan Joe has founded his own Valhalla cult to perpetuate his power, as well as Joe's own personal drive to keep a pure and un-fallout contaminated bloodline going, with his Wives.
Imperator - These are the commanders of the Factions, who are charged with overseeing operations and trusted with both secrets and access. They get the best equipment, vehicles and even cybernetic / prosthetic repairs.
Wives - Joe's prized breeding stock, and presumably parents (in some iteration) to some of the other members of Joe's Faction, (at least Rictus Erectus), they may also represent a breeding program to repopulate the world, or at least Immortan Joe's little part of it with mutation free offspring.

Swiped from Village Roadshow

WarBoyz / WarDogs - Joe has filled his Citadel with his followers the WarBoys who follow the Cult of the V8 (look for the clasped hands in prayer with eight fingers up) with their sacred wheel icons and brands), They also get called the Half-Life boys (probably due to radiations sickness) who are motivated by wanting to gain access to Valhalla by performing well, and dying in glory for Joe. They are all shaved-headed (or bald) and white-washed. Strange cultish behavior (like spraying their mouths with chrome paint to be "Shiny and Chrome" and calling for witnesses when they enact their final brave acts will the catch call of "Witness Me!" to ensure they get clear entry into Valhalla. Not bad for a loyal army of disposable soldiers.
WarPups - The Citadel is filled with too-young-to-fight kids done up like the WarBoys, doing tasks around the Citadel. They serve, earn their places and hope to eventually be promoted to WarBoy status.
Mechanics - The makers, repairers and resurrection artists of old and broken technology. Called "black-thumbs" they are a valuable and needed part of the community, and even other
The great unwashed - The peasants that live around the Citadel (and other Faction Towns) who try to gain entry, curry favour, beg for food and generally be pathetic hangers-on and potential workforce for the Factions. They also represent a breeding pool, and source of more specific resources (Mothers Milk, for one)

Swiped from Village Roadshow

BloodBags - This is one of the interesting aspects in Fury Road. Because the WarBoys/ HalfLife Boys are apparently chronically radiation poisoned, and suffer from what appears to be leukemia, they capture and harvest donors, to rejuvenate and refresh the ailing HalfLife boys. Early on, Max is found to be a universal donor marking him as a very valuable commodity, even given his savage reactions.

Gear:
The kit - Salvaged and many-times repaired is the order of the day. Nothing new, fresh or in fact "Shiny and Chrome" except for a very few precious items. Given the desire to reach Valhalla, the WarBoys forsake almost any kind of protective gear, other than masks and goggles, to ensure they are effective, capable and impressive to gain entry, and Joe's approval. Imperator Furiosa sports a prosthetic arm, and both Immortan Joe and his son, Rictus, sport lavish air-filtration systems, to keep them contaminant free.
The vehicles - Almost characters in their own right, the vehicles of Fury Road hold true to the legacy of the first thee movies. Heavily modified, performance and off-road capable, with arms and armour that you'd expect, as well as nitrous-enhanced and lots of turbo charging to boot.
The weapons - Guns are few and far between, with only bosses and hero's wielding them, with the majority of the fighters having the wrist-crossbows, spears and hand-weapons we've come to expect from the Mad Max movies. Ammunition is a critical resource, and you feel every bullet the main characters have (with the exception of the Bullet Town bosses party, but hey, they MAKE the bullets, why not go a bit overboard). Explosive tipped lances were a nice touch though, and the brutality of the world is really indicated by the way people fight.

The effect Mad Max Fury Road had on us when we went to see it; two parent types who grew up with the end of the Cold War and all the Apocalyptic cinema that came with it, two young adults who were fresh to the genre , and Tactical Baby who didn't think it was funny when I laughed at the car-crashes, all at the drive-in, all in costume, was evident, we loved it, and were captivated by the cinematography, the action, and the impact of it all. We were left with just one question... "Who killed the world?"

We did.

WITNESS!

Review: Great Outdoors - Silver Grande 9L

Having quite the expansive family these days (3-4 adults, 1-2 little kids, depending on who is around) when we go camping, (which really isn't often enough) we try to make the most of it, and be as comfortable as possible.

Once the little ones have grown up a bit, we might consider more hiking type trips, but until then, we camp where we can unload the SUV. That means we can afford to camp BIG. This means, in this case, we can take a big tent like the Great Outdoors - Silver Grande 9L.


Unfortunately it seems the "Great Outdoors" line has gone under, but similar tents like the Spinifex Franklin, or the Wild Country - Getaway II 9MR but none that I've found in my recent searches have the four-room option that the Silver Grande features.

