Our story — Meet Trudy
I ran the floor at Ester in Newtown for three years, then co-owned a small wine bar on King Street with two friends from my sommelier days. By 2019 we had a tight list of suppliers we trusted completely — farmers in the Hunter, a couple of importers out of Marrickville, a guy in Surry Hills who sourced equipment for us at trade prices. Those relationships took years to build. When the bar closed in July 2020, two weeks into the second round of restrictions, I sat in the empty dining room with a glass of Yarra Valley pinot and tried to figure out what I actually had left. The answer was: not much cash, but a phone full of people who picked up when I called.
Before the bar I spent eight years working kitchens and front-of-house across Sydney and a stint in Melbourne at a place on Gertrude Street that no longer exists. You learn quickly in hospitality that the product is only as good as whoever made it and whoever stored it. I got obsessive about that. I drove out to the Central Tablelands twice a year to visit a producer we used, spent weekends at the Carriageworks Farmers Market just to stay across what was coming through. That habit of going directly to the source, rather than ordering off a catalogue, is the only thing I carried out of hospitality that felt genuinely useful when I started thinking about what came next.
In early 2021 I started calling the suppliers I trusted from the restaurant years and asking a direct question: what else do you make or move that I could sell under my own label? Three of them had product lines they had never properly taken to retail. By March 2021 I had signed my first two supply agreements and registered the business. The first order I placed was 140 kilograms of goods that I stored in a spare room in my Marrickville terrace before I could afford a proper storage arrangement. Brackenridge Co launched online in May 2021 with six SKUs and a Shopify store I built myself over a long weekend. The name comes from a creek near Katoomba where I used to camp as a kid.
We are based in Marrickville now with a small warehouse space on Sydenham Road that we moved into in late 2023. I still talk to most of the suppliers directly and I still go out to see them in person at least once a year. The team is small, four people including me, and we are not trying to be anything other than a reliable place to buy gear that works. Orders ship from Sydney within two business days on average. If something is wrong, you can reply to the order email and I will usually see it.
— Thanks for shopping with us. — Trudy, Trudy Lee Tangata
Journal
How a Geelong tannery ended up in our boots
The Kangaroo Ridge boots exist because of a phone call I made to a leather supplier I first met over a restaurant delivery in 2019.
Back when I was running the kitchen at a small wine bar on King Street, we sourced most of our dry goods through a rep named Phil who covered the inner-west for a Melbourne-based distributor. Phil knew everyone. One of his other clients was a small tannery outside Geelong that did bovine leather for a couple of local boot workshops. I never needed leather for a restaurant, obviously, but I kept his number because that is just what you do in hospitality. You never know who becomes useful later.
When I decided in late 2022 that I was done with service hours and wanted to try making something physical instead, I went through my phone contacts the way you go through a pantry before a long weekend. Phil had moved on from distribution, but he passed me to the tannery directly. They are a family operation, third generation, about 40 minutes south-west of Geelong proper. They process around 600 hides a year, which is nothing by industrial standards, but it means they actually pick up the phone and remember your name.
Getting the Kangaroo Ridge boots spec'd took about eight months of back and forth. I had no background in footwear construction, so I was learning terminology on the fly while also trying to communicate what I actually wanted, which was a mid-height hiking boot that could handle Blue Mountains trail conditions without looking like it belonged in a safety catalogue. The tannery connected me to a small assembly workshop in the Dandenong Ranges that had worked with their leather before. That introduction saved me probably three months of cold calling.
What I noticed working with both of them was how similar the dynamic was to finding a good produce supplier for a restaurant. The relationship matters more than the contract. You have to be honest about your volumes, you have to pay on time, and you have to actually visit in person at least once. I drove down to both of them in October 2023, spent a day at each, and came back with samples that were genuinely close to what I had in my head. That almost never happens on the first round.
