I thought I might have a go at giving an insight as to the horrific and terrifying conditions that all Australians contend with from the cradle to the grave. First up, we need to discuss some myths:
Drop Bears only ever attack tourists who
are not anointed with sufficient Vegemite. The
Australian Hoop Snake is NOT larger than its North American cousin, but it is purported to be more deadly. Australia is home to a variety of dangerous creatures, and conditions, and yet, even though its a matter of pop-culture, and they are even
fictionalized in Pratchett's "XXXX", what are the facts behind it all?
However, Australia really DOES play host to a number of very dangerous plants and animals, as well as some rather extreme weather. The animals are nicely summarized by the
Scared Weird Little Guys
Depending on what survey you look at, from the
Top 30 Deadliest Australian Animals which runs from Box Jellyfish through to Giant Centipede (with the regular honey bee being #2, incidentally). Or take the more condensed listed but still exaggerated
Top 10 Most Dangerous Animals list. There are some pretty scary animals on those lists right?
Who wouldn't be freaked out by the 7m long Saltwater Crocodile, Funnelweb Spider or the Inland Taipan? Well, as it turns out, including dumb-assed tourists and drunk local lads who ignore signs, the very scary flora of this Great Southern Land
kill about 5 people a year, plus or minus.
We have a significant bushfire risk, usually at the tail end of the summer time, and I've
covered these before, and sometimes we even get heatwaves that set
new records for both duration and intensity.
In fact, while 173 people died in the
2009 Black Saturday fires, ,
374 people died from heat stress around that time. The CFA upgraded their alert signs (many of which are now remotely controlled)which now go up to beyond EXTREME. Catastrophic is the new rating. It's rare to these signs below High, which tells you something about how we deal with these concerns. By not being concerned.
The same goes with the
dangerous animals (and occasional plants) we have here. We're generally unconcerned.
I gave all of these facts and fictions some more thought, and hit up the
Australian Bureau of Statistics 2012 Causes of Death, Australia records and did some analysis myself. Note: some of the numbers in the charts don;t add up, as there were some categories I didn't include because they were fiddly tiny numbers.
In 2012, there were 147,098 reported deaths. of these 93.7% were disease related. Of all those disease related deaths, only 1.7% accounted for ALL infectious diseases. Cholera, plague, HIV, TB, necrotising fasciitis, all the 'Flu strains, all of them. I'll
just leave this here...
The scary thing there is the other 98.3% of disease deaths; cancers, heart and circulatory system, gastrointestinal and all the other things that can go wrong with our bodies accounted for the overwhelming VAST majority of deaths in Australia in 2012.
Of all the deaths, that were NOT disease related, the "External Causes" that 6.3% of deaths in Australia, some 9275 or so people, I wanted to look into what caused that.
Suicide or other forms of "intentional self-harm" accounted for around a quarter, with our road-toll being around 15%. Both of these things are rather awful, and in my mind, preventable in some capacity, agencies like the
TAC and the various s
uicide prevention agencies that exist, do great work. I don't have any firm stats on Australian Veterans suicide rates, but its
reported as triple those lost in combat in Afghanistan.
I didn't look any deeper into the medical complications stats, but any surgery or intervention is risky. The nearly 50% "accidents" category was interesting. Falls, account for nearly half of these, with "poisoning" and various exposures for the majority of others. Thankfully,
our "home is girt by sea" water awareness keeps drownings at low levels, interestingly as of 30 June 2001 more than
8 in 10 Australians (85%) lived within 50 km (30Mi) of the coastline of Australia.
What is really interesting is that "Forces of Nature" (which I presume is floods, storms, rock-falls and the like), account for 34 deaths and venomous animals (and plants) only account for 5. In 2012 there were 12 people killed by land-animals that were not dogs or rats (moooooooo!!!) and 2 by marine animals (think sharks). These fell under "animate mechanical forces" along with combine harvesters and
hydraulic presses.
Hardly the Island of Death that people make Australia out to be, if you look at the numbers ....
Then there is the
Most Dangerous Animal. Assaults in Australia in 2012 accounted for 273 deaths. 40 to firearms, which
are heavily restricted, 97 to sharp objects the likes of which you'd find in any kitchen, workshop or woodheap, and 24 from blunt objects (like the chair you're likely sitting on). You can do the math. Humans are about 20 times more likely to kill you than all other animals on (or swimming around) the continent.
