4 Day Solo Outback Walk as a Traditional Swagman on Australia's Longest River

In this video I'm walking 40 kilometers through a very remote section of the Victorian outback, taking inspiration from the old school explorers and the swagmen that came after them by doing the whole trip with only traditional camping gear. I will be walking off track for most of my journey, navigating by map and compass and trying not to get lost in this vast dry landscape as I aim for Mighty Murray, Australia's longest river. I will experience dry creek systems, inland lakes, peaceful riverbanks and remote Mallee scrub while experiencing wildlife that the great Australian outback has to offer. Join me on this four-day solo adventure to see if I have what it takes to walk in the footsteps of those who came before. G'day everyone, welcome back to another adventure and for this one I'm doing a four-day solo big walkabout in Mallee scrub outback country. Now this is a part of Victoria I've not been before but it's full of these beautiful inland lakes, creek systems and I will be walking along the Mighty Murray River at some point as well which is Australia's longest river. Now I'm doing it all as a traditional swagman so I got my swagman get up I got a lot of stuff actually because I've got to carry water and it's quite remote where I'm going so I have to be prepared for this one but yeah it's just beautiful country and heaps of wildlife and bird life already. I've seen emus and cockies and these massive river red gums all around me. It's going to be an absolutely beautiful adventure, let's do it. And I got here a bit late because it was a six and a half hour drive to get here and I was not feeling the best. I was woke up real early so I was really tired low energy and just not feeling really good but I feel great now that I'm out here and I'm going to walk about 10km today to get to where I want to camp on a riverbed and there's all these flowers out and the butterflies are out and everything because I'm doing this in spring it's just turned spring which is the best time to come out in the outback because yeah you get the wildflowers it's not too hot and you're still going to have some water in the creeks and in the rivers so there should be plenty of water on this trip so now one thing about this trek I should say this big walk that I'm doing it's 40 kilometers but this is uh stepping it up a little bit for me because this is one of my first pretty much all off-track walks so I'm not walking on any trails I'll probably walk across a few four-wheel drive tracks here and there but um yeah this is all off-track navigation for this whole 40 kilometers and um being outback country you know you can get you can get lost out here pretty easy since it's you know a lot of um the same looking environment check out this big red river gum that is so cool there's lots of emus hanging out on these uh plains on the in these lake areas but I keep trying to pull my big camera out which is here to try and capture them but by the time they get uh wind of me they're off really spooked so hopefully I'll capture an emu on this trip another big red kangaroo oh lovely guys what I love about the big reds is they're real outback rude like we get the eastern greys where I live but uh you got to start heading inland to get the big reds wow something down here plenty of bones and that's where I'm going that general direction talk about remote country out here jeez you want to have your wits out here so yes I have a GPS on my phone with a planned route with a guide GPS on it that can fail obviously devices can fail so that's why I have a little compass with me and you know it's kind of going back to how the early explorers would have done things obviously with compasses and following uh you know rivers and things like that in a general direction now I know that I can't get too lost because if I walk if I walk at least 20 kilometers to the east with my compass I'll hit the Murray River once I hit the Murray River obviously I know where I am pretty clearly in the landscape so that's uh that's something that I can always do um it's the evening now so I know that the sun should be on my back sun should be behind me um and then I also know I'm walking I'm walking east even if I don't have a uh a compass on me so yeah there's multiple ways I can navigate out here I know the general landscape um I do have a topo map but obviously the topo map is not going to give me a lot to work off because it's just rolling outback planes out here so uh there is a creek system that I'm aiming for for tonight I don't know if there's water in it or not I should have enough water with me anyway to last till I get to the Murray River tomorrow just stumbled into what would have been a dry creek bed awesome nice sand dunes all right this here is the creek that I was meant to be camping on tonight clearly it's dry there's no water in it so lucky I've got I've got enough water to get me to the Murray tomorrow I know the Murray's going to have water in it obviously just goes to show you got to be prepared see I was thinking there'll be water in this creek it looked like quite a you know a decent sized creek so you know I was like oh probably you know it's only 10 kilometers there don't need to carry heaps of water but just being sure this is the outback uh you never know it looks like there was water there at state at one stage if I keep walking along here I might find some water but I'm going to walk along this for quite a bit until I find the spot I want to camp well there is there is water in this creek I've walked up a bit and it's pretty manky down there all right I'm almost at the place I want to spend camp I just want to look for a nice clear area you don't want to sleep under these river red gums right here because they are known to drop their branches even when it's still weather and there's no wind they quite often drop their branches so I want a big clear open patch preferably with not a lot of leaflet around so it's coming to five o'clock