The first production run of the boots was 80 pairs. I sold 34 of them to people I know personally, which is either a good sign or a sign that I have too many outdoorsy friends in Newtown. Either way, the tannery relationship is the foundation of the whole thing, and it started because a delivery rep once stayed for a glass of wine after dropping off dry goods on a Tuesday.
What I actually pack when I take the tent out
A July overnight at Kanangra-Boyd taught me that the Outback Explorer tent is fine but my packing decisions were not.
I took the Outback Explorer tent out to Kanangra-Boyd National Park in early July, which in hindsight was an ambitious choice for a solo overnight. The plateau sits above 1300 metres and in winter the temperature dropped to about 2 degrees by 10pm. The tent handled it without complaint. The condensation on the inner wall by morning was real but manageable, and the footprint I packed separately kept the groundsheet dry. What did not handle it well was my meal planning, which is embarrassing given that I spent fifteen years professionally feeding people.
Setup took me 22 minutes the first time, which is slower than the instructions suggest but about right for someone doing it alone in fading light on uneven ground. The pole system is colour-coded, which I initially dismissed as unnecessary but was genuinely grateful for by the time I was threading the third section in the dark. The guy ropes need to be longer than the included ones if you are camping on rocky ground where you cannot get a straight peg angle. I used two extra ropes I had from an older tent and that sorted it.
For a two-night trip in NSW winter, the things that made the actual difference were a good sleeping mat rather than a better sleeping bag, dry bags inside the pack for anything that cannot get wet, and starting setup at least 45 minutes before you think you need to. I know that last one is obvious but I still ignored it. The Kanangra-Boyd campsite at Morong Creek is free, unfenced, and you share it with eastern grey kangaroos who are completely indifferent to your presence, which is pleasant.
The binoculars came with me and were more useful than I expected. I am not a serious birder but the sandstone escarpment at sunrise had a pair of wedge-tailed eagles working a thermal for about 20 minutes and I would have missed the detail without them. The Bushland Binoculars are 8x42 magnification, which is the configuration most guides recommend for general wildlife use, and the eye relief is wide enough that I could use them with sunglasses on. That is not a small thing if you are outside for most of the day.
I will go back in spring when the Grevillea on the plateau is flowering and the light is better. July was cold enough that I spent more time thinking about warmth than I did looking at anything. But the tent gave me no reason to complain, which after the money I have put into the product line is the minimum acceptable outcome.
What a Tuesday looks like running this alone
There is no team, no warehouse manager, and no one to blame when a shipment sits at the Port Botany container terminal for eleven days.
I pack every order from a spare room in my Marrickville terrace. The room is about 12 square metres, which is enough for shelving on three walls, a fold-out table, a label printer, and one person moving carefully. When stock arrives I carry it through the house from the street, which the neighbours find amusing. Before this I ran a kitchen with 6 staff and a cool room the size of a small apartment. The scale difference is genuinely funny if you are in the right mood, and I am in the right mood about 70 percent of the time.
A typical Tuesday starts with checking the overnight orders, which come through the website and get printed in a batch. Then I check the freight tracking for anything in transit, which is the part of the job that most resembles the anxiety of waiting on a produce delivery during service. Last month a shipment of Outback Explorer tents sat at Port Botany for 11 days because of a documentation issue with the customs broker. There is nothing you can do in that situation except wait and send polite emails and not catastrophise, which I am still learning.
The admin takes longer than it should because I built the systems myself as I went, rather than setting them up properly at the start. The inventory spreadsheet has three tabs that partially contradict each other and I keep meaning to fix it. Invoicing is through accounting software that I understand about 60 percent of. My accountant in Surry Hills has the patience of a secondary school teacher and charges accordingly, which is fair. I knew food costs and labour ratios. This is different.
What I did not expect was how much of the job is correspondence. Talking to the Geelong tannery about lead times, talking to the assembly workshop about fit adjustments, talking to freight forwarders, talking to customers who have questions about sizing or delivery windows. In a restaurant you talk to people in person and in real time. Everything here is written and asynchronous, which suits some people and which I am still adjusting to after almost two years.
