Latest news with #OutwardBound
Otago Daily Times
3 days ago
- General
- Otago Daily Times
Life-changing adventure for one
One Gore teenager went bounding outward with Outward Bound, bringing home some incredible memories and lessons she will cherish for a long time. Isabel Dickson, 16, attends St Peter's College and was spurred on by her mum to either pick a team sport, or head away for a natural retreat. Given the choice, and considering her previous experience with a sailing course, Isabel said she thought it was a good idea to spend some time Outward Bound. "I'd already been on something similar and I heard Outward Bound was supposed to be a life-changing thing. "It seemed versatile, that it pushed you, so I thought it sounded good," she said. After funding through selling shirts, saving money, a cheeky donation from the Mataura Licensing Trust and of course a bit of help from her parents, the course was in sight. Isabel would spend 21 days based primarily in Anakiwa pushing her limits in the great outdoors. Alongside the other Outward Bound members, she sailed, trained, hiked, kayaked and became very familiar with New Zealand's nature. Isabel said one of her favourite memories was getting out on to the water, with some fantastic sights. "My favourite was the sailing — there was a lot of cool wildlife. We saw dolphins, harmless jellyfish you could swim with. "When it got dark there was bioluminescence in the water, so that was really cool," she said. It was not just fun in the outdoors, as Isabel said she gained a lot of insight into herself and a new way of pushing forward into the world. "You learned to be a lot more social and confident, you're living with 13 other strangers. It pushes you a wee bit. "A lot of patience, you don't know what you'll do every day so instead of thinking forwardly, you're thinking in the now," she said. Isabel said the mixture of challenging tasks and workshops have changed the way she will go out into the world and now looks out with a greater confidence. "It's just good. You shouldn't be scared to be who you are," she said. Even her fear of heights was challenged, but luckily Isabel said she was not facing the challenge alone. "Basically we did like cliff jumping, it was just a little bit shorter. It pushed me out of my comfort zone," she said. "But having everyone support you, so when you do go out of your comfort zone everyone's there to help,"Isabel thanked everyone who helped her get to Outward Bound, with grants given by the Mataura Licensing Trust, who gave $6000 to get Isabel to the life changing course. The River Valley Lions, Pakeke Lions, the Rotary Club, Gore RSA, and the Waikaka Hey-day committee also gave a "huge amount" to help out, alongside other businesses.
Otago Daily Times
27-05-2025
- General
- Otago Daily Times
Popular outdoor course shuts, lacks volunteers
A popular and important outdoor skills course on the Taieri has been shut down after 35 years, due to a lack of volunteer support and the economic downturn. The last annual week-long Berwick Outdoor Experience (BOE) was held at Berwick Lodge earlier this month, providing leadership and confidence to people of all ages and from many different walks of life. BOE co-ordinator Kevin Moore said he had been helping run the course since it was established by the Lions Club of Taieri in 1990, and was sad to see it discontinued. "It's sad because I believe the course is still relevant and we just finished the latest course a couple of weeks ago. "We had 37 people there and just had a fantastic time. "The feedback comes in the same every year — people get a lot out of it." Mr Moore said the course was similar to Outward Bound, and aimed to build leadership skills and confidence among the participants. "We take up to 40 people, put them into teams of up to 10, and mix them up as much as possible. "We've had groups of people aged from 18 to the late 70s, and they come from all walks of life — from adult learning courses through to businesses that send staff members. "They do a set programme that includes sailing, kayaking, mountainbiking, a tramp up to Lake Mahinerangi and abseiling down the Mahinerangi dam. "We also teach them how to tie knots and lines and then they'll be given scenarios where half the team are on one side of the river and they have to swap over by building a flying fox and things like that. "There's also a little bit of first aid, a little bit of mental health — a whole raft of things, really." He believed the course was important because it also built personal resilience and helped build connections within the community. "It shows people that they have got abilities, and they just need to dig deep and find them." Helping to create the course and being able to watch people in the community grow after attending it had been "the best thing that ever happened to me", Mr Moore said. "It does break my heart to see it go, because I know there's people that get so much out of it. "But that's the way it is." Lions Club of Taieri president Peter O'Neill was also sad to see the course go. He said it was shut down partly because the club's members were getting older now and it was becoming difficult to find the volunteer manpower needed to keep it running. "We're all getting older, and it's very difficult in these modern times for people to get time off work. "They don't get paid for it, and they don't want to use their annual leave to do it. "We're in tough economic times too." Mr O'Neill said the club hoped to run a smaller, shorter course in its place in the future.
