brian.w

Hi i am on a working holiday visa and im sure i read somewhere that you cant use a sleeping bag in a hostel only sheets, but then some people have told me you can.

Whats the right answer to this as if i need one am going to buy one and not waste time with sheets.

Also can anyone tell me the best place and cheapest place to buy a pac safe for a rucksack? are they worth buying? and have many of you guys who have been on working holidays used them, i checked them out here and they are expensive.

I was looking to buy one as some of my clothes would cost more than the pac safe alone and also i think it keeps other important stuff together and out of reach from others,and also i will have this gadget thing thats real expensive that i really need to take with me as it takes pics and stores pics and does lots of other stuff and having i think i pac safe will help or am i wasting my money?

Is there good lockers and would it be better and wise to just use them? maybe i worry to much but better safe than sorry, im sure whatever is protecting my bag and belongings there is always a way for a thief to get into it etc, or would i attract more attention having such item around my back?

bondipom

Sleeping bags are fine and with cooler weather to come in south a must have item.

renth

You'll probably need a sleeping sheet, it's like a sleeping bag, but a sheet.

A lot of places insist on them, or at least they did when I was backpacking 10 years ago.

brisnick

and as for a pac-safe. i was bought one as a leaving present. i used it when i headed out to oz, and then never again. it's currently packed away somewhere! i found lockers were readily available (usually at the front desk), and that bags rarely got stolen, people would lose camera's/cd players when people rifled bags (and i kept most stuff like that on me, or in the front desk lockers). as for clothes getting robbed, they are more likely to get pinched while they are drying than from inside your backpack.

wombatboy

buy a day pack aswell as your main rucksack - this is good for carrying around expensive items like cameras when you go out. Also you canleave precious stuff with the reception at a lot of hostels who lock them away

Badge

get a silk liner. I recommend Sea to Summit - 30 bucks. Cheaper in Aus than the UK. The cotton ones take up 3 times as much room and get manky. The silk ones dry quick too. However, the hostels now usually give sheets out on arrival.

Come in handy when people fancy a sh*g and want noone to see. They then get draped from the top bunk down to the floor..

BM

brian.w

so i dont need a sleeping bag? or get a silk liner as well as sleeping bag? what is it? do i sleep in one as well as the sheets the provide or use with sleeping bags? im confused i have seen them but thought it was better and warmer etc to have a sleeping bag than a liner?

wombatboy

Yeah and I was always the poor sod on the top bunk who had to be 'rythmically rocked back and forth' by the sh*ggers who got in at 3am in the morning. (apart from the time when i did it to someone else )

Don

Badge, you've upset me! Reminded me of a horrible night in a hostel in Airlie Beach, six beds in the dorm. Couple came in late and drunk and woke me up with all the noise then proceeded to have very loud and groany Ugandan activities for what seemed like 2 hours. It was disgusting because I needed my kip but I was too embarrassed to tell them to hurry up and get it over.

The perils of dorm life. Still, only happened once in 3 months of backpacking.

Badge

didn't happen to me in almost a year. Someone ELSE shagging!!!But my poor mate came over and ended up occupying the top bed over a 3 night period when a bloke would come back from the pub with a different girl in tow. My mate was furious. Meanwhile all her mates were outside giggling. There was also, a bloke on the side of the room who, ahem, also got quite excited...
(!)

After 3 nights, we decided that the bloke had to bloody well 'share' or he was going to be kicked out.

Another bloke in the room also discovered that the water pools on the floor of the communal showers when the showers were on full occasionally had reflective properties of surprising clarity..of the booth next door....

Weeks later, in another location, I came in at 9am to find a couple doing it doggy style on their bed. Then there was the couple outside our room on Magnetic Island. She was the talk the next day - she reached C# I reckon.

I kept all my activities to my own room or the beach eg.. Room No xx. Coogee Bayside is the room, first night in Aussie. The location is a secret.. ..

Brian - PM me for info. Because I arrived in the summer from the UK winter I used just the liner...but in the winter down south you will need the doss bag believe me..get a 1 or 2 season bag. Supplement it with the liner. Mine was a 1 season which weighed all of 600g and folded down to the size of a pint of milk. Most backpackers were humping huge ging gang gooly ones around..

BM

;-)

renth

I used to favour the beach, or parks, once I noticed I was being watched by an audience of aboriginals. But that's another story.

My pal was shagging his girlfriend, in a top bunk, and just as he reached the gravy stroke , arched upwards and was hit on the forehead by the spinning ceiling fan.

He had to go to hospital for stitches.

Badge

Gentlemen.
Shall we start a new thread? Suggestions for title.

Badge

wombatboy

1 Hostel Room Survivor
2 Backpacker **ckers
3 Beds Are Burning

bondipom

I find my arse trombone normally puts off the dormitory shaggers, especially when they are in the bunk below.

Don

4 Dorm between two lovers
5 Kama Sutra Lessons Down At Missionary Beach
6 Bunkhouse Bonkers