Latest / Off Grid Down Under by MDC / EP 43 | Hema Maps – The Incredible Story

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EP 43 | Hema Maps – The Incredible Story · Off Grid Down Under by MDC

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_04: It's not just the maps, it's all the stories around the maps.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, 100% agree.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_04: In about 1995, the precursor to the Geoscience Australia gave up updating the map of Australia.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_04: Our company came along and said, well, that's not good enough if we're going to be going out there.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_04: We need update information.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_04: This is a job for us.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: Could you imagine if it was left at that, given where people want to go?
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_04: It's remote and it's dangerous out there.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_04: And Henry and Margaret would often have said, Oh, this map's not up to speed.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_04: It's dangerous.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_04: I wouldn't give it to my grandchildren.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_01: Hi folks, and welcome to another episode of the Off-Grid Down Under Podcast.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: A very exciting one for me today on a topic that I've been enthralled with for many, many years and is a very important part for off-road four-wheel drivers and campers who want to get to great places and not get lost along the way.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: Joining us today is Sam Hayward, Chairman of HEMA Maps.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: Very excited.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: We also have Mark Banks joining us, who is an avid collector of HEMA Maps in paper form, and the excruciatingly handsome Vaughan Hindley, our fearless leader from MDC.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for having me back, Steve.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'm particularly excited about this one.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: I've actually brought in my old HX1, which is old technology still running.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: I think I bought this in 2016.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I've I've had one that was an earlier model than that.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: I think it was what was the predecessor to that one?
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: HN7.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: That's the one I think I had.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: And that was a hand-me-down from um one of the guys at Four Wheel Drive Action.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, and that served me great.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: I found some great places with that thing.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: So Sam, HEMA is such a big part of Australian adventure now.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think I know anyone that's into four-wheel driving and off-road that doesn't have one or does or doesn't have one but doesn't want one.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone wants one.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_04: Well, wow, Steve.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_04: That's a lovely introduction because I sense the same thing too.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_04: I've been involved in HEMAMaps for very close to 18 years now, um, when I joined the board with Henry and Margaret Bogheim, and people often uh ask us, how do you get your name?
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_04: Well, it's Henry H.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_04: E.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_04: and Margaret M.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_04: A.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_04: I was at a show once, four-wheel draft show, and someone came up to me on the stand and said, I've finally worked out what HEMA stands for.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_04: Has every map in Australia.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_04: I thought that was pretty creative.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: You got you've got to love it when people have the excitement of discovery.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_04: You're quite right about you're quite right about that.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_04: And so you couldn't correct them.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_04: Uh just take it on board and say thank you very much, sir.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's like a freebie.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: I'd be that's got a bit of a ring to it.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'd be flogging that.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'd trademark that.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: If Vaughn hadn't already trademarked.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure Sam's already done it.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_04: Interestingly, Vaughan, I was I was with the son of the founder who I know well and was our managing director for many, many years, Rob Bunkheim.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: Very famous.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_04: We were over in Garmin because we've been connecting into and out of the GPS industry and the mapping industry for a long time, as well as in North America.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_04: We're in the Garmin headquarters, and they had great pride in telling us, most people don't know this, how their company is a small, but it's not.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_04: It's a mega, mega company doing a lot of industrial and military work, not just watches and the GPS.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_04: And they said, We're so proud of our small company, started by Gary and Min, Garmin.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_04: And so we came back and they said, We're so proud of our company.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_04: Henry and Margaret.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_01: So tell us a little bit about how it all began.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_04: Look, it's 40 years young, 42 years young.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_04: Henry and Margaret are of fabulous Dutch origins.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_04: They were both born in the Netherlands, and they came out quite separately as young children to Queensland.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_04: Their respective parents were looking for a new life and a new start.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_04: They met up, got married, and had a sense of adventure.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_04: They've always had a sense of adventure.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_04: They've been bold and they started a series of photocopy shops and office supplies, which got them into laminating.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_04: Henry's always been a keen sailor.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_04: And so they were laminating marine charts.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_04: And once they got into marine charts and go around all the chandleries and other places like that and fishing shops, of course, you also run into people who've got four-wheel drives and other things like that.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_04: But Henry and Margaret, very early on, were always wanting to go on a camping holiday.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_04: So they got themselves into a four-wheel drive and off they went up the Queensland coast.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_04: Their most favourite spot is um Lakefield National Park, which I think Lakefield, yeah.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_04: Well, uh on the Queensland coast, yeah.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_04: And and that that that I think is their favourite go-to spot over the years because it would have made such an impression on them early on in their life.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_04: And look from that, they then realized that there were no maps.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_04: Very poor mapping.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_04: And and so they then approached the Queensland Sun State and the Queensland Tourist Bureau and said, hey, how about we do a map actually of Mackay, you know, of of of halfway up the halfway up the coast.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_04: And so they did.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_04: And they got that contract and they engaged a cartographer.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_04: Um and you could say the rest is history, but but that's what gave got got them going.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, uh not being cartographers themselves.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_01: Not at all.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I was going to ask where did the expertise come in to ensure that you know quality mapping and all the rest of it, because you know, in my view now it's a standard of mapping in Australia and everyone relies on it.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: I I'm like uh Mark have a box full of paper maps uh that I've been collecting since I first got a four-wheel drive.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: And everything back then was maps.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: If you didn't have a map, you weren't gonna find your way.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_04: Well, the maps of Australia and out back Queensland were poor.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_04: Um and it's not just the map of a road.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_04: They realized you wanted to know where to camp or where to go to stay or fill up with petrol.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_04: It's all of the points of interest on a map that helped bring it to life.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_04: There's the topography and all of that, but it's the other things that we pay attention to as well.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that's right.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you want to know where you can set up, where you can pull up.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: Now, you um you joined HEMA uh as a director in 2008 and became chairman in 2014.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, you're still super enthusiastic.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: What keeps the enthusiasm going?
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_04: I was also very lucky to have a little bit of what Henry and Margaret have got, which is this spirit of adventure.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_04: To go down a road untravelled.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_04: Um I I walked, I have walked, I do, out back Australia.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_04: I one of my favorite things to do is to pull a cart over sand dunes and camp in the middle of a salt lake.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_04: Um I do this with some friends, some of whom are very well known in the exploration industry and game, and and so I've been fortunate to come back alive each time, but because of that I found myself needing to be informed, to go out to these places.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_04: Sometimes I've done it with camels, other times I've flooded, uh, paddled, flooded Cooper's Creek into Lake Air and had to drag myself out of that.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_04: So I've enjoyed Outback Australia enormously.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_04: So getting other people out there, even with some of the beautiful things that a camper trailer can give you, is just so natural to me.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: You've ruined camper trailers and caravans.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I'm gonna feel soft every time I go.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: No way with a caravan.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_04: No, no, no, no.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_04: We all love that's we still love those things.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_04: My wife I took out on camel trips and she said, actually, Sam, I love you, but no more.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_04: That's exactly right.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_04: And and even when we do that, you'll know, Steve, you have your smelly weeks out there, and then you do want to come back to a hot shower somewhere, be it Maury or Birdsville or Border.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_04: How good is that first beer and hot fat with salt?
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, look, I love the Outback, and and there is nothing more satisfying than than camping in the desert, especially places like The Simpson and the stars, the atmosphere, and I even had a I was sleeping in a swag one night, it was minus four degrees, and I had a dingo encounter, this little nose up against the mesh on the swag, and it's amazing.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_01: So I understand you love those areas, but I ain't walking there.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: Not for love or money.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_04: What will you what you will know is this the further out you go, the quieter it becomes, and the more powerfully you can hear the rhythm of this continent.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_04: Oh it's enormously powerful.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_04: I agree, and natural light too.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it's it changes your body rhythms, doesn't it, Banksy?
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_04: So, in effect, it was this love of doing that that made me a dead ringer when I first met Henry Bogart to get on board with HEMA maps.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: That that's amazing.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_01: That's amazing.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: So, Mark and Vaughan, you guys love the off-road and getting out and about.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: When did when did your experience with HEMA product start, Mark?
