The bushwalker may justly claim that this pastime is one of the very few that develops both the mind and the body. It takes him far away from the hustle and bustle of the modern city, and he may tread in places where no white man has trodden before. He learns to appreciate the strange, peaceful charm of the Australian bush, known only to those who seek its virgin spots, and he realises that man and his civilisation form a small part only of a wonderful creation.

—From An Introduction to Bushwalking, Federation of Bushwalking Clubs, 1939.

There weren’t many bushwalking clubs in the 1930s, but the walkers were very enthusiastic. These were the heydays of bushwalking. Faced with economic depression on the one hand and conservation issues on the other, walkers had been drawn together with a spirit of adventure and goodwill.

When did our pastime originate? The term ‘bushwalking’ was coined by the Sydney Bush Walkers, the club formed in 1927 when the Mountain Trails Club decided to maintain its exclusivity and not open its doors to the throngs of new walkers (particularly women). But even last century there were many recreational walkers who could be described as bushwalkers.

The Melbourne Walking Club (which still operates) started in 1894, while the now-defunct Warragamba Club started a few years later in New South Wales. The Mountain Trails Club, whose leading light was that Father of Conservation, Myles Dunphy, was formed in 1914. The growth of the Scout movement was also influential: many well-known walkers starting out as Boy Scouts.

But bushwalking in the early days was not quite the same as today. There were no plastic bags and no fancy tents. There were no packs until Paddy Pallin started making them. There were no helicopters and no mobile phones—there wasn’t even a search and rescue organisation until the bushwalkers formed their own in 1936. There were no useful maps until the army maps appeared: walkers relied on sketches and advice provided by people like Dunphy and Pallin. Minimal impact bushwalking was unheard of: many bushwalkers, including Dunphy, were accompanied by a dog. Some carried an axe, and perhaps a rifle. Rubbish was disposed of on the ‘burn, bash and bury’ principle.

In an era when woman raised eyebrows merely by wearing shorts, mixed bushwalking parties caused consternation in polite circles: there was quite a row about the ‘co-tenting’ issue within the Sydney Bush Walkers. Not that the women always walked with men—Dorothy Lawry, a key figure in the Sydney Bush Walkers, the Blue Gum Forest campaign, and the Federation, took all-female parties on ambitious trips down the Kowmung and elsewhere.

Few people had a car, and there were fewer roads and fire tails than today. Bushwalks were planned around the trains, and remote places like Kanangra Walls (to which there was no road) were the province only for dedicated walkers on extended trips. For instance, Tom and Sissy Godfrey were dropped near Jenolan Caves to walk to Burragorang via Kanangra—but after walking several days in the rain they were unable to cross the Kowmung, and had to walk all the way back—still in the rain. The bedraggled pair were greeted with astonishment and disdain by tourists at the Caves! In another epic described as ‘sheer bloody hell’, Ray Bean, Nin Melville (founder of the Coast and Mountain Walkers) and Win Duncombe took fourteen days to walk the Colo, which was in flood: they survived by eating eels caught with pegs and guy ropes.

Such were the risks of serious bushwalking: going out there, and being totally responsible for yourself. A true wilderness experience. Today we have the security offered by phones and helicopters; we can travel far into the wild by car or bicycle; many new tracks and pads have appeared, and we have accurate maps. The wilderness experience has been diminished.