Good News for Campers (Warning- Bear Photo Ahead)

In 2008 my wife and I spent our Christmas holiday trekking down Hinchinbrook Island on the Thorsborne Trail.

Hinchinbrook - Australia's largest Island National Park

For those of you who like the odd night under canvas and don’t mind freeze dried food on your holiday, I can’t recommend it highly enough. The Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service limit the numbers to only 40 people at any one time and, given it takes 4 or 5 days to walk, you are usually on your own in an incredibly beautiful and still, relatively, pristine environment.

The trail can be hard going at times, there are a number of creek crossings with signage warning of the dangers of crocodiles, you may well encounter snakes and large spiders (we did) but diving into the crystal clear waters beneath the breathtakingly gorgeous Zoe Falls more than makes up for it.

Well almost.

This is eco-tourism. You must carry all your food in with you and take all your rubbish away. Most importantly, there are no bars. And, for those of us who like to put their feet up at the end of a hard days hiking and have a snifter or two, that can be pretty tough. We’d considered stuffing the odd bottle in our backpacks but, as they already topped 20kgs and having heard how rugged the trail was, we decided to forego our evening ritual and take comfort in the joys of powdered glucose drinks instead.

Warning - Sobriety can be disorientating to the uninitiated

However, next time we head off to the wilderness, there is now a solution.

The boffins at TREK ‘N EAT have managed to produce a freeze dried red wine. Once you’ve put up your tent you merely have to add water to the sachet and, bingo, you have 200ml of ready-to-quaff red with an alcohol content of 8.2%.

At last - Science to the rescue

I’m aiming to take the tent out soon for a road test. I’ll come back with some tasting notes…

Hats off to Nothing To Do With Arbroath for the tip…

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