Formative influences?

[kanangra]

Thinking back who or what got you interested in the outdoors in general and bushwalking in particular? I had occasion to reflect on this recently. My father had no interest at all but my mother loved the mountains. Perhaps that had something to do with it? But I could always remember seeing a movie when I was quite young about a boy who must have been about the same age as I was then. I can't recall all the details but he left the city to live for a year in the wilderness. I remember he lived in the stump of a tree and was nearly snowed in in winter.

I believe that for me that movie was formative. I have always wondered about it. I couldn't remember its name or any other details and just assumed it was lost to my recollection until recently I decided to do some research. It turns out that it wasn't hard at all. Within a few minutes I had identified the movie and the book on which it was based. "My side of the Mountain." That night I went home and searched Apple TV and sure enough they had it and when I looked at the shorts it brought it all back to me. It was like a direct time tunnel back to my own early adolescence. Amazing.

K

[GPSGuided]

Neither parent had any outdoor skills. First exposure was from my Scouts group when I was still under 10. Then in high school, it was the army cadets. The pleasure (and mozzies and flies) of the outdoor was learnt then.

[Tortoise]

Thinking back who or what got you interested in the outdoors in general and bushwalking in particular? I had occasion to reflect on this recently. My father had no interest at all but my mother loved the mountains. Perhaps that had something to do with it? But I could always remember seeing a movie when I was quite young about a boy who must have been about the same age as I was then. I can't recall all the details but he left the city to live for a year in the wilderness. I remember he lived in the stump of a tree and was nearly snowed in in winter.

I believe that for me that movie was formative. I have always wondered about it. I couldn't remember its name or any other details and just assumed it was lost to my recollection until recently I decided to do some research. It turns out that it wasn't hard at all. Within a few minutes I had identified the movie and the book on which it was based. "My side of the Mountain." That night I went home and searched Apple TV and sure enough they had it and when I looked at the shorts it brought it all back to me. It was like a direct time tunnel back to my own early adolescence. Amazing.

K

That's so cool! I'd forgotten all about it, but I had the book! Read it to bits. i reckon it was very significant for me too, and can't wait to see the movie.

And my Dad told so many stories of crazy adventures, bushwalking and cycling, with his brother when they were young, before he got sick.

Often on a weekend we'd go for a drive to the Blue Mountains, and i'd see for myself some of the territory Dad had explored so much in his youth. Did something deep in me, but I never had the chance to go myself till adulthood. I've often wondered how I knew i'd love it so much myself, when my brothers who did get to go with a boys group (grrrrrrrrrrrr) really didn't like it.

[kanangra]

Now that is interesting. It is very funny how things turn out. Mate you must see the movie. It is great even through adult eyes. As a 12 yo at the time I was awestruck by it.

K.

[Snowzone]

I lived in a rural area as a young child so have an appreciation of wide open spaces from the start. My parents also took us camping and for Sunday BBQ's in bush surrounds quite regularly where we were happy to head off exploring along creeks and gorges coming back to camp eventually when we were hungry. Come to think of it I still love to explore like that now.
I also loved the book Heidi when I was young and still have a copy of this book. It is of a young girl who lives in the mountains with her Grandfather. Many influences really make the person today, and I still can find myself being influences by a photograph or the look of terrain on a map that will draw me to an area.
I often find comfort from a sound or a smell when I am in the outdoors that brings back a childhood memory of some kind. Its always a good moment.

[GPSGuided]

I've often wondered how I knew i'd love it so much myself, when my brothers who did get to go with a boys group (grrrrrrrrrrrr) really didn't like it.

There's really something innate with it. All in the genes and chemistry.

[Gadgetgeek]

My parents are both a bit nutty adventurers, they did their fair share of treks and tours (once detouring three or four hours drive just for icecream). Somehow I managed to get all that inclination for silliness, although some might not think moving countries was all that big of a deal, it is compared to where I'm from. I really wish I could cultivate a better habit of just going and doing stuff, but I'm sure that once the financial situation stabilizes, I've got a couple things in mind. I tend to think that their adventures were somehow much more insane than mine, but its probably that I just haven't had the time to get into that many silly situations.

