What got you started ?

[Mechanic-AL]

People are drawn into the bush for many different reasons and have varied expectations of what they will find and how they will feel once they are away from the trappings of everyday life.
For some there is an element of discomfort and even fear. For others their first experience of being somewhere remote and wild will ignite a passion for 'getting out there' that will become a life long obsession.

Way back when the term 'Insta' was more likely to conjure up thoughts of 2 minute noodles than pouty faces filling screenshots of bucket list destinations I did a day trip to Bathurst Harbour with my father. Among the small number of people sharing the flight in to Melaleuca that day was a very quite young woman of some European origin. She didnt join us for a boat trip around the harbour and I wondered where she had disappeared to. Later that afternoon as our small plane banked hard to the east over Cox's Bight I caught a glimpse of her on the beach far below, alone and heading for Point Eric. As we bucked and bounced our way back to city life I was lost in thoughts of how free and exhilarated that young woman must have been feeling as vanished from sight over the horizon. I wanted so badly to be where she was.
Approximately 6 or 7 weeks later armed with a new but well thumbed John Chapman book and loaded up with an incredibly stupid amount of food and other 'necessities' I turned my back on the airstrip at
Melaleuca and set about discovering how rewarding, liberating, hard, scary, challenging but mostly soothing it can be to set off into some of the amazing places mother nature has tucked away.

So what got you out there and what was your first big challenge ?

[phATty]

Getting a driver's license did it for me. Which is weird to say but I had an impulse to use it straight away and I decided camping was the way to go. Why I chose WoJ over car camping is truly a mystery but I did it and then had the draw to keep going back. I have a really funny relationship with the bush- half of it is the appreciation for the natural beauty of it, the sense of achievement by reaching planned goals and the calming effects from being away from general life responsibility. The other half is dealing with anxiety when plans faulter - I have a huge issue with walking by myself (as mentioned in a previous topic) but I'm working on stamping this out.

The first challenge I encountered was the Cheyne range a long time ago, this was an area that I did not have the experience for at the time, although I hate to admit it. I was by myself and that had a really horrible effect on me when the going got tough and I didn't have the resilience to fight it. I made it as far as Hermoine, I attempted to push on but got way out of it navigational wise due to the lack of experience and had to turn around. Again, highlights the importance of mental resilience and experience out bush. Luckily, I had a chance last year to go back and face it again and was entirely successful, so pretty over the moon about that. I do now have unfinished business with a Spires trip that didn't go as planned :S

[Son of a Beach]

My family took us on various day walks when I was a kid. Those walks were ok, but didn't really inspire me. To this day, I'm still not terribly keen on day walks. I love camping, and the feeling of remoteness during a multi-day trip (even just an overnighter) camping in the middle of wilderness.

My Dad had a very busy job, unofficially on-call 24 hours 7 days, and didn't have much time for bushwalking. He did the Overland Track with a colleague soon after moving the family to Tasmania when I was very young. He didn't see much, due to bad weather, but he was keen to do more. I was a teenager by the time Dad first took me to the Walls of Jerusalem for my first proper overnight walk. I was as sick as a dog and didn't enjoy it much (had to move the tent away from the vomit at one point). But I appreciated it enough to want to do it again. So we did it again a year or two later and I was just blown away by what seemed to me to be a magical fantasy world. It was so completely different to what I was used to, that it felt very much like a whole other universe.

I've been addicted ever since.

It's been such a joy and a blessing to be able to get out bush with my family occasionally. I love having my wife and kids with me when camping in remote places. There's nothing like it.

I don't get out bush as often as I used to, and my right knee has been playing up for a while and my left hip has just recently started causing problems. So I don't know how much more time I'm going to have in remote bush. It gets me a bit depressed thinking about it. But I'll keep doing what I can for now, while hoping I don't make the injuries too much worse.

[Baeng72]