I'm wrecked I just want to get a fire going lay down on my swag and cook up some dinner I'm not a bad spot amongst the river red gums and I'm totally clear I've got nothing that's going to come down on me awesome it's 5 30 the sun's going down I'm absolutely buggered I already started this walk at like 60% energy so that was like a 12k slog cross country now I know some of you are going to say what are you doing in a river bank flash flooding that kind of stuff but look I'm going to be all right I've checked the weather forecasts and there's like there's not much rain we haven't it's actually been a very dry winter it's a very very very low risk of flash flooding worst case scenario I'm actually a little bit up on the bank so the path of water is going to to first go below me it's not going to happen I've got the radar as well there's no rain on the radar so I'll be right guys yeah I'm just going to set up camp here make a little spot for myself and get a fire going then do some cooking because I am spent check this out freshwater clams basically freshwater mussels sorry yeah awesome so there's a bunch of shells of them around here they when this river was flowing I just want that fire to burn for a bit because I want to get some nice coals because my last swag man video I did in the outback everyone made fun of my rabbit which I absolutely burnt to a crisp over the hot flames so I've got a steak for tonight and I'm going to show you that I can cook up a juicy delicious meal well done without burning it two little bits of steak see and some broccolini right on the coals better take it off don't want to overcook it broccolini all right proof that I can cook a steak oh yeah that's a proper steak jesus bloody noisy can't a man get some peace all right everyone it's been a good day I'm wrecked I haven't been able to film much this evening I'll film a lot more tomorrow but I'm just going to sit around this fire I've got a little bit of brandy I've got a pipe I'm just going to enjoy this I'll probably crash pretty early tonight and then I can get up early and have a good day big day tomorrow good morning everyone well it got bloody cold last night I did look at the weather forecast and it said it was going down to around three degrees so it's pretty cold and you know I've only got a woolen blanket so um yeah I'm glad I had that fire going all night to keep me warm uh even still it was a bit of a rough night lots of I'd love uh hearing all the kangaroos move through this dry riverbed at night you just hear bump bump bump bump and hop right past you and obviously you know that's a kangaroo when you hear that kind of a sound so while my coffee's boiling I just thought I'd go through some of the gear that I've got with me but first of all I just want to show you this new um pack it's called the trapper pack and it's by Jack Stillman so these are beautiful um wax canvas made bags uh it's got all brass knobbings and stuff like that as well it is on the heavier end but it's not too bad and it's got a bunch of little side pockets I've got my topo map in there I can chuck coggies I can chuck uh I can chuck stuff in this sleeve and on the behind sleeve as well and Jack Stillman also sent me out these little um wax canvas uh pockets and I find these really helpful to like organize my stuff so this is my cooking kit and then I've got another one here which uh I use to put my tobacco and my compass my knife and stuff like that so um yeah I've just got a bunch of bits and bobs most of the stuff I have is traditional stuff that you would have been able to find in the early 1900s besides my emergency medical kit and my camera gear obviously but if you guys want to check out Jack Stillman I'll put a link in the description I do have an affiliate link with them now so if you get anything from them make sure you use my affiliate link it's no extra cost to you but it helps me I get a small commission and yeah it helps me keep going with the channel but so far I'm really enjoying this trapper pack and I like the feel of it and it's just it just looks bloody great. For brekkie I've got the spiced ham otherwise known as SPAM oh yeah smells like bloody dog food this does and uh I'm definitely going to be cooking this up on the coals yeah now for those of you who watched my other outback walk I did which I posted a while back uh a lot of people ripped into me because I lost my knife on that trip and I had only brought with me the one knife my RNM blades I ended up finding it again uh this time around yes I brought up a backup knife this is a genuine swiss army knife uh an old one that my um my opa grandfather kept in great condition so I've got to thank him for that but I'll be using that knife to slice up a bit of this dog food sure look at it and uh I'll be cooking this up on the hot coals because there's no way I want to eat that plain yeah whoo breakfast of champions right there all right off I go so on my map I know I want to walk east so if I hold it like that I've got the compass pointing to the north and I know that directly in front of me east I'm just trying to find a passageway a safe passageway through this these burrs this is burr country oh man that once they get stuck in your pants it's so annoying especially when you're trying to sleep and there's a lot of them bet you can guess what that is velociraptor out here in the outback and again besides using my compass because I don't want to be holding it all the time I can walk into the general direction of the sun which is rising in the east and still quite low so that gives me my general kind of bearing of east I'm just thinking about what it must have been like for those first explorers who pushed pushed through in this country and had no idea what was ahead of them and what they were going to find well that's one of the biggest funguses I've ever seen just came across this thing as I was walking and it's called a a hog hopper and it's for putting in uh poison baits to kill feral pigs just out in the middle of nowhere wow ladies and