In the following two articles we have combined some background history with that seen through the eyes of Fred Brooks and Frank Hall, two members of the Interim Council of the Friends of the Heysen Trail.

Fred Brooks

Today I met a man who has jumped over boxes of gold ingots, helped to smuggle the British and Dutch Crown Jewels out of England and Holland, and who was instrumental in forming the Friends of the Heysen Trail.

Fred Brooks is a Scottish Australian who lives in a warm and cosy place in Paradise – an outer Adelaide suburb. Amongst his collection of memorabilia is a small red and yellow plaque that makes Fred’s ancestory crystal clear with its message, ‘I’m British by birth and Scottish by the grace of God’. There are photos of family and Heysen mates, a black and white photograph of the British battleship HMS Revenge above the door, and on the table there are glasses of stout, beer and lemonade while Fred, John Wilson (Trailwalker editor) and I while away the late afternoon, reminiscing about times gone by.

Fred’s association with the Heysen Trail began in 1983. When Terry Lavender, the father of the Heysen Trail, advertised for walking clubs to help with its construction Fred with other members of the Common Venturers, a walking group made up of colleagues from the then Weapons Research Establishment (WRE) at Salisbury, joined an enthusiastic bunch of people to throw their ideas in to the melting pot that became the nexus for the Friends.

On 1 July 1986 The Honourable Kym Mayes, Minister for the Department of Recreation and Sport , sponsored a public meeting to discuss the possibility of forming an association that would take an active interest in the preservation and maintenance of South Australian walking and network trails, including rights of way, developing new trails etc. The meeting was attended by 150 people from various walking clubs and groups such as scouts, schools, orienteers, conservationists, heritage and other groups and it was unanimously agreed that such an association be formed. Seventeen of those present, including Fred,

volunteered to form the Steering Committee under the chairmanship of Jim Crinion. Subsequent to this in 1987 Fred became a member of the Interim Council, remaining a member for many years and, in the words of John Wilson, ‘applying his own particular blend of common sense and Scottish humour to the task’.

The Heysen Trail concept had been proposed by Warren Bonython in 1969 as a long distance walking trail from Cape Jervis to the Northern Flinders Ranges. The government of the time saw merit in the proposal and after investigation a Long Distance Trails Committee was formed. The name Heysen Trail was chosen in recognition of the highly acclaimed artist, Sir Hans Heysen. Although Sir Hans was not really a walker, he portrayed his fascination with both the Mount Lofty and Flinders Ranges through his paintings.

During 1976 nine kilometers of trail was constructed mainly through the Cleland Conservation Park and the trail was officially opened by the Governor Sir Mark Oliphant. In June 1976 the Department of Recreation and Sport assumed responsibility for the development of the Heysen Trail and the state-wide system of walking trails. More specifically, Terry Lavender was responsible for the development of the Heysen Trail, supported by a team of staff including Martin Foster and Andrew Moylan. At this point around 780 kilometers of the 1200 kilometers of the completed trail had been marked, including the sections Cape Jervis to Greenock, Crystal Brook to Wilmington, and Hawker and Parachilna.

The formation of the Friends as an incorporated body in 1986, with its official committee structure, meant that work on the trail could be managed by a dedicated group of volunteer team leaders with the benefits of government recognition and assistance including materials and insurance.

As with all successful teams, there was the usual progression of forming, storming, norming and performing. First there was the ‘forming’ – the initial coming together of the different walking groups, and then the ‘storming’ as their experienced leaders threw their ideas into the pot with a passion that soon had the brew bubbling away. And then out of this came

the ‘norming’ – the stage when the policies, procedures and guidelines for the building and maintenance of the trail and other Friends endeavours settled and sorted themselves into the basis for the association’s constitution. After around a year the structures were set in place and the group moved on to the ‘performing’ stage. The success of those early discussions and debates has been proven in that the Heysen Trail has gone from strength to strength, to ultimately becoming recognised as a South Australian icon in April 2005

The inaugural committee’s first priorities were to establish a name for the association, along with the aims and objectives necessary to enable them to create a constitution and thus to become an incorporated body. The name ‘Friends of the Heysen Trail and other South Australian Walking Trails Incorporated’ was selected, with the aims and objectives including the rights of walkers, and public awareness and usage of the Heysen and other walking trails. Four sub-committees were formed: Organisation and Management, Promotions and Publicity, Building and Maintenance, and Conservation. Fred’s particular focus was with the Building and Maintenance Committee because he believed that designing, building, marking and maintaining walking trails was the main reason that the Friends association was formed.