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_02: So I actually went home last week when I heard this podcast was going to be on and I went through my box.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_02: Same as you.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_02: I got I got a box of shelf.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_02: I started pulling books out.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_02: I found a book there from 1985 that my parents must have given to me when I finished school because they knew that I was already out writing and doing that sort of stuff.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um so that had their little story in there saying, Happy birthday, da-da-da, mum mum, dad, do your next adventure.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_02: And then I went through some of my once I got the caravan, the differences of I wanted to plan a trip around Australia.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_02: So that book was 1993.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_02: And when I opened that up again today and went through it, I was going, wow, the the what's in the current map to that, it it's leads and bounds, but at least gave me a base point to stay.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_02: So um whenever we do trips, um, we normally do in my games room, throw a big blank on the pool table, we get out the information book, we get out the um the explore map, which will have the distance from there to there, and then we'll go if we're going to a destination, we'll pull out the iconic map and then get the finer detail of oh, we want to go see that, or I haven't been there.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_02: And by having different sets of eyes on it, um someone will go, Oh, I haven't been there, and I'll go, Oh, I haven't been there either.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_02: So then we mark it on the map, then when we finish the day, we've got all these points of interest, and then from that we'll make the route.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_01: And that's how we do it.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: That's an important thing too, because a printed map, like a modern, up-to-date printed map, you can see everything there.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_01: Where if you're just relying on a Google search or an AI search of what to do between point A and point B, it's going to tell you what it thinks is important for you to know.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_01: So there are going to be things that your general Google search is not going to give you exposure to.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_02: Even for our next little venture we're going to go on next week with um a new camper trailer.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_02: Um, when we got the original base, this is where we're thinking of going on Google Maps.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_02: To then when I opened up the book and went, Oh, there's this other road that runs around the back here, and then all of a sudden they're going, okay, let's go through and find the details.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_02: And there was other points of interest that I'm there going, Well, I'll add that to my list.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_02: So as we travel, I can say, or we might want to go check just check this out.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_02: And that's the same as what I do when I have my map meeting with our friends.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_01: And that that's an important thing for for those watching.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you may love your adventure in getting out and do doing your research through Google searches, etc., but owning hard copies or having a subscription to something like HEMA Maps gives you a whole extra option in discovering these places in detail and mapping out your plan for travel.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: So there's a huge advantage, and you have just outlined that exactly.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: And we we use the app that you have.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_02: I I did have what Vaughn, what was mine?
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_02: The seven?
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_04: The seven, the what the the the generation property, each ex one.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_02: That used to sit on the dash, but now that was on the smaller car, then I've gone bigger truck, then I've gone the truck, so now I have a big laptop.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_02: So by having the phone um hooked up and we just do the transfer data across by the cable, I now get the big screen map up like that.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_02: But I've now did a bit of Google searching yesterday, and I'm very interested in your new product that you've got.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_04: Great.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_02: Because that has a lot of things in there that I've gone, oh, I can be sitting here and have that with me on my table, entering that as I go, and then go done, and there's our trip.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_01: It's funny you talk about looking and discovering new products.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: I'm very soon getting an adventure bike.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_01: Can you guess which product I noticed on your website?
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, the motorcycle one.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, it looks fantastic.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_04: It's very good.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_04: We've just we're just finishing off on making sure it gets us attached in the easiest way, the best way, to as many handlebars as proper.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, makes sense.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_04: So that I think they're in stock this m certainly this month, and we're going out to a it's exclusive, I think you'll find to a couple of uh motorcycle shops.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, well, uh something that caught my interest.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_01: What about you, Vaughn?
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_01: Where did the HEMA experience start for you?
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: With the HX1, and it was planning a company trip.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we did a east to west where we started on the east here.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: We went all the way through to Birdsville, then all the way through um to the to the west side, um, up top in 2016.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, and um yeah, Brisbane Broom it was, and that was like just company uh we did it all internally with our team.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and because I'm the owner of the company, people are always asking me for answers, right?
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: So something would go wrong, and it's like, or how far are we away from camp or how far until lunch, and if something we had to change route for some reason, you have to quickly do the planning.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_01: Because there's a bit of water on the road on that trip.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_01: And for those of you watching, you can go onto our YouTube channel and look up the MDC Brisbane to Broom trip.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_01: So it's all there documented for you to check out.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, so it was a necessity for me because team would come to me for answers, and I have to have the answers as the uh so-called leader, right?
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so it it just made it handy, and out there there's uh there was no internet, no nothing.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, back then though your old Google Maps isn't gonna help at all.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: And if it did, oh I've been led down the garden path with some Google Maps, I tell you.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, me too.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_01: I've been taken on my goose chases.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_01: I that was actually one day coming here, believe it or not, or getting to Kabulcha from my place out near Ipswich.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: And the way it went and the amount of wrong turns and things I had along the way, as soon as I lost uh mobile phone coverage, it would change its mind where we're going, and and then I had to go and find signal to then get back on the map and find my way.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: It added half an hour to an hour and a half trip, was out of control.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well that's in the city, mate.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: Wait till you get out west.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_01: So and that trip, it went well, didn't it?
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was a rip trip.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and no doubt uh Craig and the team can put some of that up on the screen for everyone to have a look at.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, that particular causeway, um, it was flooded that year and um there was water over it for I don't I can't remember what it's actually called.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: But it wasn't this is it Birdsville.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that'll be the Diamantina.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: Diamantina, yeah.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: And it but it was uh it was a paved road, a little bit raised.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: It was almost like a concrete colour.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's it.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: Just just on the southeast side of Birdsville.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so driving through there with water coverage was a bit how you're going with caravans.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: But um I'm not the first one to go.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: We make sure the camera car goes first.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: If they can get through it, then uh we go.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's that's always the way the sacrificial camera car.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_01: So for you, Sam, the the founders, Henry and Margaret, obviously they weren't cartographers and they set off on their first one to map around Queensland.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_01: Their approach to it, how has that changed or defined how mapping is done today?
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_04: Great question.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_04: If you were to look at a HEMA map, and I I just love your collection.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_04: One of the things that makes the HEMA map different is the colour.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_04: There's more colour on those maps than what you'd find elsewhere.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_04: Cartography and people who get it, get it.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_04: You can read a map upside down and know that you've got to actually spatially turn yourself the right way.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_04: But if you can see the red highway versus the gray, secondary, or yellow tertiary roads, you actually can know that I should be heading in a straight line, sort of west, for the next couple of hours, and then I'm going to be heading south or something.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_04: And and we keep that in our minds.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_04: Men are very spatial compared to most women.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_04: Not all, but as a strength they normally are.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_04: And to be able to pick up that information very, very quickly, use the colour, and then the icons, which is all cartography really is, is iconography.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_04: You know, the colour and the icons, and that then gives you oh, there's a petrol station up there.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_04: You'll know that.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_04: Oh there's a police station.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_04: Every town of a certain size will have a police station.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_04: So, you know, even the font will help you with that sort of stuff.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_04: So Henry and Margaret were fantastic at that.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_04: Um and that's what they brought.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_04: Fresh, sharp cartography.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_04: So actually what they were was designers as opposed to cartography.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_01: And and that that is the importance of anything, whether it be uh video content or or written content, that sort of thing, is being able to present in an easy to understand layman terms approach to reach a wider audience and a wider understanding of how to use it.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_01: Because lost is lost.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_01: And the better you can read and understand that, Matt, the the far lesser the chance that you're gonna get lost.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not hard to do in Australia.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_01: I think a lot of people don't realise just how deep in it you can get in Outback Australia if you don't have good resources because they're fantastic at a compass, and it's hard to go wrong.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_04: Let alone just a GPS.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: So Sam, would you say the the secret source is the ease of use and does that flow through from your maps into the electronic devices where they have to be very intuitive and easy to use because us as users we're just gonna turn it on, press a button, and expect that we know how to fly it.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: We're not gonna read an instruction manual, are we?
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_04: You're just like me.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly all of us, I think.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly right.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_04: I definitely I remember reading a very early software program that I got and had loaded it into my slow computer by today's standards, and the instruction manuals were always about an inch thick, but the first two pages are really clear.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_04: The guy said, You need to know these seven steps.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_04: And the page was titled Full.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_04: Rush in.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_04: And the rest of it, you know, is all the detail.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_04: But part of what you're talking about is, okay, I think I know what I'm looking at.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_04: How do I really find out?
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_04: And and a map is really quite interesting.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_04: If you look at the um in Queensland, here we'll have people have been brought up on a RAFEDEX.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_04: In Melbourne, it's a Melways.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_04: Do you know how long it took them to really get any market share with a Sidway?