So, when you're planning your next trip, before you cross Australia off your list for being to damn scary, over-run by killer giant spiders, sharks and Mad Max castaways,
consider the true killers ...
This is a pretty big pouch, with at least a 1L capacity, and it is held secure to you and your gear with a 2 channel, 3 row set of PALS/MOLLE on the back, ant its set up to be able to attach using 5 rows on the host side, giving a really secure fit for those heavy loads.
I've covered a couple of open-top shingle style pouches before; the ones built into the Platatac SCAR mini-chest rig and also the Platatac Modular Radio Pouch. Generally, I prefer my pouches ti have a lid, or cover of some kind, because I am generally not using them as originally intended. So, that in mind, here's what I can tell you about the Voodoo Tactical open top shingles. 
Whilst I don't own or operate any myself, I appreciate the need to maintain and clean both firearms, and all the tools of the trade, so to speak. I also have a LOT of pouches, and have on occasion had small needfuls drop out and get lost as a result of being adventurous with them in a pouch designed to hold magazines. 
Following on from my recent article on Ikea as a bug-out location, which I talked about using the big Swedish household-building company's warehouse stores as a place to refit and inhabit following a society crumbling disaster event (short to medium term). The principle being that Me and mine need somewhere to go and shelter for however long, and there is no appreciable government relief on the way. Pretty unlikely in a stable first world nation right? Well, the folks of New Orleans might disagree. 
My like-minded friends and I have also discussed the various merits of other sites, such as a self-storage facility, in a basement bunker (if you have one) or even in your long term off-grid, eco-village. But one place that most of us agree would be a good site to hold up in and recover, would be a big-box hardware store, like Bunnings. As far as disaster, apocalypse survival and reconstruction goes, it's
hard to imagine a better equipped storehouse for raw materials than a
facility like these. Aisle after aisle of tools, fittings, construction
and fortification materials fill the cavernous warehouse. 
Anyone with a DIY bent that I know find it hard to walk around without getting itchy fingers at all the stock. Whilst they may not have -everything- you need to rebuild, or in the quantities required, they certainly have enough for any small-scale reconstruction you'd need. The facility itself is none too shabby either. Whilst open and well lit, they are often hot in summer, and cold in winter, but well enclosed and sheltered from the environment. If whatever disaster befell your area didn't damage the superstructure, it would make a good place to shelter. 
With simple layout, large roller-door as well as fire-door access, there isn't much to
do in the way of barricading. The outside areas are high-fenced, to ward
off present-day looters, and will offer the same protection in a
disaster area. Of course, this could be improved with the addition of more barricades and area-denial tools like barbed-wire (Aisle 12, people ...) as could the main entrances. You could easily build up bigger and better walls around the inside of the existing walls, and maintain a low-key presence, or turn it into a fortified looking castle. 
The key thing to note is that the large range of raw-materials and hand-tools. A facility like this is a treasure trove of pre-fabricated parts and construction materials, supplies and if push comes to shove, weapons.
It also features quite a wide array of potted plants and seedlings. Very little of it is immediately edible, certainly not sustainable, but if set up as a garden, you could make quite a bit of food from it. It would take time however. Food is not something that is a ready resource at a place like this.
Having added a new black pack to my repertoire of cargo-carriers, in the MR 1DAP so I've been looking into matching accessory pouches. (Pouches, pouches, POUCHES). I have a pretty vast collection of khaki and Multicam pouches already, and I'm not just going to cover new colours of systems I've already reviewed but I also picked up some new ones. One of these that I immediatly attached to my new pack was the Platatac LD pouch.
When expanded by pulling up the hook-and-loop closure, the pouch opens up to give you a spacious bag for your goodies, be they tools empty magazines, evidence snatched on a raid, snacks for the movies or contraband at the end of a long night. Cordlocks snared in a webbing loop, and feeding out an eyelet give you cinching control, to close the pouch off, and the hook-and-loop lid can either be used to close the pouch, or mated to a corresponding loop field inside the pouch to stow it out of the way. 
With three separate
mounting options; the 2x2 PALS/MOLLE, a webbing linked tri-glide buckle and broad belt loop wide enough to take any of my duty or rigger belts, the LD is good and modular, as you'd expect from Platatac. This small, utilitarian pouch sits innocuously on the side of my pack, but would equally disappear on my hip, along side my Mark IV pouch and multitool pouches.