The maintenance alone on such trails is almost a full time job, with bush fires, erosion, and wear and tear on stiles, bridges etc requiring constant upkeep. Fred took on the responsibility for setting up groups of volunteers and organising them into working parties. Under the direction of Terry Lavender he then organised for the teams to attend workshops conducted by the Department and lead by Terry, Martin Foster and Andrew Moylan. The volunteers were instructed in a range of building and maintenance skills including trail marking, bridge and stile building, and erosion barriers. The first workshop was held in Mylor in 1986 with two more in 1987, with around 34 Friends, including 11 women, attending. Over time different ways of doing things evolved through the ingenuity of Fred and others, as they worked out innovative ways of making the job easier. For example, Fred produced a water pipe with a T bar that greatly simplified the problem of bending reinforced rods of steel into U- shapes to secure erosion barriers.

Another of Fred’s early leadership achievements was to ensure that instead of volunteers working in an adhoc manner over the entire length of the trail, that they worked in a more organised way, with specified teams taking responsibility for particular sections.

And it was thus that Fred and the Common Venturers team took on the Cudlee Creek to Bethany section. This was only half marked when they started, up to around the Wirras, and they worked to bridge the gap from Mount Crawford as far north as Tanunda.

With their newly-acquired skills and under Fred’s guiding hand, the group blazed a new trail from the Microwave Tower in the Mount Crawford area to Bethany, followed by marking the trail with star- droppers, and then followed by the same group at a later date with the building of 19 stiles along the section. This formed part of the eventual link-up of the Heysen Trail to Crystal Brook. A party of Year
12 Gawler School students lead by one of their teachers (Section Leader Joyce Heinjus) completed the section from Bethany to beyond Greenock.

Another major project in which Fred was involved was building a Dutch Sand Ladder on a section that led down to the beach at Waitpinga. There were 28 people involved and Fred wrote in his report at the time that everyone enjoyed their participation and that the teamwork was a sight to behold. Another project was building an Irish Bog Ladder in the Jupiter Creek area.

Other highlights of Fred’s work include opening up the Mount Lofty Trail through the Hale and Warren Conservation Parks including construction of the Giant’s Staircase of some 130 steps just north of the South Para River. Fred recalls having to get authority from E&WS Department (now SA Water) because it went partly across their land. A bridge was built across the river at this point by a professional bridge builder and it all worked a treat for around two years – until the day when excessive rain created such a massive surge of water that the bridge including its concrete foundations was lifted out and drifted about 50 meters downstream.

Fred was instrumental in many other Heysen Trail projects, one of the most notable of which was the bridge in the Warren CP, for which he did the majority of the organising of plans and the people who provided their labour. Once the plans were agreed on they were given to a draftsman to draw up. The bridge was assembled at Kidman Park and transported to the site where it remains one of the few bridges that hasn’t been washed away. Unfortunately ill-health prevented Fred from returning to see the completed structure and he was forced to retire from his work on the trail.

If the Heysen Trail is now a South Australian icon, then it seems to me that Fred Brooks is one of the mini icons among the Heysen Trail family who have made this a collective achievement. Fred has played a key role in the formation of the Friends and been an integral part of developing the ground rules for building and maintenance of the trail. He is also one of the people who have established the Heysen tradition of mate-ship – of developing close bonds with people with common interests and shared goals. Fred’s invaluable contribution to the Friends – and thereby to South Australia and to walkers from near and far – was officially recognised with his Commonwealth Bank Volunteer of the Year 1990 award.

And so it is that the boy from Musselburg – five miles east of Edinburgh in the land of lochs and heather – has found his way into the Heysen Trail record books. Oh – and just how did he come to jump over those boxes of gold ingots? – and get mixed up with the British and Dutch Crown Jewels? Along the way Fred went to war alongside of another team of mates – around 1200 of them – on the battleship HMS Revenge. With a German invasion of England imminent in 1939-40, the ship was commissioned to transport all the British ‘margarine’ (as the ingots were called by those aboard) and jewels to Halifax in Canada for safe keeping.

