For feedback about these pages, contact the FAQ maintainer Roger Caffin.
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As new walkers start bushwalking they invariably have lots of questions. Many of them have been asked and answered many times: they are Frequently Asked Questions. Club members cheerfully answer such questions, especially while walking along on a trip. When this happens on a UseNet newsgroup someone eventually collects a lot of the answers and puts them into an FAQ file. It used to be traditional to post the FAQ file to the newsgroup at regular intervals. However, bushwalking has a lot of subjects, and this has lead to a very large collection of information. Unfortunately, such information tends to be scattered. As an aid to newcomers to bushwalking we have put together this web site. By nature it is a "work in progress", so if you think something is missing, don't complain: contribute!
This is an unmoderated newsgroup used by members of the Australian bushwalking fraternity for general chit-chat. By consensus, politeness prevails most of the time on the newsgroup, unless certain subjects like "Boots vs Volleys" are being discussed. Mild humorous flame wars are tolerated on such subjects. Even so, members of this newsgroup respect each other's rights to walk as they please. By consensus we endorse Minimal Impact Bushwalking and deplore activities which damage the environment. On the other hand, we try to avoid contentious subjects not associated with bushwalking. We do not tolerate advertising or spamming, and we dislike politics, and regular subscribers do take action against this.
Outdoor activities carry their own risks of injury and death. Neither the maintainer nor any other contributors to these FAQ pages have any control over what the reader does, and cannot accept any liability for any loss or accidents which the reader might suffer. The contents of this web site must NOT be relied upon for medical advice. Failing all else, read the NSW Civil Liability Act 2002. If you don't know what you are doing, get competent advice from a competent club.
This FAQ is totally independent of the Confederation of Bushwalking Clubs NSW, even though it is currently hosted on their web site. The Confederation neither endorses nor supports what is written here and has had no input to the contents at all. The maintainer is grateful to the Confederation for the hosting, but all responsibility rests with him.
Some FAQ pages are large, some are small. There are hyperlinks to take you to different sections. If the whole thing doesn't seem very fancy, well, it isn't meant to be. A lot of it has been written by the maintainer, pending contributions from you. So if it seems a little biased ... yep. Did you expect otherwise?
At present the FAQ has only a few specific gear "recommendations", and even those are just the opinions of individuals (legal disclaimer). The most prominent ones? Comfort and light weight. Part of the problem with recommending gear is that there is just so many different models of any piece of gear, and some areas keep changing; another part of the problem is that everyone has different requirements (or prejudices). However, we do intend to include comments on individual items, depending on what reviews are received or what gear is made available to us for testing. You want to bring something to everyone's attention? You know how.
For the technically minded: this web site has been written using a basic editor, simple html tags and one simple style sheet: it should run on any current browser, although it helps if it can display pictures. There are no videos, there are NO Flash files, there is no JavaScript, there is no Java. It has been kept simple and light. In addition, there are no proprietary non-standard html 'features' as found with some aberrant web browsers (eg Internet Explorer). More to the point, the html commands have been minimised and all the crap which some 'HTML Editors' insert quite gratuitously has been ruthlessly eliminated. It should load fast. If you want to download the lot onto your computer, feel free.
There may be a search engine here in due course - one day ...
(c) Roger Caffin 1/May/2002, 17/Oct/2007, 24/06/2009, 1/Jan/2011