I do not miss the hours of restaurant work. I miss the immediate feedback loop of a table that is happy with a dish. The equivalent here is a customer email that is specific and positive, which happens maybe once a week and which I read twice when it does. That is enough to keep going, mostly.
Sydney in April and why I finally used the binoculars properly
April in inner Sydney is the month that actually earns the city its reputation, and I spent most of it trying to be outside as much as possible.
There is a version of Sydney that exists only in autumn and it is the version that makes me understand why people stay here for their whole lives. The humidity drops, the jacarandas are still a few weeks away, and the light in the late afternoon on the sandstone around the Cooks River has a quality that is hard to describe without sounding like I am exaggerating. I have lived in Marrickville for six years and I still stop sometimes when I am walking the river path and just look at it. April is when I remember that I actually like this city.
I took the Bushland Binoculars out to Centennial Park three times this month, which is not wilderness but has more bird activity than most people realise. The eastern rosella population in the park is significant and in autumn they are feeding heavily on the grass seeds before the temperature drops. I counted 14 in one tree near the equestrian centre on a Wednesday morning. The binoculars are better in low light than I expected for the price point, which matters when you are out before 8am and the canopy is still deep.
I also took the WaveRider out twice at Maroubra, which in April is as good as Sydney surfing gets. The swell is more consistent than summer, the crowds thin out, and the water is still warm enough that a 3mm wetsuit is comfortable. I am not a skilled surfer and I want to be clear about that. I am someone who grew up near the coast, learned the basics, and gets in the water when conditions are forgiving. The board suits that level of commitment. It is stable enough that I am not fighting it, which is what I needed.
Running a small product business means that I spend a lot of time indoors, at the table in the spare room, looking at a screen. April is the month every year when I make myself use the things I sell, not for content or photography purposes, but just to remember what they are actually for. It recalibrates something. I come back to the packing room with a clearer sense of what a customer might actually care about, which is different from what I think they should care about based on product specs.
The Cooks River walk between Marrickville and Tempe is 4.2 kilometres and takes about an hour if you stop, which I do. There is a grey heron that stands on the same concrete pylon near the Tempe tip most mornings. I have seen it there at least 30 times over the past two years. I still stop and look at it every time. The binoculars make it better but it was already good.
Customer reviews
Jess M. — Manly, NSW — 2025-03-12 — 5/5
Binoculars arrived fast, work brilliantly
Ordered the Bushland Binoculars on a Tuesday afternoon and they were on my doorstep Thursday morning — genuinely did not expect that. I took them out to North Head the same weekend and the clarity is far better than anything else I've tried at this price point. Packaging was solid too, no rattling around in the box.
Tom R. — Brunswick, VIC — 2025-01-28 — 4/5
Good tent, setup took a bit of figuring out
The Outback Explorer Camping Tent is well built and handled a wet weekend in the Grampians without any leaks. The instructions could be clearer — took about 25 minutes to get it up the first time, though by the second camp it was much quicker. Would have been five stars with better documentation.
Priya K. — Fitzroy, VIC — 2024-11-05 — 5/5
Yoga mat does exactly what it should
I've been through a few yoga mats over the years and the Vortex Pro is the first one that hasn't started peeling at the edges after a couple of months. The grip is consistent even when things get sweaty. Simple product, does its job well.
Dan W. — Fremantle, WA — 2024-09-18 — 4/5
Hiking boots are solid, sizing runs slightly long
Really happy with the Kangaroo Ridge Hiking Boots overall — they've held up well on a few long days in the Stirling Ranges and my feet stayed dry through a creek crossing. One note: I'd say they run about half a size long, so if you're on the border, go down. Customer service confirmed this when I asked, which was helpful.
Cath O. — New Farm, QLD — 2025-02-03 — 5/5
Great gift, nicely packaged
Bought the Bushland Binoculars as a birthday gift and added the gift wrap option at checkout. Everything arrived looking great — the message card was included exactly as I'd written it and the wrapping was neat without being over the top. The recipient was really pleased.
