My favourite thing about bushwalking...

[Neo]

Not easy to pick just one favourite.

Mine is the symphony of bird twitter just before dawn. Especially the tiny birds if you have pitched your shelter in the shrubbery

[Tortoise]

Too hard to limit it to one.
- Being able to watch a sunset from the top of a remote mountain with a stunning view on a windless evening
- The simplicity of being able to carry my home on my back, just being in the natural world, aware without effort of what I can see, hear, smell and touch.

[trekker76]

Being in a human free environment.

[north-north-west]

Being in a human free environment.

You're not human?

[trekker76]

Being in a human free environment.

You're not human?

Melbourne humour

[crollsurf]

Being in a human free environment.

You're not human?

The same with me being the only human. I need to escape the city rat-race and get back to the peaceful life of being in the bush. The exercise also makes me a lot happier as well.

[north-north-west]

Being in a human free environment.

You're not human?

Melbourne humour

I'm Tasmanian.

[Lophophaps]

As I value my health I will not comment on the human comments above. Just being in a wild place that few reach is enough. The sense of solitude, far from the madding crowds. The achievement, climbed that, walked from there to here, nice. The memories of trips past and anticipation of trips planned. The pace slows, determined by steps, sun, thirst and hunger. Hmm, that may be more than one item. I never was much good at maths.

As I'm old I can recall a song from 1969, Canned Heat

I'm goin' up the country, baby don't you want to go?
I'm goin' up the country, baby don't you want to go?
I'm goin' to some place, I've never been before.
I'm goin' I'm goin' where the water tastes like wine.
I'm goin' where the water tastes like wine.
We can jump in the water, stay drunk all the time.
I'm gonna leave this city, got to get away.
I'm gonna leave this city, got to get away.
All this fussin' and fightin' man, you know I sure can't stay.
So baby pack your leavin' trunk,
You know we've got to leave today
Just exactly where we're goin' I cannot say.
But we might even leave the U.S.A.
It's a brand new game, that I want to play,

[GregR]

Too hard to limit it to one.
- Being able to watch a sunset from the top of a remote mountain with a stunning view on a windless evening
- The simplicity of being able to carry my home on my back, just being in the natural world, aware without effort of what I can see, hear, smell and touch.

Totally agree with Tortoise.

As for Lops and his Canned Heat reference, I actually saw them perform at Mulwala Music Festival 1972. Love that song.

[north-north-west]

Too hard to limit it to one.
- Being able to watch a sunset from the top of a remote mountain with a stunning view on a windless evening
- The simplicity of being able to carry my home on my back, just being in the natural world, aware without effort of what I can see, hear, smell and touch.

+1
(minus the bit about hearing)

If I had to sum it up in one word - freedom. It's just you and the place and the time.

[trekker76]

Melbourne humour

I'm Tasmanian.

I know

[north-north-west]

Queensland "humour".

[stepbystep]

The sitting.
Y'know the part when you first peel your boots off and breathe the *&%$#! out for the first time in way too long. Knowing you've worked your body, paid attention to so much beauty and realise, with the best kind of relief, the walk has just started.

[Nuts]

[quote="Neo"]Not easy to pick just one favourite.

Mine is the symphony of bird twitter just before dawn. Especially the tiny birds if you have pitched your shelter in the shrubbery [/quote

Come and pitch in my backyard, birds don't work a 5 day week, the *&%$#! things should try tinder (or something).

[Neo]

Ha! I know what you mean Nuts. Was only thinking of the tiny tweetie wrens etc

[Nuts]

yeah, it's a lovely sound. Sadly chased away by bullies at home, even the hedges aren't safe.

* as for the question, it's getting harder to recall. re: humans, It was great back when it was just bushwalkers.. and like-minded people.

[Trundlers]

Is being far from the madding crowds, prerably as far as possible from the selfie generation who seem to be everywhere these days trying to get that one-pmanship photo for Instagram. But if we can escape them, then it's the natural sound, the smell of the bush when its hot, or wet after rain or crisp with frost. It's seeing all the flora and fauna that call the bush home.

[davidf]

Not a favourite 1st so to speak. But when walking and always in a pair when it gets hard there is a stronger and weaker, and it gets hard, you both know you both have the little voices, there is a drip of water you share, you just go, the stronger is doing better than the weaker but you,re both just phucked, each step a smiling nod, some nhilist banter. No bitterness for the lagger or towwer. Just eureka at the end.

[Zzoe]

It's so hard to pick a favourite. But I would have to say being liberated from all the stuff of modern life, both material and immaterial. That means having only the things one can carry, and also not being contactable by the world for any reason. Then I love and breathe in the natural world, so there's that. And very specifically (because I'm taking the liberty of choosing three), going to bed with the sunset, and waking with a pre-dawn chorus. I think we're hard wired in our DNA to do that, so it just feels right, and I feel *right* when it happens.

[Huntsman247]

Only thinking about the next step and direction of travel. So stress relieving not thinking about stuff you need to do.
Living in the moment.

[Gadgetgeek]

I so rarely get to spend time out in the woods that isn't work, so for me its showing people that they are capable of more than they think. Kids or adults, just being there for those little experiences of first cooked meals on a trangia or setting up a tent in the rain and having them laugh about it later. Also showing them why the environment is worth looking after.

[trekker76]

:roll: Queensland "humour".

You started this

[davidn3875]

" Melbourne humour" - surely an oxymoron??

[mikethepike]

Here's a quote I read recently and like:
‘England opened beneath his feet and the feeling of freedom, of pushing into the unknown, was so exhilarating he had to smile’. The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce. (The author obviously had a lot of walking experience but I would have preferred the fictional story to have been told in the first person.)
And that's from someone setting out on a dirt road and with many more days to follow. You can get a great feeling of freedom yet not be in wild uninhabited country which is good to know I think. A lot of it is the mind!

On bush-walking, I rather like end to end walks where the end is different to the start. I got off a bus once in fairly empty pastoral country at the start of a long walk and it was a great feeling once the bus took off but mixed with the slightly daunting feeling that, if I've forgotten to pack something, I can't just go back and get it out of the car.

[ribuck]

... it was a great feeling once the bus took off but mixed with the slightly daunting feeling that, if I've forgotten to pack something, I can't just go back ...

I love that feeling. The disappearance of my transport imparts a clarity of purpose that will be with me until I reach my destination. If I've forgotten to pack something, I will just "press on regardless".

[Mechanic-AL]

Sticking you head out of the tent flap first thing of a morning to witness a beautiful dawn sky and knowing the day is yours to do as you please with !!

[johnw]

I need to escape the city rat-race and get back to the peaceful life of being in the bush. The exercise also makes me a lot happier as well.

This.