As the afternoon drew to a close it was obvious that we had just touched the surface of the swag of stories that Fred has tucked away in his memory, of the people and places and projects of around 30 years of Heysen Trail history, and of many stories from a childhood in Scotland and adventures at sea – but it was time for dinner. Fred wrapped himself up in his warm and woolly scarf and walked us to the car, talking cricket with John along the way – as good mates do.

Early Days with the Friends

I became involved with the interim council at the meeting convened at the Dom Polski Centre by Terry Lavender. At the time I was Walks Secretary of the Adelaide Bushwalkers and felt that our club should be represented. I was a member of the Interim Council during 1986 – 87.

Over the preceding two years, Terry had asked ABW to help out with various projects along the Trail, including the rebuilding of a section (no longer in use) from Horsnell Gully to Norton Summit burnt during the Ash Wednesday fires.

In 1985 the club embarked on the long and difficult project of marking the Trail from Boat Harbour Beach to Tent Rock Creek. This took

us many weekends (we were all working at the time), but I am pleased to note that this section is still following our original route.

The initial meetings of the Council were not always very exciting. The writing of the Constitution is a long and tedious task, especially as certain members (no names) were rather verbose. After a couple of years, I was happier when I joined the Trails Maintenance sub- committee led by Colin Malcolm (1988 – 92).

In 1988 volunteers fro the Friends, ABW and other clubs spent a busy weekend remarking the Trail from Horrocks Pass to Spring Creek and Mount Remarkable summit after the bushfires the previous summer. I particularly enjoyed these activities except for one nasty job. To carry the star droppers along the Trail someone had designed a metal “scabbard” holding about 8-10 droppers and worn as a “backpack”. This was not only heavy but extremely noisy, making conversation impossible.

Later that year, Terry asked me to organise a reroute of the Trail near Tent Rock Creek in Deep Creek Conservation Park. A group of six of us carried lengths of heavy chain, star droppers and sledgehammers for 1.5 km (nearest vehicle access point) into the creek in very heavy rain and spent 2-3 hours affixing the droppers into a steep rock face and attaching the chain to make access up the slope easier. Returning to our packs which we had left by the creek we were horrified to see that the water level had risen over a metre. We had to detour upstream to the park boundary fence and carefully cross the creek by hanging on to the fence wire. A very unnerving experience!

To add insult to injury Terry organised a reroute of the Trail some months later to a safer location.

I have walked nearly all of the Trail over the years but the Deep Creek and Newland Head sections remain my favourites perhaps because I expended so much energy on their construction.

We sometimes contemplate doing something out of the ordinary to celebrate a landmark birthday. For C Warren Bonython AO, to celebrate his 75th, it was to head off to Africa and climb Mount Kilimanjaro. He got within 1700 feet of the summit of this 18,500 feet giant before altitude sickness set in.

Warren was born in Adelaide and his name is synonymous with bushwalking in South Australia. He has however walked extensively in a number of different parts of the world. He began bushwalking while living in Melbourne during the 1940s, heading out into the Dandenong Ranges, and then north into the Cathedral Ranges, with his wife Bunty at his side. Perhaps it was the experience of climbing a challenging ridge on a stormy day, gale-force winds buffeting them with horizontal rain, that decided Bunty against continuing to walk in her husband’s boot prints, or maybe it was their first-born baby waiting at home with her sister. Whatever the reason, Bunty was happy to support Warren in his adventurous life by providing moral support, looking after their three children, and ‘keeping the home fires burning’ while he tramped through far-afield landscapes, including walking the length of the McDonnell Ranges, the Larapinta Trail and Lake Eyre in the Northern Territory; Northern India to the border of Kashmir; and the Sierra Club’s annual high trek in Nevada. He climbed the mountains of Maui and walked through the craters. He first visited New Zealand in 1935 and of course, has done the Everest Trek. Then there was his Simpson Desert walk, 2500 kms, which he shared in his book Walking the Simpson Desert.

Much closer to home Warren took part in the inaugural Hahndorf Pioneer Women’s Trail Walk in 1980 when, with a huge marrow strapped to his back in honour of the pioneers, he joined 150 others on the walk from Hahndorf to Beaumont.

But Warren hasn’t always relied on his walking boots as his preferred mode of travel. In his younger days he moved at a faster pace, owning the first MG sports car in South Australia and setting the speed record on Sellicks Beach. This was a stark contrast to his first major bushwalking venture. Warren had read an article on the Gammon Ranges which stated that no white man had ever penetrated the centre of these ranges. This was the catalyst for him getting a group of people together to make his first attempt. The trip however didn’t go as planned, with one of the party, Bob Crocker, falling and breaking his leg. In 1947 another attempt was made, with the group crossing the ranges from South to North. The following year Warren crossed from East to West.