[Empty]

My father was a commando in the second world war and served in New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. Although he grew up in inner Sydney he served with a lot of blokes from the bush and often referred to bush skills he learned from men from the Kimberley.

We lived in a leafy suburb of Sydney's North Shore and the surrounding bush became my fascination. Dad would take me down into the scrub and together we would build bush camps. Everything for the camp was made from the surrounding bush - a lean-to hut, tables, chairs, camp beds you name it. Of course that would be frowned upon these days.

He introduced me to the dawn chorus of birds and showed me how to swing the billy to settle the tea leaves. I learned how to twitch wire into a Cobb & Co hitch and his instructions on how to tie a reef knot I still remember word for word. Just about tearing up thinking about him.

[icefest]

My parents. I was taken on outdoors trips as an infant.

Less trips occurred when my brother was born but we still have incredible photos at home. Preikestolen, Bryce Canyon, Transfăgărășan were all featured heavily in photos and stories of my childhood.

[kanangra]

Great memories Empty. Your Dad must have been a legend.

K.

[neilmny]

I'm not sure exactly where it started but I know that being in the bush touches my soul.
As a very young kid Mum and Dad would take us camping (5 kids) in a tent that Dad made himself.
I remember him sitting in the middle of the lounge room floor with an old Singer sewing machine,
surrounded by canvas. The tent would also grow year after year. The whole thing attached to his home
made trailer and the supporting structure was steel electrical conduit and fittings. Not the slick stuff of today
these were the ancient styled threaded end stuff with pressed metal elbows etc.
They were great family times and even now if I'm down at the beach the smell of tea tree and canvas relaxes my mind.
Come to think of it almost anywhere out of the big smoke relaxes my mind.

[wayno]

dad was into jogging but not bushwalking at all...
no one influence.. tv. magazines, famous outdoors people like Sir Ed hillary.. kiwis are generally outdoors people and theres a lot of people taking to the mountains anyway.... friends.. boys brigade, cadets...
friend up the road was mad keen . i was a runner frustated by injuries and my neighbour invited me on a tramp when i was 16 and our parents provided the transport and it became a regular thing for a few years.
wellington was very conducive to tramping, the tararuas had over a thousand k's of tracks, 60 huts, fantastic views and scenery, weather was often bad everywhere so didnt matter you had to put up with some rough weather in the mountains.
chronic fatigue got in the way in my twenties, i'd resigned myself i'd never be able to get back into it, but due to not reading a day walk trip run by a tramping club properly, i ended up on a long hilly walk instead of a short flat one and realised i had a chance of getting back to tramping..

[stepbystep]

Dad and growing up in a bush setting. As a boy we had no fences just bushtracks that radiated from our yard, that changed later as the area built up. But basically I'd explore the fire trails and tracks of the Darling Ranges, from Kalamunda to Roleystone, by pushbike and foot. We knew of caves and streams and rockpools, the best trees to climb and boulders to scramble over. I never called it anything but exploring. My summers were spent at the beach, shack and surf culture. Dad just pushed us out of the house and told us to get back in time for dinner. In my late teens this stopped, I discovered girls, nighclubs etc but an ongoing connection with the conservation movement, and surfing kept me 'in touch'. I knew since my early teens I wanted to live in Tasmania and within a fortnight of arriving my 'bushwalking' career started. That was 8 years ago, the rest is history.

Formative influences? Dad, Peter Dombrovskis and Bob Brown.

[north-north-west]

The bush was there, just part of the world we explored as kids. But I was always an outdoor type. Like sbs, we were more or less kicked out in the morning and expected to be back (in good shape) when it was time to help get dinner ready. Mucking about in the nearby hills was one way to pass the time.
Then for some reason I've never understood, I decided to join a high school bushwalking trip into the real Lake Pedder. Hoarded funds from paper rounds, pocket money, scrounged, begged or borrowed all the necessary gear, forged letters to con my way into a group supposedly limited to older students, lied my *&%$#! off about all sorts of things . . . grounded for half an eternity afterwards, but it was worth it.

