Patagonia

“Look how big this myrtle beech is! So, this would be seven, 800 years old and the root system about 2000. It just keeps sprouting. These are remanent Gondwanan species.” This is Liam O’Connor – disability support worker, environment science graduate and studio manager for Beau Miles. He also happens to be the Paddy Pallin Footprints Scholarship recipient for the camp. If you don’t first spot his ginger-topped head and vibrant green Houdini Air jacket you’ll hear his voice drawing you in to take note of wonders the modern eye might miss – 800-year-old Gondwana trees, creek lines, notches in girthy trunks where loggers once stood while cross cutting.

“I grew up in the foothills of the Central Highlands,” offers Liam. “My dad did a lot of work in these forests. His love for these forests flow from him into me. These forests are so soulful, right? You can just feel it flowing through you. As for projects, Sarah and I are currently building a podcast for [the Great Forest National Park]. We’ll be speaking with forest ecologists, adventure athletes, storytellers, as well as people who are part of the movement for the actual park – people like Sarah Rees and Chris Taylor and Dr Kita Ashman.”

Maybe it’s Beau Miles’ influence but Liam doesn’t spend much time sitting around. He’s also working on a bike-packing track. “A multi-day route stretches from one end of the proposed park to the other. Not a race, a community day. A route that links key ecological areas of old growth and wet forest. Off road primarily. First Nations directed and educated, of course.”

We end our first walk for the day and strip off a layer as we exit the depth of the forest for more coffee, oats and marshmallow-rice-bubble-bars. “Feel that?” Asks Liam. “It’s at least five degrees warmer. That’s forests 101. Those forests in there along the creek line, those old rainforests are cooler and wetter, and that is so important for fire protection. We’re in an ecology line here between two different spaces with fire history. There are areas along the creek which haven’t been burned or logged in possibly a thousand years (which is unusual). Yet right over the hill here these forests have been logged, but they’ve also been burned maybe 80-90 years ago.” It’s a reminder of why these people are here and why their projects matter. This forest is so much more than a tourist attraction.

We end our first walk for the day and strip off a layer as we exit the depth of the forest for more coffee, oats and marshmallow-rice-bubble-bars. “Feel that?” Asks Liam. “It’s at least five degrees warmer. That’s forests 101. Those forests in there along the creek line, those old rainforests are cooler and wetter, and that is so important for fire protection. We’re in an ecology line here between two different spaces with fire history. There are areas along the creek which haven’t been burned or logged in possibly a thousand years (which is unusual). Yet right over the hill here these forests have been logged, but they’ve also been burned maybe 80-90 years ago.” It’s a reminder of why these people are here and why their projects matter. This forest is so much more than a tourist attraction.

There is however a lot to be gained from tourist attractions when done well. Nathan Jones, passionate runner, bikepacker, Melbourne resident and Patagonia Fitzroy store manager, has come to learn value of this bush. “I grew up in this area-ish, and despite hating it in my adolescence it’s come to grow on me. As soon as I heard about the proposal for the park I felt immediately connected to the idea and it sort of triggered that desire to learn more about the area. When there are people trying to show you the significance of the area, it starts to make you think about what makes this place so special.”

Nathan is familiar with special places like this. “Having been at the takayna [trail] event and knowing how that so successfully celebrates the combination of an activity that people are passionate about with a region that people should be passionate about. There’s the same huge potential for this region. All the infrastructure is already here. The area just needs an event to demonstrate the value of that area for that recreational activity.”

Nathan is crafting a bikepacking event. He is deeply aware of the inequality of accessibility to the activity and it’s led them to create an event that closes the gap, rather than evermore exposing it. “It’s more than just protecting the environment. We want this event to be welcoming for all, fostering a welcoming and inclusive community. We’ll use quotas in ticketing to stimulate gender diversity and lean into partnerships to offer sponsored ticketing and equipment that can be borrowed. We want to support not just marginalised communities, but marginalised skillsets as well.” The three-day event will work with local food and beverage providers to engage and support local economy. In the words of Nathan, “We want to curate a really good experience of the forest, for everyone.”

