Hurrah. I have a travelpack again. There was a period of time there where I didn’t have one, and I was starting to get a bit edgy about that, but the problem is solved now.

For those that came in late, an explanation is in order. Back in November last year, Di and I purchased some Polarfleece jackets and raincoats on the same day that I bought my travelpack. I’d tried on a lot of packs at that stage, wandering through every little shop on Little Bourke St, it seemed, as well as a lot of the shops in the closest shopping mall to us, and had not found much in the way that fitted me.

Apparently I have a long back, and therefore many of the harness systems on the regular sized packs did not fit me. Since the majority of packs sold are 65-75L and the average person is shorter than I am, there was not a lot of stock in the larger pack size anywhere. I finally came upon a Black Wolf 90L pack in the city. While a little worried that with more space, I’d carry more stuff (read: die under the excess weight more quickly), it was one of the two packs I’d put on that felt good straight away, and continued to feel good after 15 minutes in the store.

Since we were spending a lot of money at the same time, it was knocked down from $259 to $189, and we were very happy. Di was not so happy, since she had not found a pack to suit her. Then again, her incentive was small - as soon as we both had packs, I’d said we’d be going for a walk around the park with a load in it to see how they fitted under more realistic conditions. So long as she did not own a pack, she didn’t have to walk around the park. No flies on that girl…

I was moving my pack 10 days before Xmas though, and I noticed one of the straps was not sewn properly. The strap at the top of the shoulder had not been sewn vertically, and one quarter of the strap’s width was fraying, despite being brand new. The pack had a lifetime guarantee for manufacturing defects, which this obviously was, so I took it back to the store and asked if they would repair it for me.

The people in the store had no problems with that at all, but did warn me that the repair centre they used for warranty work was going to be closed for the Xmas/New Year period until the 3rd January. Seemed fine to me, although I told them we were departing on the 14th January, just so they’d hurry along a little with the repair and make it a priority.

On the 5th January, I rang the store to see how the work was going, and they told me it was still in the store, not at the repair centre. They’d decided instead that it would be easier to ask the Black Wolf representative to send down an entire harness system, and then fix the strap with more time to spare. Good thinking, except the Black Wolf representative organised and sent down a shoulder strap (ie: like an overnight carrybag shoulder strap).

The store rang the rep again, explained exactly what they wanted (ie: harness, not shoulder strap) and received a second delivery. Once again, it was a shoulder strap. Two for none so far, and the clock is ticking.

Now, the other thing to note is that the pack I bought was one of the old models, since they were just introducing a new model with a different harness system when I made the purchase. The old harness system fitted me snugly. The new harness system cut into me around the neck, so I wanted the old harness repaired, not replaced with a new harness, and I’d made this clear to the store when I took it back. They’d known the problems I’d had with the new harness, so had also passed that information along to the rep.

The rep, in his wisdom (?), decided that instead of repairing the pack in Melbourne, as was usually done, he’d send the pack to Sydney. Since time was running out (now only 6 days from our “departure date”), I asked if perhaps we could just get the pack back, fix it ourselves and be done with it. Everyone agreed to that, but then it became obvious the rep had not just sent it to Sydney. He had sent it into oblivion, and nobody knew where the pack was physically located.

Not to be deterred, the rep then sent down a replacement pack, which (of course) featured the new harness system. With four days to go before our “departure”, we decided it was time to just get the money back and go find another pack. The problem, of course, was that all the Xmas sales had just finished. Camping stores that had been featuring 20% off sales (and 50% off at Kathmandu, for example) were now full-price once more. Most frustrating.

The people in the store had no problems with issuing a refund though - it was not their fault. I had initially thought they might have been unclear in the “shoulder strap” saga, but the subsequent foul-ups made me suspect the company representative more.

After a couple of hours in the city, walking the backpack stores once more (though this time I knew which ones just did not fit at all), I found a new model in the Caribee range that was only $20 more than what I’d paid. It was 80L also, so large enough for my back, but smaller so I could carry less “junk”. The new harness system on these was more comfortable for me than the old harness which had made me disregard the Caribee packs, and I made the purchase that day. After a month of fiddling about trying to get the pack repaired (and then found once the rep put it in a black hole), it was good to own a pack once more.

Diana was, as you might imagine, delighted later that evening when I told her we were off for a walk around the park to test them…

Categories: Travel, Odyssey 2001