Why I was about 12-13 I had a holiday with some relos. We didn't holiday much in my family, so it was something new.
They took me to the Prom. We only day hiked, and camped at Tidal River, but I think the idea lodged somewhere in my brain.
Fast forward many decades and I thought about doing the Overland. I'd heard of it from a cousin who'd done it (one of the relos I'd gone to Prom with) and had occasionally thought about it, but seemed too hard for a fat, late forties guy whose idea of hard exercise was carrying a box of beer back to the car. I joke, but not that far from the truth.
I had a 8 year kid who liked to do stuff, so we started doing hikes in the Melbourne area, the Prom, and Grampians, building up some skill and knowledge.
We did the Overland. We managed it, for kid easier than I, at least first few days. I think today, 5 years later, I'd have crushed it, but then it was hard.
I was carrying all my gear, and half the kid's gear and all the food. And the gear wasn't ultralight.
After that, the kid started to lose interest, but I wanted to do a bit more.
So, solo hiking, harder walks in the high country. More than a few turning around because I bit too much off than I could chew or was unsure it'd be safe to continue.
I think these days, if I'm not having one of my near weekly bouts of lurgies, I can do a pretty decent hike, and go to places where there aren't people or very few.
I try to walk from sunrise to sunset. A few scratches, a bit of pain, overcoming some obstacles and getting unlost.
It clears away the crap that quotidian life seems to kludge into the brain.
I also like the challenge. I don't get that overjoyed when I succeed, not much of whooping and hollering, I'm too stuffed in any case, but the doing is the thing that drags me back.
At least, that's how I see it today.

[north-north-west]

Like many children of my era, I grew up mucking about in the bush. It was just so much more interesting and rewarding (and peaceful) than the "these are the things you're supposed to do because you're a *girl*" garbage constantly shovelled at me in school or at home.
Then, towards the end of second year high-school when I'd just turned 13, they announced an end of year walking trip into the old Lake Pedder (along the old track from the Strathgordon Rd, over the shoulder of Mt Bowes) strictly for 4th year students, minimum 15 years old. Don't ask why, but I was suddenly fired up and determined to join in. It took a lot of work, including some highly dubious activities such as forging recommendations and permission letters, but I did somehow con my way into the last spot (which would otherwise have been unfilled because there were surprisingly few takers). Saved every cent of pocket money (no lunches for the rest of the school year) and paper round money, bought what I couldn't beg or borrow or (temporarily) steal and ... a legend was born.

Love for the south-west was blunted by the drowning of the old lake, and somewhat frustrated by the supervisors' refusal to let us climb anything more challenging than Terminal, but it survived; hell, it even survived the disastrous PDT-SCT xmas-New Year trip with some old schoolmates ten years later. Nothing ever got near dimming the love of just being out bush and letting the legs take me where they would, not even the *expletives deleted* mosquitoes on that first multiday walk.

[IDP]

It’s an interesting topic and interesting replies thus far.
Mine is one of generational influences
My mother was active in the MUMC back in the 1950s and would tell me of trips to Tas in the Reserve and SW (Pedder, parts of the Western Arthurs, Anne) as well as the high country of Vic.
Growing up in Qld, we would explore Lamington and other areas. And then I and other friends would do so - including untracked and horribly impenetrable rainforest bashes.
And from there, ambitious trips with (the now defunct) UQBWC.
But Tas always beckoned so I could see and experience what my mother had - a mate and I wrote off a car driving down the first time but got there through bus trips and hitchhiking.
That first Overland track trip in the 80s opened my eyes to unbelievably wonderful countryside.
Many many trips ensued through the 80s and 90s; some easy, others less so. A brief stint followed guiding on the OLT (well before the commercial huts were built).
Then once my children reached their early teens, I started them off, with the usual progression of OLT, WOJ, SCT, and now increasingly adventurous off-track ventures. They love it and I feel their passion will continue.
I still go down additionally once or twice per year for solo off-track walks, which I absolutely love - successes and failures being down to myself.

[marron]

Lived in the blue mountains as a kid so lots of daywalks. Dad promised when i was older to take me camping into the jamison and whatnot. But then we moved away without ever doing it. We were then living in the pacific and there was some very thick rainforest amongst other stuff to explore which we did a bit of - and as a kid it was all "off at dawn home by sunset" kind of unsupervised fun on the wilds and on the beaches - bushcraft, hunting birds, fishing, fires etc. We moved back to the city in aus though and, aside from the odd daywalk - i remember doing stuff below wentworth falls on jamison creek - a little bit of camping and walking (in kangaroo valley i think), and a little bit of liloing on wollangambe/colo, i was a city kid and young adult, and it was music and beer and football and light delinquency that held my interest for quite a while to varying degrees.

When i eventually moved back to the mountains with my young family it really hit me what i'd been missing in my life though. No regrets or anything but i discovered that being in the bush was very much where i'm happy and i soon was taking whatever opportunity i could get with whoever wpuld come, or, as is often the case, on my own. Whether that be multiday or overnight or out all day or just a few hours. I need it or i get restless and it genuinely affects mental health if i don't. I'm happy enough around here, and am no bagger of this walk or that, although its a family joke that i will always find walks to do if we are away from home. But i really enjoy getting to know places deeply and in different seasons. Knowing how it all connects. I'd genuinely be happy if all my walking stayed here in the wider mountains. (It doesn't, but it wouldn't bother me).I sometimes wonder if all this is is just that deep seated kind of questing for the carefree childhood on jamison creek, like just a huge imprint of the landscape and local ecology. But whatever the reason, i just like being out there - it's home. So yep. That feeling - that's what got me started so to speak.