Warren’s first trip to the Flinders was in October 1945, taking the train from Melbourne and heading out from Brachina, just north of Mount Hayward. His passion for the Flinders was sparked by a painting of Mount Patawarta by Sir Hans Heysen. In his book Walking the Flinders Ranges Warren writes:

“Land of the Oratunga! – the ring of that romantic title and the vision of the magical mountain had drawn me to the Flinders in the first place, and later had helped in inducing me to embark on the walk. I had read of Mount Patawarta while studying Howchin’s “Geology of South Australia”, so I already knew it to be rocky eminence and a commanding viewpoint, and then I had seen the reproduction of Heysen’s painting which had imprinted a separate image in my mind, but it was not until the 1945 Aroona Valley trip that I first actually saw it, instantly equating the two images and recognizing my dream mountain.”

Warren had known Sir Hans for 30 years, and he and Bunty had dined with him at The Cedars, his residence just out of Hahndorf, which is a glorious place still ‘home’ to the artist’s descendants, and now open to the public.

When Warren finally climbed his dream mountain in 1968 Sir Hans was in his early 90s and in hospital. Warren writes:

“On 3 July Charles McCubbin and I had climbed Mount Patawerta, coming down by the south face, and as I had looked back up at the Land of the Oratunga scene my mind suddenly switched to Heysen.”

He wondered later whether this was mental telepathy as Sir Hans had passed away the previous day. Warren wrote of his friend:

“His creative life had ended, but there are appropriate memorials to him in the many paintings in public galleries, boardrooms and private homes, and in the several books about him, and to me there seems none more fitting than that rendering of Patawerta the image of which I permanently carry in my mind’s eye.”

But Warren was to be the instigator of an even more well-known memorial to this great Australian painter – the naming of the Heysen Trail in his honour. In the following year he suggested at a National Trust symposium that there was scope for a long distance walking trail in the manner of the 3,200 km Appalachian Trail in America and the 400 km Pennine Way in England. He had initially considered such a trail through the Mount Lofty Ranges, but having completed his Flinders trek the year before, covering the full length of the Ranges in a number of stages, he put forward a combination of both.

It was fortunate that the Hon. Murray Hill, MLC, had attended the symposium and he approached Government with the idea. This resulted in the formation in early 1970 of the Long Distance Trail Committee, of which Warren was a member, becoming Chairman for the last seven years of its existence. It was in discussion of an appropriate name for the trail that ‘Heysen’ was decided upon because of the artist’s perfecting of the gum tree in the Mount Lofty Ranges and who had then ‘brought the glories of the Flinders Ranges to the world’s notice’. Warren wrote that although he wasn’t a formal bushwalker, ‘Heysen could be a most energetic walker in pursuit of his work.’

Warren was to be the instigator of an even more well-known memorial to this great Australian painter – the naming of the Heysen Trail in his honour.

Much to Warren’s disappointment the Long Distance Trail Committee was disbanded in 1978, and he took time out and headed off overseas to trek in the Himalayas. He had however laid the ground work – paved the way for others, especially Terry Lavender, to continue to develop the Trail. Since that time Warren has officiated at the commissioning of various sections and continues his close association through the Friends, being the association’s long term and revered Patron.

Warren’s career highlights are many. He achieved his BSc. from the University of Adelaide, later going on to work in the chemical industry with ICI Australia 1940-66, including 20 years as manager of the salt fields at Dry Creek. Other notable positions and recognition include: Colombo Plan Adviser on salt to the Ceylon government 1964; Director, Dampier Salt Ltd 1968-79; John Lewis Gold Medal (for Exploration), Royal Geographical Society of Australasia (SA Branch) 1984; Australian Geographic Adventurer of the Year 1990; President, Royal Geographical Society of Australasia SA Branch 1959-61; SA Chairman, Water Research Foundation of Australia 1961-76; President, Conservation Council of SA 1971-75; President of the National Trust of SA 1971-76; and President, Council of the National Parks Foundation of SA 1985-89.

