New 4x4 Gear: Yakima tailgate pad, MSA 4x4 travel cup, Lost Battalions book

Going on a 4x4 trip isn't like your average holiday, you have to consider the rough terrain, lack of modern amenities like electricity and water, and of course space and weight considerations.

All these considerations doesn't mean you have to rough it out like a vagrant, you just have to be smart and pick the right sort of 4x4 gear to suit life in the bush like these examples.

Yakima Gatekeeper

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Lugging multiple mountain bikes in your tray just became easier thanks to Yakima’s new GateKeeper tailgate pad, with its five-bike capacity. The GateKeeper’s tough nylon outer material is great, while under the GateKeeper is one of its unique features: soft-felt backing that protects the tailgate from wear and paint damage.

In addition, the GateKeeper’s integrated SitTight padded bike cradles do the same for your MTB’s paintwork. With this new cradle closure system, the bikes are well secured and stable, which means they don’t move around or rub on the bike downtube. Add in the cool HindSight tuck-away cover for the ute’s reversing camera and you’re all sweet.

RRP: $199
Website: www.yakima.com.au

MSA 4X4 travel cup set

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Forget ever needing to replace those always-cracking and breaking plastic camp cups with MSA’s travel cup set. The six anodised aluminium cups (housed in a canvas storage bag) will last years.

Available in three colours (two blue, two pink, two green) these jobbies will keep drinks cool and won’t deteriorate over time. They also won’t affect the taste of your drink, like the crap plastic cups do.

The kit weighs just on 1kg and is compact. They remind us of the tough aluminium cups from decades ago, and we reckon these MSA 4x4 cups will be just as long-lasting.

RRP: $38
Website: www.msa4x4.com.au

Lost Battalions

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Aussie writer Tom Gilling brings us the intriguing and little known story of two Australian battalions abandoned in Java in February 1942.

Gilling recounts the circumstances that led to the battalions’ capture by the Japanese, and follows the 2000 diggers’ continued misfortune as they spend years as prisoners of war working on the Thai-Burma Railway and in Taiwanese and Japanese coal mines.

Trying to stay alive during this experience saw WWII veteran, Edward ‘Weary’ Dunlop, write that the diggers showed “fortitude beyond anything I could have believed possible”. Gilling draws on personal diaries, army records and interviews with survivors to recount how the diggers fought the Japanese before surrender, and then fought harder to survive in captivity.

RRP: $33
Website: www.allenandunwin.com