Book Review: Gone Bush by Paul Kilgour

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Roslynne Caird reviews Paul Kigour's memoir while avoiding the rain in a campervan at Butcher's Dam.

I must admit to feeling hesitant about volunteering to review Gone Bush as, even though I am a keen tramper, I usually do not like reading other peoples’ accounts of their adventures. However, I am very happy to say that I found this book to be a very easy and enjoyable read.

Kilgour begins his memoir with vignettes of his farming upbringing near Waimauku, bringing to life rural New Zealand in the 1950s and 1960s. He also covers his early career in the New Zealand Air Force, his love of aircraft, overseas travel, and his participation in the Tui commune of Golden Bay, and various conservation projects he has been involved with.

However, the majority of the book is devoted to Kilgour’s lifelong passion for walking, the bush, and how the back country has challenged, delighted and sustained him over his life. He has walked in most of the remotest parts of New Zealand, highlighted by his “long walk home” from Puysegur Point to Golden Bay.

Kilgour describes his adventures, the routes, the huts, and who he has met along the way, with a candid and down to earth approach. The themes of the book may be described as that of change but also continuity.

Kilgour describes how back country tramping has changed in terms of the type of tramper, walking gear, hut facilities, governance, and environmental changes. However important things have stayed the same, such as sounds, sights, and sheer magnitude of the bush, mountains and back country; and the camaraderie of fellow walkers and kindness of people he has met.

This book will suit anyone with an interest in New Zealand’s back country. It is not a criticism, but I was less interested in the various hut descriptions, (he only describes some of the over 1200 he has visited), although I can see that these descriptions will certainly appeal to hut baggers around the country!

The evocative front cover picture of Brewster Hut, Mt Aspiring National Park, is super however, and as I struggled my way up to that hut earlier in the year, I can certainly say it is about a good an advertisement as any for “going bush”.

With thanks to Harper Collins New Zealand for providing an advance review copy of the book.