NZ Herald
24-04-2025
- Business
- NZ Herald
How military training could transform NZ society
A training exercise at the Waiouru Military Camp. Matthew Hooton argues for universal military training, saying it could be like Outward Bound for everyone, with basic military skills thrown in. THREE KEY FACTS Finance Minister Nicola Willis had some good fiscal news this week with reports only 249 families are receiving the full value of Christopher Luxon's tax package. That will save some tens of millions of dollars to spend elsewhere or – fingers crossed –
The Guardian
22-03-2025
- The Guardian
Mountaineer Chris Bonington: ‘I've come very close to death so many times, it's difficult to pick the closest'
Born in London, Chris Bonington, 90, joined the army and became an Outward Bound instructor. In 1975, he led the first expedition to successfully climb Everest via its south-west face. Ten years later, he reached the summit himself. In 1996, he was knighted for services to mountaineering, and his many books include the memoir Ascent. He has two surviving children by his late wife and is married for the second time. He has been an ambassador for Berghaus for 40 years. He lives in Cumbria. When were you happiest? When I was climbing I was absolutely happy. I can use a climbing wall, but that's not the same as real climbing. What is your greatest fear? Being senile. What is your most treasured possession? I've a huge shed with all my clutter, including all my ice axes. The most precious one is the ice axe I had when I finally got to the top of Everest. I'd led a lot of complex expeditions there and, if you're leading, your job is not to get yourself to the top. I finally got there in 1985. Describe yourself in three words Resourceful, resilient and compassionate. What makes you unhappy? Loss. My first son Conrad died in an accident at two and a half and you never get over it. What or who is the greatest love of your life? Two: Wendy, my wife of 52 years, and Loreto, my wife of eight years. It is wonderful in the autumn of your life to find another absolute love. Which words or phrases do you most overuse? Smashing. What did you want to be when you were growing up? I was a huge daydreamer and imagined myself as a successful general leading his troops into battle. Sign up to Inside Saturday The only way to get a look behind the scenes of the Saturday magazine. Sign up to get the inside story from our top writers as well as all the must-read articles and columns, delivered to your inbox every weekend. after newsletter promotion What is the worst job you've done? I left the army and got a job with Unilever in Northern Ireland. They were very strict and you had to have a hat, and when you went into a shop you had to raise your hat to the shopkeeper and then sell your wares. I was selling margarine. If you could edit your past, what would you change? The loss of Conrad. If not yourself, who would you most like to be? Reinhold Messner, because he's an even better climber than I was. What would you like to leave your children? Compassion, resourcefulness and resilience form a rounded good person. So that's what I'd like to leave my children and grandchildren. What is the closest you've come to death? There are so many instances when I've come very close to death that it's difficult to pick one. What single thing would improve the quality of your life? Becoming more physically active. What do you consider your greatest achievement? Everest the hard way in 1975: leading the expedition that succeeded where so many people had tried and failed. That was the most complex mountaineering challenge I ever faced. I spent hours at night in a little tent thinking about what the next problem would be and how to solve it. What keeps you awake at night? It's my snoring that keeps Loreto awake! What is the most important lesson life has taught you? Whenever things seem absolutely terrible, to see that you're alive and that's all that matters.