[norts]

Growing up in Snug in the 60s and 70s, spent a lot of time in the bush or the beach.
Lots of Christmases at Waldheim in the cabins , even spent a night in the original Waldheim.
Dad took me into the Original Lake Pedder before it was lost, my first overnighter.
Then the coming coming of age walk through the "Park" when I was 12, Jan 1973. Dad took all three sibling through when they were deemed old enough. That made up3 of his 10 trips . His last was when my brother and I took him through to repay the debt.

[Lophophaps]

When I was 12 or 13 I decided to join Scouts. It was fun for a few years, japara tents and very basic gear by today's standards. Then i moved onto bigger walks in the Victorian alps, Howitt and the Bogong High Plains. The first major challenge was the Alpine Walking Track. Some sections had no maps and there were minimal track notes in the MUMC Guide to the Victorian Alps.

Going bushwalking, rock climbing, ski touring and mountaineering has been hard at times. Slogging through scrub, rain, blizzard, wind, no water, avalanches, crevasses, miles above protection, sago snow in a whiteout, a metre of snow in two days, trapped at huts by very bad weather, zero visibility. But then I relax and savour the memories of places I have been, people I was with, and mountains I have climbed. These times are gold, and I would not have it any other way. Also, my day, weekend and extended trips were 2-3 months a year, costing not much. The final benefit is conservation, adopted with all I do and a focus on the long term. This mindset has been used to great financial advantage.

[nezumi]

Duke of Ed. I had always done little camping trips with my dad, or with Air League (plane focused analogue to scouts), but never really gone /hiking/ as such.

In high school we had a very enthusiastic science teacher who ran the DoE program, and so a few of my friends and I signed up for it. We did the 6 foot track for out first walk I think, and then Bundeena to Otford through the Royal Nat Park next. A few more walks through the years, including a disastrously wet one in Kangaroo Valley area, and I was a hiker.

[scroggin]

I went to Tassie for a Year 10 camp and whilst staying at Cradle Mountain, I saw something that would change my life forever. A group of people with only their packs, heading off beyond yonder on an adventure, which I later learnt was the Overland. I had this overwhelming urge to do what they were doing. The day trip up Cradle Mountain that I was looking so forward to, just seemed inadequate. Growing up working class in country Victoria, overnight hiking was just not on the radar, it was an exotic pursuit like paragliding or Mountaineering in Nepal. But here it was, accessible, close and I had to do it.

[Puddle Duck]

Was lucky enough to attend a secondary school in Melbourne that had a strong outdoor program. First overnight walk was to Lake Tali Karn from McFarlanes saddle in form 2 (now year then in following years :- Hewit, Viking Mt Speculation walk; Tali Karn via Welling river; Mt Feathertop & many others. In year 11 they even had a group do the Tasmanian South West walk, unfortunately I missed out due to a torn ACL. The school also introduced me to climbing, starting at the You Yangs, Lerderderg George and even the Arapiles. They also had ski and sailing camps but I was already doing those.

[crollsurf]

I've always been adventurous. When I was younger, I'd go searching for waves and secret spots to ski. Which meant walking, or ski touring, to get to those places. So hiking, while pleasurable, was only ever an ends to a means. But if there was no surf, and there was a mountain near by, why not. Lets climb that!

And then life got in the way. For me it was getting married, having children and a mortgage, and having to chase a career to pay for all of that. So not a lot of money to spare. The wife was never into camping but that's all we could afford. And then once the kids were old enough to say "NO, I'm not going camping". I was left in a situation where I had little money, but 4 weeks annual leave. And I wasn't going to waste those 4 weeks hanging around the house.

So off I went, walking overnight, which turned into multiday walks, which turned into a gear obsession. And gear costs money, but compared to most things, it's cheap as chips. Plus you don't need all the UL gear.

And here is the rub on all of this for me. Working 9-5, you don't actually switch off. But after a couple of hours walking with the birds chirping, the mind starts to degauss. And after a few days, it's just the next step and the nature around you that occupies your thoughts. Some may not be cognizant of that, but... the joy and relief it gave me, from the stresses of normal life was not lost on me.

I'm retired now and no longer suffer from the stress of working (or a mortgage), but it's still the same. Every time I go for a multiday walk, within hours of starting the walk... I can't think of a better place to be.