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_04: It takes a generation.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_04: It does.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_04: People have to be used.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_04: It used to be the Gregory's in Sydney.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_04: You know, and and so you actually get used to that style of cartography.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_04: So there's now 40 years worth of people used to a HEMA map.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_04: And it's cartography.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_04: And when you touched Vaughan on um the GPS, one of the advantages we had was people were used to our printed cartography.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_04: And it was very it it's it was a real challenge for people to get a Garmin GPS or a TomTom GPS and look at where they were, because the cartography didn't match the map that they were using.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_04: So we had an enormous advantage just by on a small four-inch screen, then a five, then the six, then the seven, and an HX1K.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_04: And and just by putting a blue dot or an arrow with our cartography behind it, which matched up to your road atlas or your flat map.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_04: So that actually helped.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_04: And in fact, we we sold the first edition of all of these as a companion tool.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_04: Wow.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_04: So the dot would put you on the map, but feel comfortable with the cartography because of the atlas.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_01: That's that works.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_01: That works for you know the general lay m lay person in.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_04: And that was Henry and Margaret and Rob Bockheim.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_04: Very, very they they were they were proper adventurers and users.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, which I think is very important.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: And probably why HEMA's had such success in that space, because we you've had a few come and go, and for that very same reason, like you just can't fly them straight away, right?
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_04: Well no, you can't, and it's it's it's a challenge for us every time we bring out a newer and better device is to convince people to leave their old one.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_04: And and and um Fool's Russian.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_04: I used that example before.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_04: So you've got to make sure, and we we we found our customer service uh teaming uh increased dramatically when we went to GPS.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_04: Quick story, Vaughn.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_04: I remember with the first edition, the HN4, someone called us up from Cape York to the head office in Brisbane and said, Hey guys, I've spent$400 on this.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_04: You think I can't get the bloody thing to work.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_04: And we looked at each other and we said, we've never had anyone call up from Cape York to say they can't read a road atlas.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_04: One of our own road atlases.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_04: But now we realise that actually we've got to help people understand and do it.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_04: So you'll find that we've been able to, we've got a really good customer support team who answer phones, speak in English, usually are four-wheel drivers and explorers themselves, or caravans and campers, so they can talk to you about this stuff and step you through it.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_04: Of course, we've also got on our website things like frequently asked questions, um, how-tos, short clips and Instagram and videogrammy things.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_04: Plus, of course, we have tutorials done one uh uh instigated by one of our salespeople every second Wednesday, you can book in for them, called HEMA University.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_04: So, how do you use the devices to get more out of them?
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_04: And so we've now we used not to actually tell people how to read a road atlas, but we've now got it now for years we've had experience at telling people how to use our digital devices because they are complex.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's a lot of great help.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, something you know, with some of the history and the things that have gone on with HEMA Maps is very Laland brotherish in the early days in terms of adventure.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_01: The Great Desert Tracks edition.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_01: Can you give us an insight into that?
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_01: It was that that was 99.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: 98 or so?
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, 98.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yes.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_01: And you went out and you mapped the deserts and the inland.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_01: What was the scale of that and the logistics?
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_01: What went into making that happen?
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_04: Thank you, Steve.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_04: It was a it was a company-changing episode for us, um, especially driven by Rob Bockheim, the son of Rob, uh Henry and Margaret.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_04: Um We realized the further up we got, the worse the mapping became.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_04: There might have been some pastoral maps, but that's not telling you much.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_04: It's only boundaries and things like that.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_04: There was some major roads, but that was about it.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_04: And but our company, and Henry and Margaret in particular, wanted to explore fur further and map it.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_04: In about 1995, and this is an important thing to remember, 1995, mid-90s, the the precursor to the Geoscience Australia here, our mapping department, uh, gave up updating the map of Australia.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_04: Our company came along and said, well, that's not good enough if we're going to be going out there.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_04: We need update information.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_04: This is a job for us.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_01: Could you imagine if it was left at that given where people want to go today?
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_04: Today, that's what you're touching on is the great Desert Tra Desert Tracks Maps series is a foundation of us really in uh really uh cementing our brand for the Outback Traveller.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_04: Not just up the coast, but through the center.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_04: Um and so look, it was an 18-month program.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_04: Every staff member went and we went in pairs through a couple of vehicles with a predetermined planned out route, route and series of those things.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_04: Most people were out for two to three weeks at a time, and we would rotate them back.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_04: It was enormously powerful for our company.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_04: Um, I can say a number of people said this is the best thing ever, and there are one or two said, never see me out there again.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_04: And by the way, they've stayed on as fantastic employees, but they just don't want to do it that way.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_02: You always get someone that won't want to go down that track that goes, oh, where does that go?
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm interested just how does it that particular those trips then, how did it work?
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: How was it people like I've driven a kilometer, I'm going to add a little stroke and a dot.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: How does it work?
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: Fantastic.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_04: The first things we're trying to do was to put the road on put the track on a map.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_04: The next thing we started to do is to get to the intersections of the roads and give that a GPS location.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_04: So that if you looked at our very first editions of our desert map tracks, we would actually annotate lat long for those locations.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_04: Why?
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_04: Because people, and we didn't have a GP, we didn't have our own GPS back then.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_04: We had a GPS in the vehicle, but then people could say, I wonder where I am in relation to the next intersection.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_04: And they would have a a a Magellan, a Garmin with no cartography on it, but then you could know where they were heading to get to that location.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_01: My first Garmin was like that.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_01: It was used for nautical navigation.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_01: And it just had an arrow and told you if you were in the lane or not.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_04: Steve, you're quite right.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_04: So it wasn't the cartography, it was just pointing there.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_04: And so that's actually how we did the first ones.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_04: And then and and the original GPS um took up a seat.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_04: You know, it just did.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_04: And stop and think about it.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_04: It was back in the 90s.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_04: We're a private company.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_04: Small.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_04: Henry and Margaret were so convinced that this was the way forward.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_04: Um, Henry described it as like his phrase, lightning struck.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_04: This is what we've got to do.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_04: This is going to actually change us.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_04: And he was quite right.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_01: That's an enormous conviction when you when you consider the cost, the man hours, the risks, and everything involved in that.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_01: To actually take it on with that kind of conviction, you'd have to be certain in your head.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_01: Because standing back, most people would think, oh, you're mad.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_01: Where's the return?
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_04: Well they are fulfilled people.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_04: I'm sitting round a table here talking to people who fulfill other things in their personality and their life by doing this adventurous stuff.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_04: And if you're into it, you're into it.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_04: That's and Henry and Margaret just were that sort of person.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: I guess also it's um I always look at it from a business perspective and it's barrier to entry, right?
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_00: So other people aren't going to be able to f afford or have the guts to try to have a GPS that's the size of a seat that's going to cost X tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands if it's the first one.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: And then knowing that there's no guarantee that that's going to be the adopted technology going forward.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_04: It's risky.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, but we needed the maps.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_04: And and and you needed to get there accurately.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_04: And th this is one of the things, and we'll I know, Steve, you want to touch on this later, is about it's remote and it's dangerous out there.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_04: And Henry and Margaret would often have said, Oh, this map's not up to speed.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_04: It's dangerous.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_04: I wouldn't give it to my grandchildren.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_01: That is a great way to look at it.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_01: And well, there's a line from the early days, we just had to do this for the country.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I can tell you like the amount of travel I've I've done as a f off-roader, I appreciate it 100%.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_01: So Yeah.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_01: This is gonna bring me back around to the easy options now of Google Maps and Apple Maps, etc.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_01: I are they really good enough these days, Google Maps and Google.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_01: Well, they they they can get you to Birdsville.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_04: They can.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_04: But d do they tell you what you're passing by or where you might want to camp?
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_04: Well, once or what you want to see.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_01: If you don't have Starlink, they're just relying on memory the whole way.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, like the map loaded.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_04: It's i it's a very important thing for people to remember that our country is covered by Telstra and Optus to the tune of about 30 percent.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_04: They will tell you it's 98.5 per cent of the population.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, yes.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, around town centers.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_04: And and then if you actually go and have a look at the Telstra coverage map of that one-third that they've shaded, there is different shadings.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_04: Two-thirds of that one-third is oh so.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_04: And and and you will know if you've ever done remote traveling, that you just go bing, you've come through a spot, and suddenly you've got signal that's oh wow, look at that.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_04: And it can be an indigenous community back from the road, or it could be a mine site not too far away.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_04: And then you don't get it for another half an hour, 45 minutes, or an hour.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_04: It doesn't exist.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_04: So you actually have to take the information with you.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_04: So if it's a GPS, you've got to download those maps with the detail of the area you've got to go to before you get there.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_04: Or if you do have Starlink, and these are big, the other thing is these files, cartography files, are very large for the detail that people want.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_04: So it does take a lot of grunt to download them.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_04: You could be sitting in a caravan park, that might work, you know.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_04: Um, but there's so much of Australia, you just don't get coverage.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_04: And by the way, try this in North America.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_04: You don't get it there, too, because the mountains are so high, and in the valleys and all of this, signals get distorted.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_04: So you think you've got coverage, but frankly, you don't.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we've experienced that with our travel in in the States, dropping in and out of signal, etc.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_01: So Well, you hear the horror stories of Google Maps, etc., getting people into trouble.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_01: You see the memes and photos of people blindly following and driving into water.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_01: Well, there's supposed to be a road here.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_01: And now can they just fix that or do you think the only solution is an actual GPS-based, satellite-based type system?