In 1966, at the age of 50, Warren retired from industry, following his passions for conservation and bushwalking. His first long walk in the Flinders Ranges was in 1967-68 and his book Walking the Flinders Ranges is a marvelous must-read. As well as bringing back memories for those of us who are fortunate enough to have walked the Trail, it extends the experience by sharing what it was like to do it 3o years ago, without the high-tech backpacks and boots that we are blessed with today – not to mention the super-duper light-weight retractable walking poles that some of us wouldn’t be without! In contrast to this, Warren walked with a lily stem for 20 years. Well – a yacca stick, which is from the family Liliacreae, making it literally a dried lily stem:

“It is an amazing stick, and I have grown sentimentally attached to it, for it has lasted right through the Flinders walk, and subsequently through another from Kathmandu to the foot of Mount Everest.”

While my much more recent experience of walking the Trail included bus rides back to a cosy cabin or hotel room at the end of the day, Warren found other ways to keep the elements at bay. He writes of a night in the northern Flinders:

“A cold breeze was blowing down the valley as we went to bed at midnight, and since I had set down my sleeping bag in the exposed creek bed I lay with my head poked into a box turned on its side.”

On another occasion he writes of spending a night in the Aroona Hut, which was badly run down and with only one room roughly re-roofed after a gale had previously torn off the roof:

“The rain came in successively heavier showers of longer duration, but in the lulls, we ran out and collected firewood from trees in the creek. We would clearly be there for the night so we brought in masses of leaves for underbedding on the hard floor. Then in the rubbish dump I found the wire mattress of an old iron bedstead and, after propping it on stones, bending back the more dangerous of the protruding broken wire ends and padding it with wet gum leaves, I had myself set up royally.”

Warren reminds us that the Flinders is an unpredictable place and writes of the contrast of the raging day-time heat (while carrying over 60-pounds in his pack) with the rapid changes of weather, when thunder storms can suddenly appear out of nowhere:

“At noon we stopped for lunch in the gorge where Bunyeroo Creek has cut through the ABC Range, sitting amongst the long roots, and under the shelter of a large gum at the foot of the north wall. Haze and unidentifiable cloud now obscured the whole sky, and it was 96 degrees F. We drank most of our water and turned for home. … Although the dust continued to thicken the air cooled a little, and increasing thunder over the main range to the west soon became one continuous loud roll … A great menacing “red darkness” closed in until it was like dusk, or as in a total eclipse of the sun. At such times the birds and animals are said to react with cries of fear, and I imagined that the sounds of the galahs and other birds heard above the wind and thunder were, in fact, frenzied cries of fear. It was indeed awe-inspiring.”

Warren’s descriptions of the many moods of the Flinders, and their soul-deep effect on walkers, brings back so many wonderful memories:

“I had stopped to rest in the creek in the shade of a grand old gum-tree and as I lay back on the flat pebbles I suddenly perceived above me the arresting picture of the dappled grey and white bark of the tree-fork caught in the afternoon sun and contrasting with the azure sky. Temporary physical exhaustion often seems to enhance mental perception, and the simple sight struck certain chords in me, transforming the brief glimpse into a moment of truth, when suddenly I was at one with the universe. Unimportant events like this often print a bright picture that keeps coming back again and again during one’s life.”

C Warren Bonython has set out on adventures that most of us have only dreamed of. He is truly an inspiration for us to get out there and experience the wonders of the wilderness. These days, now in his early 90s, he spends his time closer to home, enjoying a more gentle pace at Romalo House in Magill with Bunty and Minnie, their beautiful Keeshond (Dutch Barge Dog), surrounded by memories of a rich and varied life. Minnie’s aqua-coloured collar and lead lie on a low cabinet in the entrance hall, next to a bust of Warren by well-known sculptor John Dowie, a pebble from Mambray Creek, and a framed photograph and poignant poem in memory of Everest mountaineer George Leigh Mallory (1886-1924), who lost his life on the mountain. Included at the beginning of the poem, ‘Finding Mallory’ by Judith Dye, is a quote from Mallory: “To refuse the adventure is to run the risk of drying up like a pea in its shell.”

In an article published in the Trailwalker in August 1999 as one of a series that featured Honorary Members of the Friends of the Heysen Trail, Jamie Shephard wrote of Warren: “As our Patron for some years we salute his foresight and adventurous spirit, as his actions have given thousands of people much pleasure and enjoyment.” I couldn’t agree more.