My Rookie Era: A Teenager's Quest to Live Off the Land in 1971
During the summer of 1971, at just fifteen years old, I made a bold declaration against what I perceived as a doomed civilization. With the unwavering confidence only a teenager can muster, I decided to abandon my comfortable family home and prove I could survive entirely off the land. My skeptical parents watched with smirks as I packed my gear: a basic tent, a canteen, a billy can, a sleeping bag, some cord, and what I optimistically called "emergency rations"—two carrots, a bag of soup mix, and a can of creamed rice.
The Journey to Solitude
I managed to convince two fellow members of our school's geek club, Peter and David, of this venture's noble purpose. Together, we traveled along now-vanished tracks through Victoria's central highlands to Molesworth station. From there, we ascended 460 meters over the summit of nearby Mount Concord, finally reaching the grassy flat beside Chrystal Creek that I had identified on a survey map as my promised land. Hidden among my bushcraft pamphlet was my secret morale booster: a carefully preserved Women's Weekly magazine cutting featuring Princess Caroline of Monaco.
The reality of wilderness living hit hard on day two. Our legs, previously accustomed only to the short walks of a school library, screamed in agony. David surrendered the next morning, followed shortly by Peter, who called me an idiot before departing. Suddenly, I was completely alone in the wild. Yet, I was not lonely. I had my princess. I hung her portrait inside my tent, and for the next six days, hers was the only human face I saw.
The Hunger Games Begin
Hunger fundamentally alters your perception. I became convinced that food was everywhere, waiting to be foraged, trapped, or hunted. I constructed a rudimentary trap from sticks, baiting it with one of my precious carrots. At dawn the next day, I lay belly-down in the damp grass, heart pounding. A rabbit entered the trap. I yanked the cord. The mechanism dropped—and the rabbit bolted into the bracken, taking my hopes for a roast dinner and my remaining bravado with it.
Later that afternoon, I spotted the fin of a large blackfish in the creek shallows. A hunter's rush propelled me. I grabbed a club and began splashing upstream in pursuit. This was a moment where hubris decisively reset my ego. The famously cunning blackfish fled to a deep pool. I flopped in after it, club flailing uselessly. I had been outwitted by a fish. Dinner that night consisted of one rabbit-gnawed carrot and the soup mix.
Descent into Primitive Living
By day five, I was naked, dangling my wet clothes over the campfire in a futile attempt to dry them. Day six was spent wearing those same clothes—damp, smoky, and slightly singed. I was oblivious to the actual feast around me: witchetty grubs in the acacia trees (which taste like egg fried in hazelnut oil) and edible cumbungi bulbs and bracken shoots. My ignorance was my greatest enemy.
Then, on the sixth evening, came a moment of brutal triumph. On the slopes above the creek, a hapless bluetongue lizard hissed at me from a granite boulder. Under the primal threat of starvation, I justified spearing it—an act not illegal at the time. I carried my prize back to camp aloft, a self-proclaimed hairless-chested hunter with an audience of zero.
The victory was short-lived. When boiled, the lizard meat exuded a thick, yellow oil that reeked of iodine into my remaining soup mix, likely a result of its last meal of millipedes. I forced some down, only to spend the later hours crawling rapidly from my tent into the moonlight, violently ill. A harsh lesson learned: if you must eat lizard, fry it in its own skin.
The Long Road Home
The final days were a study in diminishing returns. Day seven's menu: the last limp carrot and half the creamed rice. Day eight: the other half. On day nine, I trudged back down the mountain at dusk. I spent the roughest night of my life on a slatted bench at Molesworth station, scratching incessantly at midge bites, literally itching to catch the morning train back to civilization.
Lessons from the Wild
So what did this nine-day folly ultimately teach me? Looking back, I learned that even at fifteen, I possessed a certain mettle, braving the wild alone longer than some celebrated tough guys on television. I also gained a newfound, grudging appreciation for the merits of civilization—hot meals, dry clothes, and insect-free beds.
Most importantly, the experience instilled in me a lasting need to seek solace in wild places. It became a way to understand humanity's place in the natural world. Above all, I learned the humbling, eternal truth that we always, always have more to learn. Even at fifteen, when you think you know everything, the wilderness has a way of teaching you otherwise.