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_04: I I think, Steve, the answer sits in two sorts of camps here.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_04: One is are you expecting, wanting, needing to be connected at all times?
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_04: That's one thing.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_04: The other thing is, and again, our fabulous continent, people forget what it's like.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_04: It is so remote.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_04: And the seasonality is so unpredictable.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_04: What do I mean?
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_04: The Thompson and the Barakou meet at Gwindora.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_04: When the channel country is flowing, it is 30 kilometers wide, that water.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_04: But people will look at the map and go, huh?
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_04: What?
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_04: There's just a bit of blue on the map.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_04: No, you can't get through.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_04: And you can't get through for a month.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_04: Right?
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_04: And it lasts that way, and then that water across time finds its way all the way down to Inner Minka, and then eventually through Kunji Lakes and out into the Cooper into Lake Air.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_04: And if you said Kidman, you quietly move 5,000 head of cattle down to Adelaide.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_04: That's what he did.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_04: He understood those things.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_04: But it wouldn't happen again for another five seasons.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_04: So it's unpredictable.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_04: And it's remote.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_04: And so that aspect to it makes it really important that you know what you're going into.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_04: And I don't think the other the other part to this is that people have a expectation, and this has been part of our challenge, I'll touch on in the tick about the development of the technology around GPS.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_04: They have an expectation of being able to be shown exactly where they are in relation to everything else because they're connected.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_04: My awareness came when the first time I ordered an Uber, I was standing on the curb to get an Uber to the airport, and I could move myself from one side of the street to the other with the little pinpointer thing on your screen.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_04: And I went, wow, look at this.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_04: And then I could see three little monopoly cars bidding for my work.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_04: And then one of them would come and pick me up.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_04: I'd go, if this is going to be the experience, the mapping experience of everyone on a screen in town, man, someone's just set the bar so high.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_04: How am I going to do this in the Outback?
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_04: And that has been our challenge.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_04: For example, people expect in the city to have a turn-by-turn experience to put into the GPS, take me to Palm Valley near Herminsburg, turn by turn.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_04: But technically, that is terribly difficult to do because the amount of uh data you have to have and the connectivity you need for it.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_04: And we've had a number of false starts on this over nearly a decade.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_04: We just about got that sorted with our new release of product.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_04: We're really looking forward to that to get you turn by turn to these remote places offline.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_04: That is game changing.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_04: We've been working at it, Steve, and and I've stubbed my toe and we've spent a lot of money and had to restart three times, I think.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_02: I I'm the same as you, Steve.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_02: COVID year, Sarah and I were heading north to get out of, get just be on the road.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_02: We got to the border, got turned around because of a two-day window where I was in the Brisbane, not Mortonshire.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_02: So then I had to go, how am I going to get from here to still get to the territory?
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_02: So we had our digital map that we had loaded and put through there, but when we went off through Cameron Wheel heading to Lawn Hill, there's a bypass road that takes you up to Hell's Gate.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_02: The map we had dropped off, and it just had a little arrow in the middle of nowhere.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_02: Now, this is supposed to be a main bypass road.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_02: I then went and pulled out trusty map and it said, yes, it's there, but from the drapry on it, I could see that the cliff faces are always over that way.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_02: There was an area that ran through a section.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_02: And I've got a drone footage photo of that where I put the drone up, and as far as you could see off to the horizon, this road just went straight.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_02: And that mountain range was there, and I could see this little couple clumps of trees.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um so without that, and no phone service didn't have Starlink back then.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_02: Like we're lost, lost.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_02: And like all I had to do was just kick um that's on my right, that's there, we'll just keep going along and we should come.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_02: And it ended up being a cattle station had moved in and moved their cattle and they moved their operation down.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_02: So where the robe went, they got rid of it.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_02: So that so it was just we were driving through this cattle property, open gates up and just driving to the next paddock, to the next gate, and then drove through the next one to go, I'm getting worried now.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_02: The extent of I think we call it quits for the day.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_02: Pull up.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_02: What can we find information to do?
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_02: And yeah.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_02: Scary.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_01: It it is, yeah.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_01: It's like being stranded in the outback and not knowing when the next car's going past and if before sat phones and all that sort of stuff.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_01: If you didn't have um rad phone on your HF radio, you were at the mercy of waiting for someone to come past.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_02: So I think I had self-yeigh go then as my try to boost a signal off a mine or the station, but it it didn't work.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we're not too far away.
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_02: So Starlink now solved that, but um back then the little navigation system we had, the Garmin, was totally in the blue.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm looking forward to the new email one.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_01: So Sam, tell us about map patrol.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_01: What's I see the insignia on your sleeve?
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_01: And so tell us about map patrol.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it's a lot of people uh assume it's a one and done thing.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_04: So can give us an education into it?
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_04: Steve, it it came out of that Great Desert Tracks series.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_04: Our Map Patrol.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_04: People went out on Map Patrol collecting track data and then points of interest.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_04: Um and we've continued to do that ever since.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_04: We've complemented and supplemented with other data collection field work um techniques and teams, but we've still held on to it.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_04: The HEMA Map Patrol is a real privilege to be in, our logoed vehicles.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_04: I've been stopped and pulled over so many times.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_04: I've pulled up at petrol stations, and guys have come over with their road atlases and just opened them up a bit like you, Banji.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_04: And it's it it is it is such a privilege to be in a logo de HEMA vehicle.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_04: I I never, ever, ever take that one for granted.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_04: So I need to be careful what I say.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_04: I need to be careful overtaking.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_04: No fingers up.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_04: I need to be careful with caravannas.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_04: Sometimes Vaughn.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know exactly what you mean.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_00: You were you driving a uh well, I could be driving an NDC vehicle, someone rings up head office and complains.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_00: You know, your phone number's on the side, and the the team's like, Oh, there's been another complaint, Vaughan.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_00: You've been uh not driving nicely and someone's.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_00: Oh thank God, I thought it was just me.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_00: Mostly you, Steve, I was just trying to take the heat off you.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_04: And and so from that original Drake does it tracks experience, we've kept our vehicles in the field.
• 43:59
  unknown: Uh
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_04: Um and so the map patrol is there collecting real data, ground truthing.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_04: There was a time when actually we had all of our outback tracks in purple where we're driven.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_04: Ah, okay.
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_04: So people could open the book, open the flat map, and go, huh, I know it's been ground truth by the HEMA Map Patrol.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_04: And that's that's actually that's actually been an important thing.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_04: And Banksy, you'll see on your products there so much so that we on the front cover of every one, we've got field check by the HEMA Map Patrol.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_04: That way, that sort of thing.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_04: Stamp of authority.
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_04: That's an investment is to keep our product up to date.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_04: You only have to go out once and get a nasty experience before the next time you come back and I need good maps.
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_04: Henry and Margaret had always said we've got to make the best maps in Australia.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_04: Once you open them up, open up a map against the competitor's map, you'll see you can actually charge a high price for it.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_04: People will pay a dollar more.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_01: I get that.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_01: And in actually driving it, I wanted to talk about satellites, satellite mapping and all the rest of it.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_01: Now, obviously, driving and and proving the roads is one thing.
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_01: What else is changing that satellites will never be able to provide the end user?
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_04: It it there are things like road conditions, you know, um um ruts, uh uh bull dust, and other sorts of things that a satellite won't pick up.
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_04: But there's all these points of interest that are of genuine interest to a traveler.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_04: An example I sometimes use is you could be driving along a mountain range and it's Mount Mount Buffalo, but it only appears a buffalo from the west.
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_04: From the east, it's just a round rock.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_04: So, oh, right, okay.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_04: That's clearly Mount Buffalo there.
