Are You Going To Head For The Hills?

You sir, misunderstand my intentions here. I was in no way shape or form discrediting the idea of high rise bug in out of hand, without even giving it a thought.

I had not considered the idea before, thus I was questioning you on the subject, to learn wether it is a viable option or not.

Yes most people are city bound, with modern technology, electricity and the internet, and have never known anything but that.

Many of us on the other hand have experience in bush living, the modern tech that you talk of, is useful for the time being, but it is not an end in and of itself. You thinking that all the bush has to offer is dirt, rocks and timber, is very narrow and might I add, close minded.

Adapt away, but remember, when the supermarkets are empty, you starve, end of story, there is no more. On the other hand, in the bush, there is plenty of treasure to salvage and adapt, plus food of all styles to keep you happy, alive and thriving.

I feel you have arrived here with preconceived ideas of what is what, and what questions mean. This has been somewhat of a large mistake on your part. I would suggest you share your ideas, with explanations if needed, and leave the defensive attitude away from the forum.

This is something that I wrote several days ago but never got to post it but it appears relevant to this conversation.

Many contributors to sites such as this talk about their bug out plans and vehicles but not about food production and many do not mention families or groups.

On one American site a contributor made some very good comments about living off the native wildlife and I believe the comments also hold true here in Australia.

There have been a number of posts from people who say that after the SHTF they are going to sling their bug out bag over the shoulder, pick up their armoury and head for the hills to live off the land. This may be possible for only a short period of time in one place as according to the American contributor it takes about 25 square kilometres (she did say 10 square miles but I converted it) of land to sustain one person living off the game from that area.

I have thought about this and of the amount of rabbits, kangaroos and game birds in the area we live and if I were to start harvesting them I would, in a relatively short space of time, either wipe them out or drive them to another area. After a period of time, if living off the land was my only means of survival, I would have to move to a new area where there was still game available to harvest. Not only would I have to travel to the new area but I would also have to set up a new camp which would mean another shelter and also the chance of entering an area that may already be occupied by another person or group.

For those of you who have not read the book “A Man Called Possum” by Max Jones visit freedomtights.wordpress.com/2013/04/28/a-man-called-possum-by-max-jones/. Possum was a man who lived in and off the bush for some 50 years. Read the book and then have a good think about what it would be like.

Within a 60 kilometre radius of our place there are tens of thousands of hectares of forested land that is a mixture of privately owned, national parks, conservation reserves, working forests and state parks as well as tens of thousands of hectares of agricultural land. I have had the opportunity of visiting many areas of that land and I cannot think of any part of it I would be prepared, even tempted, to set up a camp for any duration and attempt to live off that land because of the lack of food and in particular potable water other than what is attached to existing buildings.

Today our daytime temperature reached 41 degrees and the only times I ventured outside was early in the morning, at noon and early afternoon to tend to the livestock, in the main checking water, and even though I had a fairly light day I consumed just under three litres of liquids. As I have said there are not many places within 60 kilometres of us where that amount of potable liquid could be obtained from natural sources. To survive in this country for any length of time would take more than what one could carry on their back or even load into a vehicle. I will add that our day ended with a thunderstorm, great thunder and lightning, no rain.

I am in what could be good or bad. I am a city fringe dweller. Got enough land to grow my way out of trouble and if it does not happen for a few years I will have the skills to make it happen. I will have a pile of family arrive and some useful supplementary skills. The distance from work and family is walkable although would take a full day. We are too close to a main road and would not be easily defended unless I ahve more firepower. Plus side is water, solid fuel and food. I am theoretically able to bug out but in practice my preparations are for bug in. Not ideal but all I could afford.

Just as a side note here
If a human wants to sustain themselves all it needs to do is go where other humans are
and those suckers are so damn easy to find!
Most humans leave so much evidence of there existence they are hard not to find!

Most humans have a three meter wide plus permanent track to there location
Most occupy a distinctive structure
Most of those structures bleed huge amounts of energy
Most have energy supplied by fixed transport routes
Except for a very few the occupants of these structures take great pride in making these structures stand out
from there surroundings

Humans will take the easy path to get resources
If resources can be taken from others as an easy method it will be done!
Actually growing food during a SHTF event is stupid as in most cases as it is unlikely you will get to consume it!
Although growing food later on after the struggle will be essential

If you think you can hide a veggie patch from hungry hordes maybe think again
The horde if it is a thousand strong or just a single person has only one thought, food in belly now!
The concept of digging planting nurturing and then harvesting is useless to someone with an empty belly now!
Those little carrots wont be left to mature, those seed potatoes will get dug up
Your cat/dog will just vanish same as your stock in the yard, your chooks will vanish!
The more you have growing/breeding the more attention you will get
How much attention can you handle and for how long!

Stache your seeds well disperse your stock hide your pets well
Sustain yourselves from hidden stores till the hordes have thinned
If you have nothing they have nothing to gain from you and you will be ignored!

Just my opinion
I have at times left much stuff in my vehicle in rough suburbs un attended and with windows open
as my vehicle looked like junk, no one bothered to look for valuables in it!

Water: Great for safety and whilst you can fish and you can have reverse osmosis hand water desalination, you're going to have to go to port at some point and you would want to be anchored in a sheltered bay/area.

High rise: If you have the supplies [food and water], it would work initially, provided your neighbors didn't kick your front door in. I would imagine that few people living in high rises would have tools such as sledges to break down doors and with a little reinforcement, it would be pretty easy to keep people at bay. Of course, people might go from one balcony to another to get to you, or break down a wall. In fact, you would yourself want to have your entrance through a series of apartments so you had some time and space in which to repel attacks. Water in high rises is generally pumped to a tank on the roof and of course would be empty very quickly and would be very hard to resupply because a balcony is no where near enough area for water collection. On smaller buildings you might be able to tap into the downpipes coming from the roof as a source of water.

Heading for the hills: That might have worked when people knew how to feed themselves in the woods and whilst a few people might, the shear number of people would quickly turn it into a desert when it comes to food. Shelter in place with 'some' supplies, tools and support is better than going to a place of no shelter, with a bunch of other people who also have no supplies. If you were to actually find an isolate place [there's some areas in Victoria that have very few people still], then you might fare better perhaps, though typically they're also 4+ hrs drive from a major population center. Better you got to farming communities and areas already self sustaining that might need your manual labor after the tractors are out of fuel.

Krull68: Yeah man, I hear ya, it's a good point. Perhaps what I should have said was areas that 'have the potential' to be self sufficient, that is grow enough food, have a water supply and so on. I look around where I live and see market gardeners, various food crops and whilst I know they need pumps and water catchment to get the yields they're getting [and petrol for equipment], I see how they're a much better option to sustain life than going to the hills [also near] and scratching a few pieces of meat and very low quality vegetable matter, if you even know how to find it.