“Look at the swing in some of those ash trees, there’s gotta be a couple metres in that!” says Blake Hose as we all look up to feel the sway and experience some degree of vertigo. Blake is a mountain biker, runner and nature photographer, among other things. “I work at a place called Trust in Nature. The crux of the work is to create conservation on private property. We put covenants on properties which is a legally binding agreement. Once it’s there, they can’t degrade the ecological value of the property, it has to be maintained in perpetuity. I work on a project called ‘Bush for Birds’ which is a restoration and protection project for two critically endangered bird species: the regent honeyeater and the swift parrot. It’s a very awesome job. We map what we think are potential sites to be part of the project and then figure out how to attain them.”

Blake is here as one of the mentors on the camp. Our discussion shared an idea that summarises the power and impact of this camp. “I’m trying to instil the idea that everyone has these really broad ideas of climate and helping climate change but I’ve been trying to prompt people to think of smaller aspects within that. So, if you have a passion and you work on it, whether it’s a particular bird or a particular issue, once you work on that it immediately expands exponentially, because everything is connected.”

“Ecologically, if you work on one thing, it affects everything,” says Blake. “If we work on theoretically two bird species, they in turn protect probably 40 other woodland species – reptiles, mammals, birds. It’s a good approach to have a smaller focus but still big impact. I mean a broad scale approach is good but small-scale impact is just as valuable.”

The day moves back to the campsite. After a big bowl of veggie pasta and riding on a solid carb high the afternoon turns its focus to working on the projects. Butchers’ paper is sprawled out under dappled sunlight with plenty of tea and marshmallow-rice-bubble-bars to keep the creativity flowing.

“For me, I’m at a point in my life where I’m really inspired by creating community but doing it in wild places,” says Simon Harris, founder of Wild Allies and co-facilitator with Majell Backhausen for this first Footprints Camps in Australia. “I’ve done a couple of those things lately; takayna Trail is an important one of those.”

“What I’ve seen in the camp so far is that they’ve created this ecosystem and resilience within that – so I think they’re really going to go forward together. Things are already overlapping. They don’t want to do these projects just to raise money or just to save a forest. They say, ‘We’re aware of isolation and we want to get people out into nature and connected to it’ – it’s quite beautiful. There’s an understanding that the way to heal has got to be together, because we’re stronger that way.”

I leave the team huddled around butchers’-paper-plans, laid on tables in a gathering hall on the camp site. They are quietly co-designing, deep in thought and consideration, laying down coloured post notes of recommendations, tools, contacts, strategies and affirmations. Community has well and truly been built. They are stronger this way.

After a couple weeks of decompression and recovery I ask co-facilitator and Patagonia community manager Majell Backhausen for his reflections on the camp. “It wildly exceeded expectations. I’ve been to Wim Hof retreats, I’ve been to trail running camps, I’ve been to elite trail running camps, I’ve been on stage races with huge groups of people in the mountains and guiding tours around the Himalayas, and none of them have stacked up to the environment that was created at Footprints. It’s a growing ecosystem of ways in which we continually build and speak with community.” It’s no coincidence these people speak about the event in the same way. After spending this much time between gum leaves and butchers’ paper, you begin to understand that everything really is connected.

“Some of the things people learned were also massive lessons for life: if you want to protect something or if you want to do something that feels really important, you really gotta stick to it and do it. You learn so much about how patience and commitment is important. These things don’t happen overnight, you need to stick at it and stick at it. I mean, we spoke about doing a camp maybe a year-and-a-half ago. Good things will really come.”

“I think everyone is just as surprised about the family we’ve created,” offers Majell. “We’ve got a WhatsApp group that everyone’s in and that thing has not stopped. The things people are sharing, the moments where people try to catch up, even the support that’s being offered there. It’s wild. It’s so wholesome and healthy.”

Wild Allies’ next event – Footprints NSW – will be hitting the trail in November 2023. Find out more and register here.