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_04: Or there's a homestead or whatever, but there's also other points of interest for the traveller.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_04: Outback Australia is remote.
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_04: You need to know and often fill up at remote communities.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_04: They're not open 24-7.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_04: They don't have regular fuel, they have Opal.
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_04: You know, they've got different sorts of requirements.
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_04: Sometimes these communities are only open from 10 till 2.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_04: Good luck with your trip planning.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_04: That's what these maps are about.
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_04: Camping.
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_04: Can I empty my pooper there?
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_04: Can I go with my dog?
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_04: Tell me, is there water or gas?
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_04: How far to the next whatever?
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_04: Should I be collecting um firewood?
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_04: That's a big one.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_01: Well, there's a lot of places you're not allowed to do it.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_04: That's ex that's exactly right.
• 47:08
  SPEAKER_04: And the other sorts of things that now matter is you actually need to be online to make a booking for a campsite.
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_04: So you'd better make sure you have your trip planning right, because you'll be out by a few days otherwise.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_01: Well, yeah, very true.
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_01: Catches a lot of people out there.
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_01: And also keeping it current.
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of places that we've all loved to go to in remote areas now that are now closed down and you need special conditions to access them, like L Lorella.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_01: Lorella Springs is is one thing.
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, keeping up to date is super important.
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_04: You're touching on satellites.
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_04: Satellite I love satellite imagery.
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_04: I love flipping between a cartographic map with good points of interest and and and um some satellite photographs because it actually gives you some awareness of the topography.
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_04: Um the satellite photos, gosh, they're good, but they just don't give you everything.
• 48:11
  SPEAKER_01: Well, even in 3D, you you can't get a good contour or you know, work out if if that is walkable or you know that sort of thing.
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_04: The cartographers have tried, Steve.
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_04: There's sort of hill shading.
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_04: You know.
• 48:27
  SPEAKER_04: Um there are contours on a map, our general ones on a new HEMA nav will be every 10 meters.
• 48:33
  SPEAKER_04: So, you know, you'll actually be able to pick up that because that'll influence the shading when the contours come close together.
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_04: Um But but you're quite right.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_04: Um satellite photos are just another view.
• 48:46
  unknown: Yes.
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_04: Um they also need interpretation.
• 48:51
  SPEAKER_04: But best m most important is these things around points of interest for the traveller, the outback traveller.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_04: What are the things they're interested in?
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_04: And and that's why we do it and ground truth it.
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_04: Over the years, we've made millions of phone calls to remote roadhouses to update a map of Western Queensland or Northern Territory or whatever to supplement our field work.
• 49:15
  SPEAKER_04: Our map patrol program has extended into what we've now called and been running for about four years now, our Alpha program.
• 49:23
  SPEAKER_04: These are experienced outback travelers who are very happy to come and collect track data and points of interest to supplement our map patrol teams.
• 49:37
  SPEAKER_04: At any given time, there'll be a dozen of them on the road.
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_04: And I think we've got about 52 to 60 of them.
• 49:47
  SPEAKER_04: Some of them are not traveling this year, might be too expensive to fill up the car and heavens knows what, but they'll get reimbursed uh for the data that the usable data that they're able to give us.
• 50:00
  SPEAKER_01: That's awesome.
• 50:00
  SPEAKER_04: That is a great idea.
• 50:01
  SPEAKER_04: And so we've got we've got some people who are doing tens of you know, 10,000, 15,000 kilometers for us each year.
• 50:07
  SPEAKER_04: Um and we will tell them regions that we need updating.
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_04: That is amazing.
• 50:13
  SPEAKER_04: I've got my next trip plan.
• 50:15
  SPEAKER_04: It's a it's a but it's a fantastic, it's a fantastic thing we're doing with our extended community because sometimes they help us out with shows, sometimes they help us out with training or guides or whatever.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_04: Um and they help test our product, our GPS and other things like that.
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_04: So we rely on them.
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_04: And I got a a real delight just um yesterday in the office with our publishing team when they showed us the New Year's calendar, all the photographs are from our alpha team.
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_04: Bob and Betty and George and Hazel, you know, all of those sorts of people.
• 50:50
  SPEAKER_04: God bless them, love them.
• 50:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 50:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 50:52
  SPEAKER_01: Something that that's becoming more and more popular, or we're getting more exposure to due to social media, et cetera, is people working remotely, uh packing up the family, purchasing an off-road caravan, and going off on that 12-month, two-year Australian adventure.
• 51:09
  SPEAKER_01: Now, with your expertise and and years in this, what would your recommendation be to someone like that who's heading off and going to go everywhere to ensure they have opportunity and knowledge of all the things to see, aren't going to get lost, and have some kind of reasonable understanding of expected road conditions, travel times, and planning everything.
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_01: What kind of kit would you recommend for a family like that?
• 51:40
  SPEAKER_04: Great.
• 51:40
  SPEAKER_04: Thank you, Steve.
• 51:41
  SPEAKER_04: If I can start with some of our products, but I'll also speak about other generalities that some people do really quite well.
• 51:50
  SPEAKER_04: You do need to take a proper GPS.
• 51:55
  SPEAKER_04: Don't just rely on your Apple phone, right?
• 51:59
  SPEAKER_04: Take a proper GPS with you.
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_04: It can actually be an iPhone with a proper GPS chip in it.
• 52:06
  SPEAKER_04: That gives you a bigger screen, but then get a good navigational app that goes with it, right?
• 52:15
  SPEAKER_04: Plus, you also need to have a flat map, a printed map, be it a road atlas or a series of flat maps of the regions you're traveling.
• 52:26
  SPEAKER_04: There happen to be some excellent um road atlases and guidebooks, such as Camps Australia Wide, Where to Camps, Big Lap Bible.
• 52:45
  SPEAKER_04: These are really good productions.
• 52:48
  SPEAKER_04: Um, and they will provide a lot of advice above and beyond just the maps and where to and how they help you with the how-to.
• 52:59
  SPEAKER_04: I would always recommend a properly standalone GPS.
• 53:04
  SPEAKER_04: But I'm a bit old-fashioned, and we sell those.
• 53:07
  SPEAKER_04: Our new ones now come with the new HEMA Smart Navigators, come with turn by turn off road stuff.
• 53:14
  SPEAKER_04: All of the maps are already preloaded on the particular device, and it's mounted on your dashboard.
• 53:20
  SPEAKER_04: Cache, it's dash mounted, it's on the windscreen with a suction cap, you know, that sort of thing.
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_04: I would still use those.
• 53:26
  SPEAKER_04: But I've got plenty of friends who just want a really good navigational app on their tablet or device.
• 53:33
  SPEAKER_04: Um, HEMA's got one of those, and there's some other ones in the marketplace too.
• 53:37
  SPEAKER_04: Our new one is due out early in the new year.
• 53:41
  SPEAKER_04: Um, our uh updated navigation HEMA Nav system is got an update coming next week.
• 53:51
  SPEAKER_04: So that's got more maps, bug fixes, and whatever.
• 53:56
  SPEAKER_04: Um we also have for people who like to use their in-dash, and more cars have decent in-dashes now, a thing called a HEMA box, which is about this large, this thin, and it plugs into the USB by which it then presents all the HEMA nav system onto the dash.
• 54:18
  SPEAKER_04: And you can do your trip planning, route planning on your own dashboard.
• 54:23
  SPEAKER_04: And that is Apple CarPlay and Google.
• 54:26
  SPEAKER_04: Google as well.
• 54:29
  SPEAKER_02: The screens you get now on your cars are getting like this, right?
• 54:32
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, my range is bigger than my first TV I had in my bedroom.
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, it's quite interesting.
• 54:37
  SPEAKER_04: And by the way, you might have noticed that the Ford are portrait and the everyone else's landscape.
• 54:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 54:46
  SPEAKER_04: It's not as simple as you think.
• 54:49
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, forget to go to the weight.
• 54:51
  SPEAKER_04: We nearly have to come up with two different product ranges.
• 54:53
  SPEAKER_04: It's actually it it's it's more awkward than you think.
• 54:57
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, for the user experience.
• 54:59
  SPEAKER_04: You're now relying on other people's uh screens, and car manufacturers quite rightly are very fussy about having stuff on their screen.
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_04: Anyway, so there's there's a range of other things that you can plug in to make not so old car with an in-dash very, very functional for going out there.
• 55:19
  SPEAKER_02: Um with reliability there.
• 55:22
  SPEAKER_02: So, what like you said before, Steve, for that um first caravanna going on that trip.
