On being at one with the landscape while walking

Posted on February 4, 2014 by admin

I’ve been recently reading Robert Macfarlane’s The Old Ways: a journey on foot (Hamish Hamilton, London 2012). This is a really enjoyable book which explores, as it’s name suggests, the relationships between walking, trails (ways) and landscapes (and, indeed, seascapes as well). In doing this, Macfarlane looks at the ways landscapes have shaped us, continue to shape us as we walk within them, and, ultimately, how landscapes have shaped civilisations (and vice versa).

There are two quotes I’d like to share:

These are the consequences of the old ways, with which I feel easiest – walking an enabling sight and thought rather than encouraging retreat and escape; paths as offering not only means of traversing space, but also of feeling, being and knowing (pg 24).

Leading up to this, Macfarlane has been discussing the ways walking has been represented through historical movements of people, their stories, journals and literature. For him, walking is not the negative pursuit of movement from one place to another, as many saw it, but a way of embracing a connection to landscape and, ultimately, to nature. The ‘feeling, being and knowing’ is of both oneself and the landscape.

On the same page, Macfarlane writes:

…and I have read and reread the Scottish writer Nan Shepherd’s accounts of how she came to know the Cairngorm massif on foot, following its ridge lines and deer tracks for years until she found herself walking not ‘up’ but ‘into’ the mountains.

Walking. Through walking ‘knowing’. Through ‘knowing’ becoming an inseparable part of the landscape. As we should always be.

LoST and national parks

Posted on January 13, 2014 by admin

I’ve recently written a post in response to a proposal by the Victorian Government in Australia to charge for basic camping sites – they have always been free and now the proposal is for $13 per night. To my mind this begins to change the concept of a national park, and its role in allowing us to re-imagine connections with nature. You can access my post by going back to brianfurze.com.au or by clicking here.

This has got me thinking about the connections between LoST, national parks, local communities and landscape sustainability. These are incredibly important connections, not the least because national parks are an international system of conservation and therefore provide important connections on a global scale.

Look out for a post that looks at this in the coming weeks – it’s a topic dear to my heart!

Travel trends: seeing some movements to LoST?

Posted on December 2, 2013 by admin

There was an interesting small story on travel trends in Melbourne’s The Age newspaper yesterday (available here). A number of emerging and current trends were identified and discussed.

Among these are:

organised tours using more public transport to take their tour groups around
visits to smaller restaurants in locations
ethical holidays where you contribute to a greater good
holidays that allow travellers to meet locals

Whilst it’s good to see these trends emerging, I think the challenge is still going to be the extent the focus of the experience is on the traveller, the local communities or the integration of both sets of experiences. To my mind, that is one of the defining characteristics of the LoST experience – the extent the journey and the location are integrated, and the ways in which the traveller’s experiences form part of a move to sustainability for travellers and the landscapes within which they travel. I’ll devote a longer post to this specific issue in the near future.

It’s spring in northeast Victoria and my heart turns to Chiltern

Posted on November 4, 2013 by admin

In the northeast of Victoria is a relatively little known national park – Chiltern-Mt Pilot National Park. When I say ‘relatively little known’ I exclude the many locals who are passionate about the park, its flora and its flauna.

Landscapes are multi-layered things. We connect with them through our past, our present and also, hopefully, our future. They are places of stories, experiences, connections with friends and families, and because of this they often become markers in our lives. We are connected to landscapes through our culture, our histories and our activities. Landscapes are profoundly human in both the ways they are sculptured and influenced by us, and also the ways we value them.

All this is by way of introduction to this post – spending time at Chiltern-Mount Pilot National Park. I’ve known this landscape for many years – it is a place I go to when I want to touch base with the part of my history that it represents, and it is the place I go to when I want to reconnect with these specific natural landscapes, if only for a short time.

In spring the orchids emerge, the wattles are out, the grevilleas are blooming and the woodland birds have gained their song. There is a real sense of colour and movement at this time of year – colour and movement that speaks of a living landscape both in the national park and in the agricultural landscapes that surround it.

This time of year it’s a nice to be out and about – walking the paths, listening to the living landscape, feeling the subtle changes in temperature and smelling the trees, grasses and flowers. The kangaroos are always plentiful as are the wildflowers.

The park is one of those which have lots of tracks which criss-cross it. Great for walking and also great for mountain-biking, an activity I have done many times here.

I’m reminded, once again, of the importance of national parks, not for tourism as such, but for regeneration of ecosystems, ourselves and our places in them.

Below are some images from walks.

National parks and slow travel

Posted on October 4, 2013 by admin

There has been a debate in the New York Times recently about how to manage visitor numbers in Yosemite National Park. Essentially what we see through the debates are the often contradictory functions of national parks – protecting ecosystems and providing locations for people to visit, to travel through and to stay in. These issues have been around all over the world ever since national parks first came into existence – not in all parks, but especially in those that have high visitor numbers.

Bluff Falls, Northeast Victoria, Australia

I really enjoy travelling in most national parks and I really appreciate what they stand for – attempts by Government and international agencies to protect significant and important ecosystems, landscapes, cultural heritage and so on. National parks also can (and do) bring significant economic benefits to local communities. Travellers, tourists and recreationalists visit parks and bring with them spending, need for accommodation and the need for services. Further, because national parks sit within landscapes they become an important part of a mosaic of land-use and activities – parks fitting in agricultural landscapes and nearby small communities where benefits flow, for example. So theirs is an important contribution to local communities in terms of diversifying their economic base and providing income opportunities for local people in whatever forms these may take.

For LoST, national parks can be incredibly beautiful places for travel. I think of the national parks in my part of Australia. I’ve cycled, walked, camped and photographed many of those in my area (and beyond), and have got to know local people, rangers and other travellers who share my reasons for being there and doing the things I do.

Keep a watch out on some blogs focused on specific parks and the travels I’ve undertaken in them.