Only special external influence can think of was reading Elyne Mitchell's Brumby books when I started high school. Fell in love with the High Country - particularly the Snowy Mountains - through those books.

[icefest]

Then for some reason I've never understood, I decided to join a high school bushwalking trip into the real Lake Pedder. Hoarded funds from paper rounds, pocket money, scrounged, begged or borrowed all the necessary gear, forged letters to con my way into a group supposedly limited to older students, lied my *&%$#! off about all sorts of things . . . grounded for half an eternity afterwards, but it was worth it.

This sounds like a great story, you haven't written it down anywhere, have you?

[north-north-west]

Then for some reason I've never understood, I decided to join a high school bushwalking trip into the real Lake Pedder. Hoarded funds from paper rounds, pocket money, scrounged, begged or borrowed all the necessary gear, forged letters to con my way into a group supposedly limited to older students, lied my *&%$#! off about all sorts of things . . . grounded for half an eternity afterwards, but it was worth it.

This sounds like a great story, you haven't written it down anywhere, have you?

Naaaaah, I don't want to corrupt all you youngsters. Besides, the summary is sufficient. Leaves plenty of room for the imagination.
I broke most of the Ten Commandments and one or two laws in the process, and got off pretty lightly. (And have never regretted anything about it, except that the supervising teachers refused to let a small bunch of us climb Secheron. Spoilsports.)

[Lophophaps]

I was about 13 when I joined Scouts and discovered the bush. Dreams encouraged by Blackshaw and Mountain Magazine of the Pennine Way, Half Dome and the Caroline Face. More mundine things occurred. The love of the bush compound after I left high school. This is what tertiary education is about, is it not? From there a lifetime opened up of sunlight and storm, good companionship and epics on foot, rock, skis and ice. Wouldn't have it any other way. I've attempted to convey the bush to non-believers, but it's very hard.

[mrpotter]

Army cadets and the Outdoor Recreation TAFE course helped shape my desires. In more recent years its been having a small dose of customer service at work thats driven me to the outdoors - people really p*** me off. Hi there.

[michael_p]

Great idea for a thread Kanangra.

Grew up with acres around us, big (to us it was huge) old barn on the property, several tree and cubby houses, a creek that ran through the property, two brothers keen on adventure and a dad who liked going for Sunday drives and relaxing walks. Then we moved to suburbia. Luckily this was near to some bush and we were always down the creek on some adventure.

Life got in the way for many years. Thankfully this has been remedied and more time is dedicated to getting out and enjoying the bush.

Cheesy but true list of influences:
Leyland Brothers.
Malcolm Douglas.
Alby Mangels (Yeah, I know but what young guy didn't love a good looking girl in a chamois bikini).
And all those adventure books I read in my childhood.

[raider]

Grew up in Boronia at the foot of the Dandenongs. Next door neighbours were all Scouts so were always going away but I was in CEBS but we still ventured into the bush to cook snags and drink from the creeks. Mum and Dad basically encouraged me to be outside and I used to climb pine trees in the backyard and sit right at the top watching the world go by. In High School , I think doing Environmental Science and my teacher Steven Malcolm was a big influence and I can still remember hiking up to the Bluff in 1979 and I still have the photocopied maps somewhere . I can also remember going to a Camp Tanjil and a Camp Icthus down Gippsland way which had some big hikes in them. Sowed the seed and nowadays, living in Wodonga , Bushwalking is the best way to relax my mind.

[Lizzy]

Always did lots of day walks as kids with the fam but never any camping. In high school got into Army Cadets where sleeping under a bivvy & abseiling were the go. That gave me confidence to do my own trips. Got lots of ideas reading Wild magazine. Haven't stopped dreaming or planning since

[Oldmate]

Thanks for posting this, read the book many times as a kid, so watched the movie on Apple TV yesterday.

[kanangra]

It really took me back seeing it again after all those years.

K.

[puredingo]

For me I suppose it would of been the old man, his fisho mates and the older style rangers the Natio parks used to employ in the day.

But really growing up jammed between two National parks walking in the bush was a necessity rather than a past time. The basic of journeys like walking to school, going over a mtes or going for a surf meant travelling through the bush at some point.