• 55:27
  SPEAKER_02: Like for me, like this book's the fifth edition of the New York, and you pull it up there and Cape York, and it's got all the details of different areas in there, turtle rescue, then it's got a little symbol map, and then from that I then write some notes, then I pull out the uh iconic map of that area, and then I transfer across, and then it's like this is my route, this is what I want to see.
• 55:54
  SPEAKER_02: Um, even tells me some seasons, tells me what time the fishing comps in the WePah, um, all that sort of stuff.
• 56:01
  SPEAKER_02: So it comes very handy.
• 56:03
  SPEAKER_02: And then when I was speaking to you downstairs, we've just completed um Morton, Straty, Bribey, Double Island Point over the last six, seven months.
• 56:13
  SPEAKER_02: So we've now got that book coming, which is the same format.
• 56:18
  SPEAKER_02: So the customer could buy that and then it'll have all of the island explorers.
• 56:23
  SPEAKER_02: Exploring.
• 56:24
  SPEAKER_01: And this is something like you've you've got to look at the the economy, the the value in this sort of thing.
• 56:32
  SPEAKER_01: Because planning uh an Australia, around Australia trip or some of these iconic trips are once-in-a-lifetime for some people.
• 56:42
  SPEAKER_01: So you want to suck every opportunity, every memory, every experience out of this as you can.
• 56:50
  SPEAKER_01: So going those extra yards in preparation and planning is you just wouldn't not do it, would you?
• 56:58
  SPEAKER_01: When you think of the cost, like it may you're gonna pack up the the the family and and spend$100,000 on a on a caravan,$120,000 on a tow vehicle, and then spend, you know, eighty, a hundred thousand dollars living around Australia on fuel, foods, everything you do, that is a sizeable investment.
• 57:20
  SPEAKER_01: You can buy a a two-bedroom townhouse for that sort of money.
• 57:25
  SPEAKER_01: So to rob yourself of those small little adventures off to the sides and the amazing things to see that your kids are going to remember for the rest of your life, you it'd be a bit crazy not to do it, wouldn't you?
• 57:38
  SPEAKER_04: The the sorts of experiences we have with our field teams and our map patrol teams are things exactly like that, Steve.
• 57:46
  SPEAKER_04: Someone drove um with their family through uh Peterborough, north of Adelaide, south of the Flinders Rangers, Hawker.
• 57:54
  SPEAKER_04: It was a major transport route.
• 57:57
  SPEAKER_04: It had actually a major railway route with a railway museum, and it wasn't shown that way on our map.
• 58:03
  SPEAKER_04: Now, for this Queensland family coming all the way to WA, they would have stopped for a day because one of their kids was a nutter for trains.
• 58:12
  SPEAKER_04: And six different gauges, you know, the Broken Hill Line and Tramway.
• 58:17
  SPEAKER_04: The Broken Hill Line came down from there, and and and the standard and uh and and the broad gauge went through there too.
• 58:24
  SPEAKER_04: South Australian gauges different.
• 58:26
  SPEAKER_04: And and so that in itself was something that it goes, hang on, we've there's all of these things in interest to people that we've got to make sure we somehow capture.
• 58:37
  SPEAKER_04: And so that's what we're trying hard to do.
• 58:39
  SPEAKER_04: You can't put all of them on a map, but on a digital GPS you can, and then we have layers of turning stuff on or off.
• 58:49
  SPEAKER_04: And where I want to be is being able to offer to people their travel experience in outback Australia and they can press function key two, which is geology.
• 59:01
  SPEAKER_04: And as they're driving along, they're saying 100 metres on the right is Chambers Come.
• 59:07
  SPEAKER_04: Well now.
• 59:07
  SPEAKER_04: And and function key three is a historical channel with all the explorers.
• 59:13
  SPEAKER_04: And and then function key four could be for kids and more whatever, and a whole range of things that actually bring it all together for you.
• 59:23
  SPEAKER_04: And that's where we're wanting to go with this, because it's not just the maps, it's all the stories around the maps.
• 59:30
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, 100% agree.
• 59:32
  SPEAKER_04: Why are things as they are?
• 59:35
  SPEAKER_04: And if you go to go go to a lot of our lot of our routes that we've got uh are roads, they follow the easiest line.
• 59:46
  SPEAKER_04: And they follow actually water holes.
• 59:49
  SPEAKER_04: And what do you know?
• 59:51
  SPEAKER_04: They are indigenous ochre trading routes, etc., etc., etc.
• 59:58
  SPEAKER_01: All the all the history, topography, everything that they're not teaching in schools now.
• 1:00:03
  SPEAKER_01: So if you're packing your kids up and you're away for a year or whatever, you want it to be as educational.
• 1:00:10
  SPEAKER_01: Like that's the one time they get to soak all that up.
• 1:00:13
  SPEAKER_01: So that kind of information to me, I've always been fascinated about early explorers and indigenous life and and the history of various things.
• 1:00:24
  SPEAKER_01: But now, if you can put all those tools in front of people that's easy to use, and it's got to be easy to use with with you know modern society, it is that just opens up such a wide scope of education and opportunity, doesn't it?
• 1:00:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, it does.
• 1:00:41
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 1:00:42
  SPEAKER_01: And the the development must be uh just so intense.
• 1:00:48
  SPEAKER_04: We've got we've we've got a lot of uh a resource focused on on uh the digital side of the business to try and make sure that these uh content pieces are presented as well.
• 1:01:04
  SPEAKER_04: Not just the mapping, not just the points of interest, but all of these other stories.
• 1:01:09
  SPEAKER_04: And in effect, it's actually about community.
• 1:01:13
  SPEAKER_04: It's the traveling community, it's the outback regional community, it's how do you get there safely and back, um, and it's being able to share it with your family and friends.
• 1:01:24
  SPEAKER_01: Can you imagine what a game changer that would be for our company trips where we go?
• 1:01:29
  SPEAKER_01: Like with those kind of resources, we could give them to Craig to plan these trips so we could eat tomahawks and air fried chips in the nicest places and actually learn while we're going.
• 1:01:44
  SPEAKER_00: Sounds like a plan to me.
• 1:01:46
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's incredible.
• 1:01:48
  SPEAKER_01: I I had no idea of the depth of of this going into this podcast, and I'm I'm learning a lot.
• 1:01:55
  SPEAKER_01: I'm actually very, very excited about the future of mapping now.
• 1:01:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's um very exciting.
• 1:02:00
  SPEAKER_01: What would you consider the the main mistakes?
• 1:02:03
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Mark warn you to the main mistakes that people are making when planning trips.
• 1:02:11
  SPEAKER_01: Start with you, Mark.
• 1:02:12
  SPEAKER_01: What do you think people could do better or aren't doing?
• 1:02:15
  SPEAKER_02: One is that research.
• 1:02:17
  SPEAKER_02: So with what you're telling, what's coming through, and reading that map properly, you you'll find those little key spots that you might want to look at.
• 1:02:26
  SPEAKER_02: And that's why when we do it on our table with the bunch of people sitting there, we ask everyone to have a look so they might have their idea, and then I might have missed that and they have their idea.
• 1:02:37
  SPEAKER_02: But I'm keen on this being out of like now you've got this little device I can plug into my thing.
• 1:02:43
  SPEAKER_02: Great.
• 1:02:44
  SPEAKER_02: I want one.
• 1:02:44
  SPEAKER_02: It doesn't work on the truck though, but the new um the one you have now on the screen.
• 1:02:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that would suit me to the T.
• 1:02:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but it's it's missing that that detail that does there.
• 1:02:58
  SPEAKER_02: Because I I know from when I do our trip planning, um the guys count on me to find those little spots on the route that is the the shot or the that's beautiful.
• 1:03:10
  SPEAKER_02: Great cramp spot.
• 1:03:11
  SPEAKER_02: And um having that detail just make it so much easier for me.
• 1:03:15
  SPEAKER_01: It'd be easy.
• 1:03:16
  SPEAKER_01: What about you, Sam?
• 1:03:17
  SPEAKER_01: What do you think people could do better or aren't doing?
• 1:03:20
  SPEAKER_04: Steve, I think the big thing with this country is perspective.
• 1:03:26
  SPEAKER_04: Um it's remote, so they need to understand distance and travel time and speed.
• 1:03:33
  SPEAKER_04: And making sure that 250 kilometers is four hours, six hours.
• 1:03:42
  SPEAKER_04: Understanding that, it's not two and a half hours.
