Tasmanian born and bred; I have been actively involved in hiking around Tasmania for most of my adult life. Starting young and with friends, and then as a career with Tasmania Police where I was involved in Search and Rescue for many years and now hiking the lofty heights with my son. I could never get sick of this beautiful State of ours.
My absolute highlight was completing the Western Arthur traverse in 2024 with my son, aged 16 at the time. The photo's used on this website, were some of the magical memories I captured with my camera during that trip. Truely awe inspiring. We will be returning in January 2025 to do it again.
During the beginning of my multiday hikes with my son, Mason, we naively had not factored in Tassie's possums or rats. One of our first multi-dayers was to Walls of Jerusalem, where the possums are as big as dogs. We were wondering why so many people had their food bags hanging between ropes strung between the alpine trees.
We discovered why at around 1am, when our tent wall was chewed through by a massive possum. As we opened the fly of the tent to shoo it away, it then decided that the door was a much easier way in and proceeded to come into the tent with us. We managed to push it out, with much flapping about. A mouse then decided to get in under the tent and try and eat its way through that way. It was a LOOOONG night. We later discovered that Mason had left some Skittles in an inside pocket of the tent! The following morning, we found that even the hikers who had strung their bags up, still had holes in them and food eaten.
After many more trips and talking to many walkers, we discovered it was a very common problem. Even in the huts, mice were a major problem, and we had many walkers complain about mice eating holes in their packs, and ruining food - not ideal when you're on a multi-day walk and food is rationed out to the last gram.
One can simply not afford to share food with the natives.
We even heard stories of shoes being stolen by devils and being located ripped to bits.
Currawongs are amazing birds that have learnt to open zips on packs and steal food when hikers leave packs at the bottom when they bag a peak.
It was while hikers/campers were having their tents eaten through, backpacks ruined, shoes stolen, campsites ransacked that the Possum Pouch was developed.
The bag needed to be lightweight, stored easily, store food and other items and most importantly, it needed to be made from a material that could withstand the claws and teeth of our wildlife.
I was determined to keep production of the Possum Pouch in Tasmania. Currently, I make all Pouches in my home in Launceston. There might be the slight wonky label, or stray thread, but I can say that all Pouches are made with the same level of care across every single one I make.
Because of this, stock levels will fluctuate depending on the time I have available to produce them. If there are no bags currently in stock, please register to be emailed about when they are back in stock.
Happy Hiking
Natalie