THE BUSH WALKERS

Rotorua Morning Post, Issue 3, 26 August 1931, Page 6

THE BUSH WALKERS

TRAMPERS OF THE BY-WAYS. PEOPLE OF THE LITTLE TENTS TAKE PLEASURE AFOOT. German tourist posters may boast of Deutchland's growdng "wanderlust" movement; clerics may preach sermons regarding the chain of hos-° tels which is springing up to cater espeeially for the hiking craze in England; but how much does Sydney know of its People of the Little Tents? writes a Sydney correspondent.» To find them you must seareh for their meeting-plaees as for the Christians in the cataeombs of ancient Rome, or you must stalk them in the bush far from where empty petrol tins and other refuse of car parties litter the landscape. These mild-mannered people have but one enemy — the motorist. From him they have retreated to the fastnesses of the bush, and comparative obseurity in the city, rather than enter into the din of battle for their lost territory. You must not eall them hikers. Australian bush walkers are in a class quite different from those who traverse the well-worn routes of the older countries; and, anyway, they consider the term an Americanism. They refer to their reereation as trailing, bushwalking, bushtracking, tramping or rambling; and as you get to know them better you realise the important shades of meaning which may be conveyed by those terms, according to the use made of that .essential aualification of the real Australian cross-country trailer-bushcraft. Your seasoned trailer scorns the easy trips, the dinner bell, and the spring mattress. There are, for instance, about 60 women members in the Sydney Bush Walkers' Club who think nothing of hoisting 251b to 401b ruck-sacks and setting out for a week or more of trailing with their friends. When night comes small lightweight tents of Japara are unstrapped from their equipment, food and billies are unloaded, and for the rest a level pafcch of earth and a wide and starry sky serve them for accommodation. For clothing, a pair of short pants and an open-neclced shirt meet the needs of both sexes. The conventions. Well, this is a case in which Mother Grundy's bonnet is pulled well down over her eyes. "The new youth is not ashamed of his or her body," declares Mr. Myles J. Dunphy, vice-president of the Sydney Bush Walkers' Club, and honorary secretary of the Mountain Trails Club of New South Wales "Present-day freedom places health and morals hand in hand, and allow? to all the right to think and act according to the conventions of the Open Air People. "Health and happiness; thought for one another; mental independence and a moral stiffening induced by freedom — this is our code." Lessened spending power has lately added many to the number of those who now seek their pleasure afoot instead of by car or wholly by train. Many of these may in time beeome recruits to Sydney's bushwalking organisations. None is more democratic than the bushwalking fraternity. Though he is not a member of any of the existing bushwalking clubs, you may come across the Chief Railway Commissioner (Mr. Cleary) swinging along some week-end far from the rumble of his trains and the purr of official and other motor cars. Miss Marie Byles, Sydney's first lady solicitor, is a Bush Walkers' member; a dozen solicitors and arehitects, and Me/;srs. Elroy Davies and Allan Rigby, artists, are Mountain Trailers. But the hero of the moment is Maxwell Gentle, 20-year-old bricklayer, who recently penetrated some of the roughest country in New South Wales, setting up a record of 11 dhys through the Colo canyons from Rylistone to Kurrajong in the company of Gordon Smith, walking champion. The heavy paclc exponents specialise in staying out in the bush for as long a time as possible on the one outfit, including food. The usual iimit is 18 days, but trips of as long ks six months are on record. For upwards of two weeks at a stretch no human being ha;'s been met with. Food supplies are augmented by the ubiquitous rabbit, but it is a point of honour to respect game laws, and many bushwalkers are, in fact, rangers appointed under the various protection Acts.

The majority of bushwalkers, however, are not those who play the game to the full limit of carrying their own camping equipment, and for the present, accommodation, apart from that provided on motoring roads and along railway lines, is scant. A move is now afoot to cater for such, and the interest of the Government Tourist Bureau is being enlisted to obtain details regarding meals and accomodation which dwellers off the beaten tracks may be willing t'o supply on a commercial basis for the many who wouid welcome this means of enabling them to extend their usual range.