Thinking Inside The Box - A Modest Proposal

'Tis nearly the tourist season - the safari and cruise tour companies are gearing up for the influx of Australian tourists and the Australian tourists are gearing up for a world of pain. We are assisting them.

Not a day goes by down here but what someone comes in and tells us that they are going on a holiday and they want to take their camera. And their camera. And their lens, lens, lens, lens, lens...and the laptop and the three chargers and the flashes and spare batteries and....perhaps a spare memory card, if the price is right.

And a lightweight tripod that folds into the size of a pocket pencil and can hold a Canon 1Dx with a 100-400 lens on it rock solid in an arctic gale.

And the whole lot should go into a bag that can be put in the overhead locker, leaving enough spare room for he 1 litre bottle of duty free Drambuie.

I find lithium pills help a lot these days...

Let me put forward a modest proposal - as Johnathon Swift did - that will make your trip successful. It will involve a week of experimentation but pay giant dividends when you are out across the globe.

Day One

1. Go to the linen press and get out all your teatowels. Find the empty cardboard box your TV came in and bring it in from the shed. Get some rope.

2. Set out all the camera bodies, lenses, chargers, laptops, batteries, and tripods that you are going to take on your trip in your lounge room.

3. Wrap each component up in a teatowel. Pack the parcels into the TV box. Jump on it if they will not all fit in, but get them in there.

4. Rope the box up and then tie it onto yourself. You can tie it over one shoulder, over two shoulders, or around your waist - your choice. Use Boy Scout knots.

5. Put your hat on, go out the front door, and set out to walk to Mundaring Weir.

6. Give us a call down at the shop when your vision starts to go. We've got a book down here that records the distances of various customers - one chap made it to Welshpool from Belmont before the St. John's Ambulance people got him.

Day Two

1. Put one camera body, one lens, and one spare battery into a shopping bag. Add a tripod if you must.

2. Rope that to one shoulder.

3. Hat, door, Mundaring.

4. See how much further you got? Take the bus home.

Day Three

1. Put a mirrorless camera and one lens - or a bridge camera, or a compact zoom into your jacket pocket. Put a Cullmann pocket tripod in the other pocket

2. Mundaring is nice this time of year, isn't it. I remember coming up here when I was courting. They had water in the dam then...

Scientific note: It is possible to get an entire 2-body, 5-lens, laptop, refrigerator, and year's supply of cheese into a Lowepro Santiago DV 25 pocket pouch. All you need to do is remove all the space between the nucleus and orbiting electrons of each atom of the outfit and shake them down together. It can be done with a black hole, but only once. The unpacking is the problem...