Yahoo
09-02-2025
- Yahoo
The first person to complete the world's longest hiking trail is a filmmaker
This article was produced by National Geographic Traveller (UK). Dianne Whelan, 59, is an award-winning Canadian documentary filmmaker and author. In 2015, with little hiking experience, she set off from St John's, Newfoundland, to walk, bike and canoe the Trans Canada Trail, which stretches some 14,900 miles across the country as the longest trail network in the world. For most of her six-year journey she travelled solo, filming for her latest independent documentary, 500 Days in the Wild. I grew up in Vancouver, British Columbia. When I was five, I remember being mesmerised watching frog spawn hatch into tadpoles. Right from there, I felt very connected to the natural world. By the time I was 12, I was carrying a photo of mountaineers Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, who were the first to summit Everest, in my copy of The Hobbit, one of the first books I ever read. I then did the Outward Bound programme when I was a teen — a 21-day course where learned survival skills to be able to head off into the wild with a backpack. My goal was to complete the journey in one continuous line, beginning on the Atlantic coast and making my way across Canada to Alberta, where I'd head north up to the Arctic Ocean before heading back down to the finish line on the Pacific. In all, the route is made up of 487 separate trails, involving lots of paddling and portages — where you carry your canoe between two bodies of water — in addition to hiking and biking. I had this idea that it'd be nonstop and I'd push myself through all seasons. But when I was on the Path of the Paddle [a primarily water-based section of the trail through northwestern Ontario] two-and-a-half years into the journey, the water froze around me, and I had to set up camp and bushwhack out, hauling the canoe. One of the First Nations elders I'd met saw this on social media, reached out and said, 'Winter is not a time for travelling, it's a time for sewing buttons. Be like the bear — it's time to hibernate.' So there ended up being some stopping and starting along the way, often while I waited for ice to melt. My mom told me about this unbelievable new trail, and part of what intrigued me was that it had never been done. And the conditions in my life were just right. My marriage of 13 years had ended, my dog of 16 years had died. Everything that was tethering me was not there anymore. Yes, it was sad, but it was also a unique opportunity to go and do it. I gave up my home, sold my car and basically got rid of my bills. I didn't have special equipment — just my old knapsack and mountain bike. When I came to my first water trail, I borrowed a friend of a friend's canoe. Fitness-wise, it was all on-the-job training. How else do you prepare your body to be active for nine hours a day? It was a very grassroots unfolding, and in hindsight that was my superpower. The problem with overplanning is you become rigidly attached to the plan. I did leave with a schedule, but I burned it on day 10, when I was berating myself for not having done what I thought I could do in three days. The trip was supposed to last 500 days — hence the name of my film — but ended up taking six years. One of the key things on a journey of this length is self-care. If the waters were calm, I'd paddle longer days; when the weather wasn't good, I'd stop. There was nobody to help if something went wrong. I really came to recognise my own fragility. When my body was tired, I'd set up camp, sometimes spending two or three days writing and making a lot of food — usually bannock bread or pancakes, as they travel well. And I'd take really good care of my equipment, because you never know when things will go sideways because you haven't. Not for one day did I feel lonely, even though I'd go months without seeing anyone. Suddenly, what mattered was the direction of the wind, the animal prints around me. I felt an awakening of something that's probably in all of our ancestry — a connection to my environment. I learned the old way of travelling isn't doing it without a motor, it's with reverence for the land. For all the fear people have of nature, it's our home. There's no bravado here — I was afraid of being a woman camping alone at night, that I couldn't lock my door. But over the course of my journey, I was helped by hundreds of strangers. When I left home, I thought the world was run by psychopaths, but it turns out it's full of kind people. I've been out since my 20s, and I began a relationship on the trail with another woman, which turned out to be one of the greatest gifts of the whole journey. She paddled up to the Arctic Ocean for a few months with me, then lived in a van to meet me on the trail whenever I needed to resupply. We'd have fires on the beach, watching the sky dancing with the Northern Lights. That was the beginning of our relationship — the five-month first date, we call it. We never saw another canoe in that time, but we heard that there was a man behind us kayaking and a couple in a canoe ahead of us. It's interesting how news spreads on the trails. The man eventually drowned five miles behind us, and Julien from the couple was eaten by a bear. Not only did my partner and I have the beauty of the experience, but we also had to confront the adversity of storms, forest fires and the sheer psychological terror of someone being eaten by a bear. We went through a lot together, and now we can handle anything — we are still together. It was a real lowlight actually — having to reconnect to this other way of living after having been unburdened of needing to make money for bills for so long. Luckily, having 800 hours of film footage to sift through gave me something to focus on. Published in the Jan/Feb 2025 issue of National Geographic Traveller (UK).To subscribe to National Geographic Traveller (UK) magazine click here. (Available in select countries only).
