Hey all, I've just started looking into prepping and am starting out. I'm currently studying to be a nurse which I feel will be a good advantage and I'm in the beginning of getting my firearms license and learning to rifle shoot, eventually hoping to move on to pistol, hunting. I believe that if something happens I'd have to end up evacuating the city and going into the surrounding areas but I don't have much experience with camping/survival skills. Is there anyone in the Sydney area who do this regularly and would be willing to share their skills?
Any Sydney preppers?
- Thread starter Epicdemic
- Start date
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Hi mate - here is a link to our Aussie site. Quite a few from NSW/Sydney area. Check it out.
I'm from Sth East SA.
Jay
Hi mate - here is a link to our Aussie site. Quite a few from NSW/Sydney area. Check it out.
I'm from Sth East SA.
Jay
- Joined
- Oct 3, 2012
- Messages
- 168
Hello Epicdemic (I see what you did there) - and regarding your decision to prepare - I believe the saying is Good On Ya'...!
As you can tell, I'm not from Australia, I'm from the US, Florida specifically. I find it fascinating that we're all coming to this conclusion...that something bad is coming and we need to prepare ourselves for it...at the same instant, all over the world!? That fascination has led me to draw a couple of conclusions of my own - but before I state what they are - I wonder if I might ask what was the final motivating factor for you to begin prepping?
In my case - the drastic decline of the economy put enormous pressure on the industry in which I worked. Eventually causing several rounds of layoff's - while none actually reached me the stress of continuing to do the same amount of work with 30% to 40% fewer people revealed cracks in relationships - my manager unraveled and this nearly cost me my job. I began to consider for the first time - being a top performer might not save me. I started looking for another job, but many (to date, five former competitors went out of business and their assets were gobbled up by the largest competitor - this level of consolidation is indicative of a economic collapse), of those companies that were once competitors, had consolidated and condensed into one company. This left me feeling much more vulnerable and with much fewer options than ever before.
...but that still was not enough.
I had begun researching long-term food storage - telling my extended family that we needed to do something to prepare for the approaching economic storm - but we never actually acted on the research, nor the feelings...until I had "the dream"...
In the dream, the worst has happened, I'm standing in my backyard looking toward the smoke on the horizon...realizing it had all just happened - and my family looked at me and said "...if you knew this was going to happen, why didn't you do something...why did you leave us so vulnerable...?"
The next morning I acted. It began. I now have storage food for all members of my family (and then some) for one year. I have several rifles, shotguns and handguns. I have ammunition for each. I got my FCC/Ham radio license, a HF and UHF/VHF radio, as well as the antenna's for each - and I know how to operate them. I am part of a family group and each of us have prepared something for our own families, as well as prepared something to be of use for the group (I am the communications guy, we have two nurses, two families are researching tools and equipment, and another knows some farming and has some land, some are learning to re-load their own ammunition).
Even with this level of planning, we still only feel like we've scratched the surface. We don't have enough farmland to support us should any crisis extend beyond the 1 year of food storage we've set aside...water storage is problematic (even though I live in Florida, a very wet state)...and at some point the bullets run out, and while we're hopeful the right type of thinking would eventually prevail, we're not entirely sure what type of government will emerge...
So, what got you started, and why?
I can't say one particular thing started me wanting to prep, instead a number of things:
The American airbase that is built in our country to "help contain China", if anything does happen to start with China, chances are us being so close with China Australia might just get attacked and the way it's looking now there is a possible alliance being formed between Russia and China with their $300bn gas deal and Russia's current involvement in Ukraine that America might just get involved in, it could all go downhill very quickly. If something was to start with China even if there are no physical war repercussions a lot of our trade comes from China so there is a huge chance for economic downfall.
Pandemics are always a worry particularly with travel being so easy now, bird flu and swine flu already showed how easily disease could spread between countries, and now there's MERS which has also spread to other countries and killed a few people and this has no cure.
The way technology has evolved now can also be devastating in the wrong hands particularly with biological weaponry, and of course although it's been made illegal it doesn't mean that someone isn't working on it. There's also a chance for EMPs and although yes that could come from the sun it's more likely to be man made.
When reading or hearing about anything that could happen and "scientists say there's only a 0.5% chance of it happening" and when I thought about it and actually how many things could happen but only have a small chance of happening I just thought that all these small percentages add up to a much bigger percentage that something will happen within my lifetime.
Though I personally believe if it's anything in my lifetime it will be something with China, and bad blood is caused between our countries, Australia would go in a terrible depression that would take years and years to recover as we're so economically dependant. And that's where being prepared comes in, personally I would love to own a small plot of land outside of the city somewhere by a body of water in which I could have an underground bunker made of shipping containers where I could store supplies and such. For now though I'm content with having enough food and water to last for a couple of days which is all I can afford currently anyway, firearms will come in handy especially with only 5% of households owning them over here.
The American airbase that is built in our country to "help contain China", if anything does happen to start with China, chances are us being so close with China Australia might just get attacked and the way it's looking now there is a possible alliance being formed between Russia and China with their $300bn gas deal and Russia's current involvement in Ukraine that America might just get involved in, it could all go downhill very quickly. If something was to start with China even if there are no physical war repercussions a lot of our trade comes from China so there is a huge chance for economic downfall.
Pandemics are always a worry particularly with travel being so easy now, bird flu and swine flu already showed how easily disease could spread between countries, and now there's MERS which has also spread to other countries and killed a few people and this has no cure.
The way technology has evolved now can also be devastating in the wrong hands particularly with biological weaponry, and of course although it's been made illegal it doesn't mean that someone isn't working on it. There's also a chance for EMPs and although yes that could come from the sun it's more likely to be man made.
When reading or hearing about anything that could happen and "scientists say there's only a 0.5% chance of it happening" and when I thought about it and actually how many things could happen but only have a small chance of happening I just thought that all these small percentages add up to a much bigger percentage that something will happen within my lifetime.
Though I personally believe if it's anything in my lifetime it will be something with China, and bad blood is caused between our countries, Australia would go in a terrible depression that would take years and years to recover as we're so economically dependant. And that's where being prepared comes in, personally I would love to own a small plot of land outside of the city somewhere by a body of water in which I could have an underground bunker made of shipping containers where I could store supplies and such. For now though I'm content with having enough food and water to last for a couple of days which is all I can afford currently anyway, firearms will come in handy especially with only 5% of households owning them over here.
- Joined
- Oct 3, 2012
- Messages
- 168
Yes, I see what you mean - proximity to China and it's nervous communist leaders - can only serve to increase fears exponentially.
That list of issues you provided for what we're currently facing - is worrisome. It shows that we are all preparing for some or all of the same reasons. Just wondered if there was something that finally tipped you over the edge - and into a full-on prepper attitude,
Whatever it was - welcome!
I recently joined the forum, and live in northern Sydney (Hornsby).
Ain't that the truth. Interestingly most of those 'legal' guns are owned by country folk, because of ferals and the like. Handguns are commonly carried by landowners who patrol their properties on bikes and quads because it's dangerous to carry a rifle on such. Typically they will use them to put down injured cattle. I have a relative who regularly goes shooting in western QLD and he tells me everyone is packing a Beretta. As you would lol.
