Australian Wilderness Skills
Young Adult Non-Fiction Australian Natural History Australian Cultural History Bushcraft & Survival Outdoor Skills Travel & Adventure Australia Vintage Field Guides
Vintage 1983 paperback “Australian Wilderness Skills” by Robert Rankin is the cult-favourite field manual that seasoned bushwalkers still swear by. Written long before GPS and satellite phones, Rankin distils decades of outback experience into 199 crisp, illustrated pages that show how to navigate with a watch and the sun, light a fire in a tropical downpour, improvise shelter from spinifex and bark, and treat snakebite when you are three days from the nearest road. Every technique is field-tested across the continent—from the razor-back ridges of Tasmania to the monsoonal swamps of Kakadu—making the book a uniquely Australian survival reference rather than a North-American import with the names changed.
What sets this copy apart is its collector-grade condition: tight, square spine, unmarked pages, no ex-library stamps, and not a single dog-eared corner. The original Robert Rankin Publishing artwork—clear line-drawings of knots, traps, bush tucker and tool-making—remains sharp and unfaded, invaluable for quick ID when you are tired, hungry and the light is failing. Young adults heading out on their first independent hike, parents teaching the next generation to camp with confidence, and grey-nomads restoring an old LandCruiser all use these diagrams as a trusted checklist.
Beyond survival, the book is a time-capsule of Australian outdoor culture: Rankin’s anecdotes star real drovers, Aboriginal stockmen and early white explorers, giving readers a rollicking set of true adventure biographies alongside the DIY tech. As a vintage printed-in-Oz reference it is steadily appreciating in value; clean first-print copies now trade hands for double the original newsagent price. Slip this lightweight 199-page paperback into your rucksack, glovebox or camper shelf and you own both a practical insurance policy and a nostalgic slice of 1980s bushcraft heritage that modern reprints simply cannot replicate.
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