• 1:03:45
  SPEAKER_01: And what the headwind on the nullabor will do to your fuel economy.
• 1:03:49
  SPEAKER_04: That's a very good example of it.
• 1:03:51
  SPEAKER_04: Um so keeping those things in mind, I think, are terribly, terribly important.
• 1:03:57
  SPEAKER_04: And the next part will be, and and and in in a way that people hand in glove with this is fuel usage.
• 1:04:07
  SPEAKER_04: You need to know what your car uses in certain conditions because there's only so many refueling spots out there.
• 1:04:15
  SPEAKER_01: Well, canning stock route now that you can't even get a fuel delivery.
• 1:04:18
  SPEAKER_02: So that's the canning's my next big one.
• 1:04:20
  SPEAKER_02: And I've been Google watching on YouTube, uh looking at the service stations that close, the little not service stations, the communities closed at two.
• 1:04:31
  SPEAKER_02: But with your maps and your guys driving them, would that give you me true travel time from like that well number 14 to well 23 where there's could be fuel?
• 1:04:43
  SPEAKER_04: What what you'll find is in the uh great tracks editions we've got are these routes that we've driven with conservative times given the conditions.
• 1:04:58
  SPEAKER_04: And that's what I'm saying.
• 1:05:00
  SPEAKER_04: Given the conditions.
• 1:05:01
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 1:05:02
  SPEAKER_04: Um at any given time, you can sit on a hundred kilometers an hour on the Birdsville track.
• 1:05:07
  SPEAKER_04: There's quite a few times you can't as well.
• 1:05:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 1:05:10
  SPEAKER_04: Absolutely.
• 1:05:11
  SPEAKER_01: And and let's face it, survival out on those roads, especially when towing, is if the road says do 10 kilometres per hour, that's what you need to do.
• 1:05:20
  SPEAKER_01: So you're not breaking things, you're not rattling things off, and you're not over fatiguing yourself to the point where you steer off the track because you've got no concentration left.
• 1:05:30
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that's that's pretty important.
• 1:05:32
  SPEAKER_01: I yeah, travel times, I think you've nailed it there.
• 1:05:36
  SPEAKER_04: I'm I I'm very concerned when the central highway between uh Waluna through to uh in effect, you know, through WA, the old gun barrel sort of thing.
• 1:05:48
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 1:05:48
  SPEAKER_04: Is is in the process of having bitumen put on it.
• 1:05:52
  SPEAKER_04: Someone is going to arrive from Europe with their girlfriend, pick up a Hyundai at Alice Springs and turn right.
• 1:06:02
  SPEAKER_04: We will find them three weeks later having drunk radiator fluid or something.
• 1:06:10
  SPEAKER_04: I'm really concerned about that.
• 1:06:12
  SPEAKER_04: And and so we need to make sure that people are really aware of the dangers.
• 1:06:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I agree.
• 1:06:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:06:22
  SPEAKER_02: We come across that with our planning for this trip that we were going to do this year.
• 1:06:26
  SPEAKER_02: The Great Central Highway, uh, two of the vehicles that we were taking were unleaded.
• 1:06:30
  SPEAKER_02: Uh they preferred 98, 95, they can go.
• 1:06:34
  SPEAKER_02: Well, when we started doing the searching, we discovered that the communities didn't have 95.
• 1:06:39
  SPEAKER_02: That's right.
• 1:06:39
  SPEAKER_02: So then we had our octane booster.
• 1:06:42
  SPEAKER_02: Then in my calculations of how far the car goes with Bourne driving, you've got to back off a few 50-60k to make that distance, and then from that map we could go, we could go from there to there, but we needed to carry this much.
• 1:06:57
  SPEAKER_00: What are you saying, mate?
• 1:06:58
  SPEAKER_00: I 30 litres per hundred.
• 1:07:00
  SPEAKER_00: I thought that was good.
• 1:07:02
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you're only 300 Ks to a tank.
• 1:07:05
  SPEAKER_02: Your rig's about as aerodynamic as a block of flats.
• 1:07:08
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, we got like the doof-doof on top and the and the awning on the side and solar panels, and it is uh 60 tomahawks in the back.
• 1:07:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and it's always heavy and a big caravan on the back.
• 1:07:20
  SPEAKER_00: And big tires.
• 1:07:21
  SPEAKER_00: Beautiful.
• 1:07:22
  SPEAKER_00: Big 35-inch tires doesn't help.
• 1:07:24
  SPEAKER_03: Beautiful.
• 1:07:26
  SPEAKER_00: But Steve, I think you were gonna ask me around uh what I think people could do better.
• 1:07:31
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:07:31
  SPEAKER_00: There's a saying, preparation prevents piss poor performance.
• 1:07:35
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 1:07:36
  SPEAKER_00: And uh it's all about the preparation.
• 1:07:37
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's having um depending on how remote you're going, is it like having all the spares for your cars, like you know, yeah, air filters, fuel filters, belts, things like that, oils, anything that could go wrong.
• 1:07:51
  SPEAKER_00: Banksy and I, we could rebuild probably 20 cars and caravans and whatever with the amount of gear we carry, like between us, there's nothing we can't fix on the road.
• 1:08:02
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I always travel with you two guys, that's why I don't worry too much about that.
• 1:08:05
  SPEAKER_01: You can pack light, we'll carry it for where that's been great.
• 1:08:10
  SPEAKER_01: So let's let's talk about the navigators versus the physical atlas.
• 1:08:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um what do you think does the job best, or is it something that you need to use in conjunction?
• 1:08:24
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, I would say the latter.
• 1:08:26
  SPEAKER_04: Steve, a GPS tells you where you are.
• 1:08:29
  SPEAKER_04: If it's got good cartography on it, it can give you the perspective of where you are.
• 1:08:34
  SPEAKER_04: That's terribly comforting.
• 1:08:37
  SPEAKER_04: A map gives you trip planning and day travel awareness about where you might go for the next 24 hours or week.
• 1:08:48
  SPEAKER_04: You know, put together a plan about all of that.
• 1:08:51
  SPEAKER_04: Especially if some track or creek bed is flooded and you can't go that way.
• 1:08:56
  SPEAKER_04: The detours are enormous.
• 1:08:58
  SPEAKER_04: You actually have to have that perspective, and these road atlases, flat maps, allow that to happen.
• 1:09:04
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we've experienced that firsthand.
• 1:09:06
  SPEAKER_01: Detours that meant you were pulling in for for fuel on fumes.
• 1:09:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:09:12
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we went really, really close with uh a flood detour last year.
• 1:09:17
  SPEAKER_01: So I I completely get that.
• 1:09:19
  SPEAKER_01: So if you're gonna, you know, at MD Cell I think we've got uh of a much greater proportion of our customer base do this kind of activity.
• 1:09:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:09:31
  SPEAKER_01: And what would your suggestion, what would you recommend to those people as a good starting kit for getting out and doing a little bit more adventure and traveling further, but having to have reliable uh guidance mapping to get where they want to go and get back?
• 1:09:50
  SPEAKER_04: Depending on the vehicle that they've got, they could have one of our HX boxes, which is those little devices that turns, gives them the whole HEMANAV system on their dash.
• 1:10:01
  SPEAKER_04: Sorry, they're in-screen, right?
• 1:10:04
  SPEAKER_04: In the dashboard.
• 1:10:06
  SPEAKER_04: However, if you want to just start small, get yourself a four-wheel drive maps app.
• 1:10:13
  SPEAKER_04: Put it on your phone, and if you're only going up the coast or you're going into the hinterland, not too far away, that will give you reasonable coverage and a great mapping experience with the fabulous HEMA maps.
• 1:10:25
  SPEAKER_01: For the price of a cart and a beer.
• 1:10:28
  SPEAKER_01: How could you not?
• 1:10:29
  SPEAKER_04: That is and and find your the thing about this stuff is start.
• 1:10:33
  SPEAKER_04: So start doing it by weekends.
• 1:10:35
  SPEAKER_04: You you know, you you don't try and do a trip across Australia without actually having done a little one first.
• 1:10:42
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, absolutely, yeah.
• 1:10:43
  SPEAKER_01: You build up to it.
• 1:10:44
  SPEAKER_01: Of course.
• 1:10:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:10:45
  SPEAKER_01: Uh yeah, but we have we have customers at at varying levels, and we've got some customers who have come an enormous way in a very short time.
• 1:10:54
  SPEAKER_01: Uh give you examples of of a woman who bought her first four-wheel drive.
