How long you been in the game??

[puredingo]

Here's a pic I found of me out along the maianbar spit. A mate and myself built our shelter, caught and cooked a fish dinner dressed in my PJs and life was free and easy.

From these days onwards I've never been far from the bush... I would be about 8 or 9 in the photo.

Who else kicked off early???

[davidf]

12 for me

[Luc-Porter]

Yeah me too. About 11yrs old. Started exploring Sassafras Gully around Springwood almost everyday after school. Looking for Yabbies and Yowies.
Lots of Yabbies, little light on the Yowie sightings.

[Mark F]

I started about 8 exploring the bush gully between Greenwich and Wollstonecraft with mates. Great little creek with an old convict coal mine running down to Sydney Harbour. Cubs, Scouts and venturing further afield as age and inclination increased.

[wildwanderer]

About 10 or 11. A mate an I were always off exploring the trails/caves in the bushland near my my parents house.

We used to put charcoal on our face and run around pretending we were commandos was great fun until one day I ran full tilt into a large web containing 6+ st andrews cross spiders. Complete web wrap around and had spiders crawling all over me.. Although st andrews cross are harmless, ever since that day Ive been mindful of webs hanging between trees.

[Neo]

For overnight bushwalking, I started 2yrs or so ago.
Longest so far is 3 nights. Its great!
Building up to doing some of the longer/famous Aussie tracks next year, fingers and toes crossed.
Also want to go walk/CCski and camp in the snow next season

[Neo]

... 2yrs or so ago...

Now recall doing the 6ft track about 20yrs ago with a mate then having new years in Katoomba.

Around the same time got dropped off on the Bridle Track Bathurst-Hill End with another mate. Only a tarp, tongs, enamel plate and sleeping bags. The plate worked as a frypan, still lament forgetting sauce!

[wayno]

A wee while

[norts]

First overnight was in 1972 into the original Lake Pedder.
Then until 2001 I had only done the Overland track a few times.
2002 was when I really started to get into walking.

Norts

[north-north-west]

First overnight was in 1972 into the original Lake Pedder.

Beat you by a year or three.
But I'd been buggering around in the bush more or less since I could walk. Nothing major, just mucking around in the stuff over the back fence or up the road.
More diving than walking from '82 until around '97. Then back into it with a vengeance.

[puredingo]

What kept you off the hoof for those middle 15 years?

How do you isolate a line when you quote a post???

[peregrinator]

. . .

How do you isolate a line when you quote a post???

Delete the bit you don't want/need to include.

[peregrinator]

On topic (but not sure I'd call it a "game").

First solo bushwalk and overnight camp aged twelve. Got flooded. Phoned parent in middle of night. Rescue car got bogged. Everything's been looking up since then.

[north-north-west]

What kept you off the hoof for those middle 15 years?

I was still walking, just not that much. The diving took pretty well all my spare time and money (when I wasn't following the cricket). And while hooked up with the jerk, bushwalking wasn't really an option - he was the sort of of lazy, whining drongo who had trouble with anything more than garage to front door unless there was a dive at the end of it.

[WadeH]

As an interest in the bush and general mucking about, since I was about 5 yrs old. Proper bushwalking and overnighters since about 9 yrs of age. Only 56 years young now and still exploring the crazy places!

[legend]

I started at 17, now 63.
Most years see me walking about 50 - 80 days each year covering Vic, NSW and Tas as regular trips. Then do the odd Qld and NT trip as well.

[taswegian]

1960
That's a day or 2 ago

[rcaffin]

A bit before 1960 - maybe 58 or 59.

November 2017, on the Kowmung, with my wife.

Cheers

[Hallu]

I was 27, living in Melbourne, only 7 years ago I used to hike with my parents as a child, as it was our summer vacation every year : 1 or 2 weeks in the mountains. Pyrénées, Alps, Massif Central you name it, although mostly the Pyrénées. But I hated it for one simple reason: blisters. I always had the wrong shoes and my parents didn't know about the dual sock trick, so it was one day walk, blisters everywhere, 2 days of rest for me while my family went off doing other stuff, walking again etc... It was torture. Nowadays I know myself, have proper shoes, proper socks, and can tolerate the pain if I still get a blister. Australia really opened my eyes to bushwalking, mainly because of the freedom of camping and the wildlife. I fell in love with eucalypts as well, became a birdwatcher... I hiked under the rain, in scorching heat, bought maps, countless bushwalking books... Many places in Australia made me feel like I belong, mostly Tasmania and the Mallee country in Victoria.

France doesn't have big national parks where you can camp in relative privacy, and when you walk you meet 10-50 people a day. In Australia, you're in a crowded area if you meet 5. Australia gave me the walking bug, I now try to hike all over the world, I've done NZ, Scandinavia, the US, Canada, and rediscovered my birth country (3 years in the Alps). Unfortunately it also screwed me up as I now live in Paris for work and my thirst for wildness is intense and cannot be met in such a sprawling urban setting. There is no wild week end destination near Paris, even if you drive 3 hours. Normandy, Picardie or Burgundy are nice but certainly not wild, and I miss the mountains immensely.

[bernieq]

Perhaps a simpler way of requoting a selection of a post :

How do you isolate a line when you quote a post???

First, select the bit you want to quote. Then, click the "quote" button.

[devoswitch]

That didn't work for me, am I missing something?!

[taswegian]

am I missing something?!

Doesn't work for me on Samsung tablet. But I just quote and delete irrelevant bits.

Hallu that's an extraordinary story of your exploits. Thanks for sharing.
A big plus for Tasmania, that highlights just what a unique and wonderful place Tasmania is.

Change those redeeming attributes and it's not Tasmania anymore.

[bernieq]

Doesn't work for me on Samsung tablet

I'm using a Samsung S2 tablet, Samsung browser, and it works for me (and on PC with Chrome, IE, etc)

Start typing your reply first, then select the bit you want to quote from comments below the reply window, then hit the "quote" button of the reply you are quoting.

[Tortoise]

To quote a friend out of context, as far as my passion goes, "since conception". Had almost no opportunity as a kid. Heard wonderful stories from my Dad, who was too sick from when I was 1, to take us bushwalking anywhere. My closest was to be in the room when my brother got to talk with his boy's group leader about a walk THEY were going on. Dragged a friend along on the OLT as our first walk, when I left school. Could write a book about the mistakes I made, but I learned a lot, and have been making up for a 'lost' childhood as much as possible ever since. Chronic Fatigue Syndrome stole a lot of years, but after a couple of years confined to the indoors, I found that I could still do amazing stuff at my own pace. Never dreamt I'd be doing stuff I can do now!!!

[taswegian]

Thanks bernieq

I'm using a Samsung S2 tablet, Samsung browser, and it works for me

Now that is a piece of cake.
Works well when one is well informed.
Much appreciated.

Actually helps if you hit the right Quote button. The one above the text you're quoting.

[ofuros]

Does disappearing over the back fence, nappy free, while my mothers back was turned,
heading for the deep dark woods as fast my little chubby legs would carry me count ?