Sam F. — Glenelg, SA — 2024-12-20 — 5/5
WaveRider is worth every cent
I was a bit hesitant to buy a surfboard online but the WaveRider has been excellent — paddled out at Middleton the week it arrived and it felt stable and responsive. Delivery to SA took five days on standard shipping, which was reasonable for the size. Would buy from Brackenridge Co again without hesitation.
Leah B. — Hobart, TAS — 2025-04-01 — 4/5
Tent held up in genuinely terrible weather
Took the Outback Explorer Camping Tent to the Overland Track in early autumn and it copped some serious wind and rain. Stayed dry inside, no pole issues, and the fly held tight. Delivery to Hobart took eight days on standard, which I was warned about, so no complaints there.
Ravi N. — Surry Hills, NSW — 2024-10-14 — 5/5
Fast dispatch, good communication
Ordered the Vortex Pro Yoga Mat late on a Thursday and had a dispatch notification by Friday morning. The tracking updates were accurate and the mat showed up Monday. It's a no-fuss mat that grips well and is easy to roll up and carry. Exactly what I needed.
Shipping
We ship Australia-wide using Australia Post for standard delivery and StarTrack for express. Standard orders reach most Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, and Adelaide addresses in 3–7 business days. Regional and remote locations — including rural NSW, outback QLD, and remote WA and NT — should allow 5–10 business days. Express orders placed before 2pm AEST Monday to Friday typically arrive the next business day in major metro areas. Remote express deliveries may take 2–3 business days. You'll receive a tracking number by email as soon as your order is dispatched, so you can follow it the whole way.
Standard shipping is free on all orders over $100 AUD. Orders under $100 attract a flat standard rate of $9.95. Express shipping is available for $14.95 on any order, regardless of size or weight. All prices shown on our website and at checkout include GST — there are no surprise charges when you pay. For large or bulky items like the Outback Explorer Camping Tent or the WaveRider Surfboard, we use reinforced satchels and custom-fit boxes to keep things secure in transit. We do not ship internationally at this time.
If your order arrives damaged, please take photos of both the packaging and the product before doing anything else, then contact us at hello@brackenridgeco.com.au within 48 hours of delivery. We'll arrange a replacement or refund at no cost to you and handle the return freight. We take damaged deliveries seriously and follow up with our carriers directly. For items marked as delivered but not received, get in touch and we'll lodge an investigation with Australia Post or StarTrack on your behalf. Most missing parcel cases are resolved within 3–5 business days.
Returns
You have 30 days from the date of delivery to return an item to Brackenridge Co. To be eligible, the product must be unused, in its original packaging, and have any tags still attached. To start a return, email hello@brackenridgeco.com.au with your order number and a brief description of the reason. We'll reply within one business day with a return authorisation and the address of our Marrickville returns facility. You are responsible for return postage costs unless the item is faulty or was sent incorrectly — in those cases, we'll provide a prepaid label.
Your rights under the Australian Consumer Law (ACL) apply to every purchase from Brackenridge Co. If a product has a major fault, is not fit for its described purpose, or does not match what was advertised, you are entitled to a repair, replacement, or full refund — regardless of our standard 30-day window or any other store policy. The ACL guarantees these rights and we will not attempt to limit them. For minor faults, we will offer a repair or replacement first, and a refund if neither option resolves the issue. If you believe your product has a fault, contact us with photos and we'll assess it promptly.
Refunds are processed within 5–7 business days of us receiving and inspecting the returned item. We'll confirm by email once the refund has been issued. Refunds go back to the original payment method — credit card, PayPal, or Afterpay, depending on how you paid. Please note that sale items and personalised or custom orders are not eligible for change-of-mind returns, though your ACL rights still apply if those items are faulty. Gift wrap fees are non-refundable. If you have any questions about a return before you send anything back, just get in touch — we'd rather sort things out quickly than have you stuck with something that doesn't work for you.