 The Silver Grande is split into four distinct areas, each with a 360o zippered vestibule, and close-to-the-flood bulkheads. The whole of the base is bucketed to a good height, ensuring that the interior stays dry in inclement weather.

image swiped from eBay

This really is quite the palatial tent with measures 6.4m in overall length (2.1 x 2.2 x 2.1) and 3m wide in the middle, 2.15m at the end rooms. The front room adds another 2.1m to the width to a total of 4.3m. The side rooms are a little bit shorter than the main central room, which tops out at a very respectable 2m15m.

With all the internal doors open, and wrapped up in their self-storing toggle and loop attachments the interior is really very spacious. The walls are at a high angle, so you maximize the available space, so often lost in lower dome tents. The internal walls are all a very light, breathable material, and well fitted. Window and main exterior doors are all fitted with a translucent insect proof mesh, with clear PVC windows and a skylight in the flysheet.

two sets of colour coded poles make up the structural supports, and each is designed to slot into sleeves built into the inner shell, and mount on captive pegs attached to split rings, attached to the base.

image swiped from eBay

The fly itself is a silvered 3000mm rated waterproofed polyester. It has hook-and-loop tabs situated at key points to anchor it to the poles for added wind resistance. The inner shell also features clasps on elastic loops, ensuring both a taught but also stable attachment. Without the fly, the tent is very light and airy, with the large swathes of mesh siding and the very light material of the walls letting light stream in. The silvered fly adds a significant level of shade, without being gloomy, and dramatically cuts the wind. It also blocks out harmful UV radiation, and keeps the tent cool in the Australian sun.

With the doors open, or at least set up in the awning-up configuration, with each of the side rooms having the option to put one up, and the main room from the back side also can be set up as an awning. One set of poles are provided to do this.

The rooms all have sets of pockets built into the walls, either in the corners, or in the under-window areas.

image swiped from eBay

There are also loop attachment points on the ceiling, and the internal door toggle and loop fittings also provide attachment points, for lights, clothes and the like. The storage setup is quite thoughtful, ans also takes advantage of the high-angled walls effectively.

The tent's "front room" doesn't have the same bucketed floor as the main body of the tent, but does feature an attached floor that is mounted to the front wall of the main room. The flysheet covers this area and provides a sheltered, but not sealed enclosure. We typically use this area for gear storage, leaving our camp-kitchen, food stores and the like in here, and as a boot-changing area.

image swiped from eBay

Not being sealed, you still need to be aware of bugs and other creatures getting in and around your gear. This can be a real concern for those of us who live in Australia. Or perhaps in North America if you have racoons and bears to worry about.

This is billed as a 9 person tent, and there is plenty of room for that many, if you make good use of the floorspace and don't need to have too much walking around room. We generally have had one of the side rooms for Tactical Baby and Triceratops Girl, with their fancy collapsible camp bunk bed, the main room and the other side room for the adults. In doing so, we can open or close the internal walls for (visual) privacy, and also use them to keep any bugs in or out, as the case may be. The walls are translucent enough that lights can be shone through them, to give a nice ambient glow and a central lantern can illuminate the entire interior sufficiently for everyone to find their beds and boots.

Being a thin walled tent, you obviously don't get much in the way of sound dampening, so be sure to pick your company and camp site well!

The flexibility of having doors for each room was a great addition, especially as we use the central room as the main bedroom, but left me with the concern that the zipper-capable little ones might wake up, and wander off into the bush at night. This was easily solved by extending the exterior door zippers all the way to the top of its arc, well out of little-hands reach. We also left the internal door unzipped at little-people height, so they could come in to us if needed, but still providing some more of the bug-limiting compartmentalization.

One feature that we've never made use of are the floor-height zippered cable and hose ports, situated just above the bucket sidings in the rooms, allowing us to feed power or plumbing into the tent. Even at powered sites, we don't tend to bring mains-charged items with us, so this hasn't been needed.

Just remember, this all comes at a cost, weight. 28kg of weight. This is a big tent, and whilst the bag is easy enough to stow in the back of the RAV4, a bit unwieldy (it's dive-bag sized) and it has wheels on the bottom corners, but it is heavy. Way to heavy to hike with. This is a drop and build base-camp item, not a roving set. That said, with instructions sewn into the bag, and colour coded poles and sleeves, (which we augmented with permanent marker, to indicate which way around the fly needs to sit) the whole thing takes about 15 minutes to put up, and 20-25 minutes to pull down and pack up. All in all this is a great family tent, and if we ever needed to abandon home for any reason, and have no fixed plan of where we might stay, I would strongly consider this as a temporary retreat.

It certainly works for short to medium term camp-outs for us.