gentlemen there she is the mighty murray river absolutely gorgeous with some pelicans the murray river being australia's longest river has a total length of 2 508 kilometers it begins in the great dividing range and finds its way down the alps and finishes all the way at its mouth in south australia its tributaries also include some of the other longest rivers in australia like the darling and murrumbidgee rivers the murray darling basin covers one seventh of the area of australia and is vital to being the bread bowl of this country meandering over such a large area of australia many different indigenous tribes called the banks of the murray river home this particular area is home to the daddy daddy and waddy waddy people who hunted and gathered food along its resource-rich banks for thousands of years many european explorers were drawn to this area and there was a wide belief in the eastern rivers of australia flowing westward into a great inland sea many famous explorers set out to discover the mystery of this great river basin like hamilton hume charles sturt edward john ear they explored the murray and her tributaries opening up land for stock grazing these were the great overland adventures often facing death by dehydration coming upon the murray river must have felt like deliverance to them in the short term and also the long term as it opened up the interior of the country for development and no doubt played a large part in the australia that we know today even for my measly little adventure in comparison it felt like a great relief to finally gaze upon a steady wide stream of water in a harsh and dry landscape this is a vintage uh it's actually a bulgarian military um little alcohol fuel stove a quarter of this there we go all right so i'm just going to walk north along the murray river now and the idea is to try and find a nice place to camp and you know ideally i'd love to camp on one of these sand spits that you know when you get your bends in the river um like on the other side there by the way don't go over to that side of the murray river that's uh that's where all the strange people live that's new south wales you don't want to go there want to stay on this side but uh anyway just following this track that goes along the river make it easy for myself for a little bit this is it this is camp on the mighty murray first things first i'm going swimming a bit of a flow on it actually the murray river i'm so glad i get to do a murray river trip i've been wanting to do a murray river trip for a long time since it's such an iconic river australia's longest river this is glorious i'm going to try and fill up my water bag but i'm going to go out to the river a little bit away from the bank and for a bit of lunch some baked beans i'm just going to eat them cold can't be bothered cooking them up this swag is a cotton oil skin tarp that i've made myself which i use for the i use for the the main swag i'm also carrying an oil skin in here and then basically a woolen blanket which is what the old fellas would have had but i tell you what it gets cold with that woolen blanket one thing i want to show you though is this this here is a beautiful sheepskin bed roll from peak oil company and lee does a great job with these and i i actually would recommend that um if you want a sheepskin bed roll get this one i i have a sheepskin that i've used before which is two sewn together but i like this one because it's that rectangle shape um it's a little bit smaller so it means it's a little less weight to carry but the coolest thing about this is he's put a slit in here so when it gets cold in the evenings if i wanted to i could put that around me like that and then using a belt look at that i mean how bloody pioneer can you get okay for dinner tonight it's only 5 30 but i might cook up because i'm so hungry for dinner tonight and then also tomorrow night so i won't explain it tomorrow night but i'll explain it for tonight i've got a bunch of beef jerky now um in my last swagman adventure i did in the outback i brought biltong along with me and someone in the comments recommended that i actually um boil up the biltong in water and it creates a bit of a stew because what the dehydrated meat obviously expands and becomes a bit more soft and chewy but all the spices that are mixed up in the um in the biltong will go into the uh soup and become like a yeah flavored soup so i have teriyaki beef jerky so beef jerky something the old fellas would have had and yeah and boiling that up into a stew is something that they would have done i couldn't be bothered making damper on this trip because it's just i'm quite tired and and it was going to be a big trip so instead um i went to baker's delight and i quickly picked up a couple of rolls so i'll have the stew soup with one of these rolls and i've got another one for tomorrow night and uh that'll be my dinner for tonight it smells really good it smells like a proper broth and look how big the jerky bits have gone that actually i think it's going to be a good idea i'm just going to let that cool and then i'm going to get stuck into it this is up there with one of the best camps i've had i mean it's hard to know when you've camped that many times which one's the best spot but when you get to camps like this it's just glorious there's so much bird life around there's pelicans everywhere cockies kookaburras it's so peaceful there's no one around i've got it to myself and yeah it's just moments like these that are really special and it's these moments that i come out here for and do these big adventures for to just have these still moments out in nature everything is alive and just yeah get put in your place i've got a big walk today i'd like to leave here a bit early because apparently there's going to be a high chance of thunderstorms in the evening which is kind of unsettling when you're cowboy camping and then saying it's going to get down to three degrees which is really cold so anyway it is what it is when you're out here you know it is still just