For example if I was a little too "free spirited" at school and got a day to "rest" at home my punishment was a day fishing with dad at tumbledown (not sure of the official name of this spot the topo uses?) I hated fishing so I'd spend the day frollicking in the water off the rocks or losing myself up on the plateau in the scrub and some how just turn up when dad was finished getting dinner.

Like others I lost my way through my late teens/20's, me playing competitive sports and chasing deluded dreams but there was always a burning desire and inbuilt notion that some day I would return to the place I feel most at home...The middle of nowhere.

Also honorable mention goes to

Harry Butler

Malcom Douglas RIP

Alby Mangles and female entourage

Ben Cropp

Skippy

[Graham51]

My father walked the Overland Track in the 1940s before he went into the army but he never really talked about it or passed on any of that interest to me.
When I was in grades 5 and 6 I used to look at the pictures in the front of the Collins School Atlas - Wave Rock, Ayers Rock, The Three Sisters and so on - and dream of visiting such places and have been to them all now. I also read Banner in the Sky about the same time, about a boy whose father died on a mountain in Switzerland and he climbed it and planted the flag for his father. Those things sparked my interest.
At high school my friends were bushwalkers and we often went up Mt Wellington and then I joined the Hobart Walking Club and walked a lot with the same people - one in particular who was probably five years older than me. That set me up for forty years of bushwalking and still counting.
I did have a break in my mid - late twenties when I took up fishing and got a little bit fat and lazy. I happily realised that wasn't for me and got back into a more active lifestyle.

[walkon]

My guiding lights would have been my family. Mum & dad always were taking us Bush, camping from sea to summit. If you stuck around the campsite too long, peeling spuds, playing with sisters and other unpleasant jobs were handed out. So off you went exploring. Amazing how an orange, a pocket of biscuits and a canteen of water would keep you going all day.

During my teens, I was introduced to back packing and felt right at home. Outdoor ed teacher, Rob Gilfillan, led me astray early on shortly followed by some other reprobates, who had scout/venturer experience.

Always but always there was the farm. Many a top weekend was had going Bush on her confines and whilst living off the land on those occasions might have included nicking spuds from next door or raiding an orchard, She was undoubtedly my most loved and biggest teacher.

[Hallu]

No formative influence really. We used to hike in the Pyrénées with my parents when I was a kid but I hated it. Too many people, no national parks as we had a dog. What got me into bushwalking is Australia, plain and simple. On short walks I loved the wildlife, the plants, the sea, the mountains, the subtle mallee etc... and wanted to discover more. It also taught me that it's ok to walk alone and travel at your own pace. I wished I'd learnt that sooner. The worst cliché on Australia isn't that it's hot or expensive, it's that it's dangerous. Snakes and spiders are shy, no mammal will attack you unless you seriously provoque it. By comparison, walking in Europeans mountains is far more dangerous : too many tracks to get lost on, snow in winter, heavy rain and landslides when it melts, counter-intuitive markers, a lot less help in terms of ropes/cables, stairs or ladders.

[tas-man]

Interesting topic! As one get older, it becomes easier to look back over the influences and choices you have made in life and make connections. My family never went camping or bushwalking, but my first experience of a "bushwalk" as a teenager was an invitation to join some workmates in climbing Crookneck in the Glasshouse Mountains in SE Qld. This was such a blast from left of field that I was hooked! I did a few more trips with this group to Frazer Island, Lost World plateau, Lightning Falls and Black Canyon in Lamington National Park. Enjoyed it so much I joined the Brisbane Bushwalkers Club in 1969 to see more of the bush, and then the Launceston Walking Club when we moved to Tassie in 1994. Looking back now, I can see that my interest in the bush had been primed in my youth by movies such as "They Found a Cave" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/They_Found_a_Cave) and books by Patricia Wrightson "The Crooked Snake," "The Bunyip Hole," and "Rocks of Honey." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patricia_Wrightson) My attempts to pass on my passion for bushwalking to my children have not been successful, so it would seem that our individual interests develop out of our unique personality and life experiences according to the opportunities we have had.