• 1:10:59
  SPEAKER_01: She went and bought herself a Prado, bought herself a 15-foot MDC caravan, and went from her first trip, which was a tag along with us, where we taught her how to use low range downhill and all the rest of it.
• 1:11:15
  SPEAKER_01: A year later, she's crossing Australia, she's done 100,000 odd kilometers.
• 1:11:20
  SPEAKER_02: She'd have 200 stickers on a van.
• 1:11:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:11:22
  SPEAKER_01: She is she has been more places than me now in just a short number of times.
• 1:11:27
  SPEAKER_01: Isn't that wonderful?
• 1:11:29
  SPEAKER_04: You have opened up that whole new world for her.
• 1:11:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:11:33
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, look.
• 1:11:33
  SPEAKER_04: It's it's it's it it's inspiring, isn't it?
• 1:11:36
  SPEAKER_01: It is, it's very inspiring.
• 1:11:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um when we're extraordinarily proud to have her as a customer.
• 1:11:41
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, she's an amazing advert advocate for the brand, etc., etc.
• 1:11:46
  SPEAKER_01: But this navigation thing is something I don't believe she will have touched on.
• 1:11:50
  SPEAKER_01: So it might maybe we need as responsible caravan manufacturers with a great uh presence on socials, you need to do a master class on on this sort of thing to show people how to how to plan the resources they can use to to plan a trip, get to great places, see everything, get there safely and get back.
• 1:12:15
  SPEAKER_02: Well, hopefully, hopefully, we ain't discussed this earlier today at our next master in Queensland.
• 1:12:21
  SPEAKER_02: We might have the luck of HEMA might turn up and do a little segment on what you can do to travel.
• 1:12:27
  SPEAKER_02: That would be amazing.
• 1:12:28
  SPEAKER_02: Bring some fancy gear and have their cars there, because when I saw the car, it was the 79 series at Birdsville two years ago.
• 1:12:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 1:12:37
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, that's well set up to travel.
• 1:12:40
  SPEAKER_02: And when he told me what he does for the job, I was like, yay.
• 1:12:44
  SPEAKER_02: So if he was that might have been Reese, I think.
• 1:12:46
  SPEAKER_02: So if a car was there, you got the equipment, you got the gadgets, you got the maps.
• 1:12:51
  SPEAKER_02: I I think you'll find a lot of our community will get braver and then they'll start doing it there.
• 1:12:56
  SPEAKER_02: So some of our posts will now turn to okay, where where's the next spot that we're thinking of going and turn that into that would be cool?
• 1:13:02
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 1:13:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well we we we're lucky.
• 1:13:04
  SPEAKER_01: We get to to see that evolution in in our customers real time through social media where they go from buying to the more adventurous trips and and more engaged with the lifestyle.
• 1:13:18
  SPEAKER_01: And it's something we love.
• 1:13:20
  SPEAKER_01: But on that, in closing, what's coming up for HEMA?
• 1:13:24
  SPEAKER_01: What what exciting things do we have to look forward to?
• 1:13:27
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Steve, thank you.
• 1:13:28
  SPEAKER_04: And and and and thanks to you and Mark and Vaughn for having me.
• 1:13:33
  SPEAKER_04: Um I I've really enjoyed talking about what we do and with fellow travellers on this same journey.
• 1:13:41
  SPEAKER_04: For us, um, we've got probably three new electronic devices coming out.
• 1:13:47
  SPEAKER_04: The new HEMA Smart Navigator with the turn by turn.
• 1:13:51
  SPEAKER_04: That's coming out before Christmas.
• 1:13:54
  SPEAKER_04: Most importantly, oh, and there's a motorcycle.
• 1:13:57
  SPEAKER_01: Have you got me anything for Christmas yet?
• 1:13:58
  SPEAKER_04: No, mate.
• 1:13:59
  SPEAKER_01: You're listening?
• 1:14:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, thank you.
• 1:14:01
  SPEAKER_04: And and the motorcycle one is hitting the shelves right now, the device.
• 1:14:05
  SPEAKER_04: That's a that's a terrific, terrific one.
• 1:14:08
  SPEAKER_04: Um and at long last, after two years, we'll be uh standing up the HEMA cloud again, where people can share, plan and do all their trips and their routes, whatever, with their community and friends and family.
• 1:14:27
  SPEAKER_04: Um and for the last couple of years it's not been active.
• 1:14:31
  SPEAKER_04: Um and we've uh been working very hard to try and get that back up and we'll get that done in the next two months.
• 1:14:36
  SPEAKER_02: So the cloud, is it like polar steps with maps where you can add your photos, share to your friends, that sort of stuff?
• 1:14:44
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly right.
• 1:14:45
  SPEAKER_02: Maps like your notice board, and that's where I use polar steps as uh to show when my kids were at home.
• 1:14:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, this is where mum and dad are, this is where we're going, um, don't bother to call because we're in the desert.
• 1:15:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um when you see the red dot over Birdsville, you can call us.
• 1:15:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um so that'll be that oh yeah, that's big sighting.
• 1:15:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:15:08
  SPEAKER_04: So look, um that's something we've had before, but technology, as you we know, changes so quickly in leapfrogs.
• 1:15:15
  SPEAKER_04: And um this is something we've been working on for quite some time, and we're really happy about it because it's coming out with our new HEMA Nav software, which is the turn-by-turn stuff offline.
• 1:15:28
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm amazed.
• 1:15:29
  SPEAKER_01: HEMA keeping it fresh, advancing it, progressing, evolving, and that is such a great thing to see in an Australian company.
• 1:15:38
  SPEAKER_01: We we share that very much in evolving our products.
• 1:15:42
  SPEAKER_01: But I could see that in your showroom.
• 1:15:43
  SPEAKER_01: I've got to say thank you.
• 1:15:45
  SPEAKER_01: I've learnt a lot.
• 1:15:47
  SPEAKER_01: This has been an amazing podcast for me.
• 1:15:49
  SPEAKER_01: I've really enjoyed it, really enjoyed the stories.
• 1:15:53
  SPEAKER_01: So, Sam, thank you so much for coming in today.
• 1:15:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's been an absolute pleasure.
• 1:15:58
  SPEAKER_01: Mark, thank you.
• 1:15:59
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks, Steve, for having me.
• 1:16:00
  SPEAKER_02: All the info as usual.
• 1:16:02
  SPEAKER_02: I'm I'm I'm gonna go back through my maps and pull out some detail that I've missed now.
• 1:16:06
  SPEAKER_02: But then we've got a trip now.
• 1:16:09
  SPEAKER_01: I really want to get away.
• 1:16:10
  SPEAKER_01: Lucky us.
• 1:16:11
  SPEAKER_00: Vaughan, thank you so much for for coming in and sharing your knowledge and looking so good.
• 1:16:16
  SPEAKER_00: You're welcome, Steve.
• 1:16:17
  SPEAKER_00: And um, I did make notes for your uh Christmas list, mate.
• 1:16:20
  SPEAKER_00: So at me, please.
• 1:16:22
  SPEAKER_00: There's certainly some HEMA in there.
• 1:16:24
  SPEAKER_04: So, Steve, thank you.
• 1:16:25
  SPEAKER_04: I just wanted to say it's been my absolute delight to be here with you guys.
• 1:16:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's been a pleasure.
• 1:16:29
  SPEAKER_01: So just one thing.
• 1:16:30
  SPEAKER_01: Where should people head to view, purchase your products, and have a look at everything HEMA has?
• 1:16:37
  SPEAKER_04: Often, not all, but a lot of big box retailers stock our product.
• 1:16:44
  SPEAKER_04: Um four-wheel drive shops, both branded as well as independent, have a range of our stuff.
• 1:16:52
  SPEAKER_04: Um but especially and small retailers, but especially our web store.
• 1:16:56
  SPEAKER_04: You'll find it all on HEMAMaps.com.
• 1:16:59
  SPEAKER_01: There you go, folks.
• 1:17:00
  SPEAKER_01: Check it out.
• 1:17:01
  SPEAKER_01: A great Aussie company giving you the resources that you need to get out, travel safe, see more, and above all, get home safe.
• 1:17:11
  SPEAKER_01: So thanks again for coming in.
• 1:17:13
  SPEAKER_01: And folks, thank you for watching our podcast and get across to our YouTube channel, check out the other video content that we have there, and must do head to the MDC website and check out the events for masters and other activities that you can come and get involved in and meet the greater MDC community.
• 1:17:33
  SPEAKER_01: Till then, thanks for watching.