coming out of winter so that's why there's still chances of showers yum a couple of feral goats drinking drinking from the murray on the other side feral goats and feral big pigs are a big problem in these areas i've just left the murray and now i'm uh walking inland again well murray is inland but you're walking away from the murray and to outback country and i'm actually going to walk probably half of this walk i'm going to walk along this old track and this is probably keeping more in line with what the swaggies used to do because they wouldn't really go off country so much just because it was yeah wild country and it was dangerous so they'd stick to the tracks so yeah i'm an old swaggie just for the uh half the day today but then i will be going cross country the australian swag man a wary traveler by foot he was common during the 1800s and 1900s of australia often walking long remote roads to get from town to town he would look for work on the go whether shearing farm labor or logging especially common during times of economic uncertainty like in 1890 or the great depression of the 1930s he was known to carry his swag a canvas wrap with a woolen blanket tied up in the form of a bed roll and slug over the shoulder usually a tucker bag and a billy was carried as well and food consisted of traditional damper and if lucky some meat like wallaby or mutton the famous australian poets and writers like henry lawson and banjo patterson often wrote about the swag man his ability to get by on little and to disappear from town just as quickly as he appeared once the work had dried up they tended not to dwell too deep into the bush but stuck to the well-worn tracks and roads that ran from town to town yeah this was still a remote life that needed good bushcraft experience to be able to get by so i keep coming across these um oh man it's what is this it's like a native pumpkin or native melon or something or it's a kwan dong it's um i really need to know my desert bush tucker more because i'm more um i know more about like victoria coastline bush tucker and forests but out here i'm not so sure so i don't know it just it looks and feels like something you'd be able to eat but let me know in the comments guys what that is hello that's blue tongue there mate finally got a little bit closer to an emu i've been seeing them in the distance this whole walk but i can't get close enough to them they get really spooked so i kept really still and he'd look up he'd kind of look around i'd stay still then he'd start pecking again on the ground and i'd walk a little closer and then he'd get whiff of me but in the end yeah i got pretty close but yeah he ran off funny little animals big animals i should say okay i'm now leaving the road and i'm going cross country because the road goes to the south and i want to go west all right here we go so as you can see line that up to the north i want to go west that way oh that's cool guys that's a bearded dragon they're actually very uh relaxed animals i used to have a pair of these when i was a kid they can be quite chilled look at him just chilling on his log beautiful animal wow just came across this area with these incredible river gums they are such amazing trees look at this old fella oh check it out i've just come out onto this outback lake and i think this is where i'll be setting up camp tonight somewhere around here look at that that is cool well i can't say i've ever camped in a place like this before that's it guys and this is where i'll be sleeping tonight hopefully that'll be enough to uh keep the rain off me it feels pretty secure in here let's see how i go honestly it kind of feels like kakadu or arnhem land a little bit like the wetlands you get there the billabongs uh it's yeah weird weather as well it's like hot 27 it was 27 today but these um outback storms are brewing so i should be good in my little colonial style tent there just an oil skin hopefully first drops of rain it's been stormy oh it's absolutely gorgeous right now out here well it is a beautiful evening even though it's a bit ominous with thunderstorms and stuff but i'm just going to sit around the fire for a bit with a bit of brandy and then an early night tonight i'll catch in the morning guys and you're thinking what am i oh off we go i didn't like the sound of my voice did you there you go well it was cold last night to be expected and there was these big storms that rolled through during the night not a lot not a heap of rain but you know a lot of wind but i was protected oil skin does really well protecting me from the wind and from the rain so it's not a huge walk back today but um yeah i'm pretty wrecked this this trip really actually took it out of me because i'm getting older and i'm getting softer power up on a little tin of cold beans for the brekkie for me poor shoulders when you start walking again on day four all your muscles are just screaming at you what are you doing what are you doing why are you doing this again imagine doing these kind of things just like day in day out for months on end the swaggies were tough men winding up this trip i felt pretty proud of my achievement i don't mind the established hiking trails but finding your own way off track is really what makes me feel alive and i feel connects me more to those old timers who went before me i had to find a way through the landscape in what must have been much harsher times learning about the history to an area that i'm walking through helps me connect to the past as i try to relive it even if just for a few days this country we live in is vast deadly and beautiful i feel very proud to call australia home and blessed to be able to roam this land all right folks i'm almost at the car just got to walk along this lake until i get there but it's been a bloody great trip tiring trip if you've enjoyed this video please give it a thumbs up comment below and subscribe if you haven't subscribed yet to the channel there'll be plenty more videos coming in the future thanks guys have a good one made it