We are the wilderpeople: The great kiwi tradition of ‘going bush’

New Zealanders have a proud history of celebrating the opportunity to escape into the back country and as a people we have long admired the great kiwi masculine ideals of ruggedness and toughness. It was started by Māori who travelled hundreds of kilometres across mountain passes in search of precious pounamu (greenstone) and continued by the colonisers who “discovered” and tamed this wild country.

Despite their best efforts to create productive farmland, large tracts of native bush remain – 6.4 million hectares, or about one-quarter of the country, according to government figures, much of it protected by the Department of Conservation (DOC).

We market this countryside to potential visitors, we mostly treasure it and definitely celebrate it. It is uniquely New Zealand and a part of national character.

The 21st century version of spending time in our great outdoors is watered down for many of us. We camp in caravans, and tramp through our National Parks on Great Walks where huts with beds are provided. But we still send our kids to school camps, Scouts and Outward Bound to learn the essential skills to survive in the great outdoors.

Hunt for the Wilderpeople is New Zealand’s biggest-ever home-made box office earner.Credit: Madman Entertainment

There’s something heroic about a weekend out pig hunting with the family, duck shooting with the lads or joining Central Otago’s annual Easter Bunny Hunt.

I won’t intentionally kill anything for dinner, though I did once carry a possum in an advanced state of rigor mortis from the trap outside my sister’s house to the grave my husband dug.

I was the only one with the stomach to remove the beast, despite the nighttime terrors it inflicted on my poor sister, scratching around in her roof and eating the native vegetation.

Many of our national heroes are determined, humble and self-reliant men (yes, almost exclusively men) who survive in the great outdoors and climb large mountains, like the greatest legend of them all, Sir Edmund Hillary.

Escapees into the bush have included young men dodging conscription – there’s even a place in Southland known as Shirkers Bush – Robert Long who went “off-grid” before it was a thing, bringing up his family at the remote and inaccessible Gorge River on the South Island’s West Coast, and of course, the Canterbury Wizard.

Famous for his census dodging, the Wizard took a sailing boat 20 kilometres out to sea to ensure he was in international waters at the time of the 1981 census. That was the sea and not the bush, but it would be fair to say the sentiment was the same.

Not all bush-escapees attract or indeed deserve the admiration of a country of outdoors-lovers. Marokopa man Tom Phillips’ decision to disappear into the bush with his three young children and evade authorities for nearly two years is widely and rightly vilified.

The help he is believed to be receiving from others, along with the robberies he is thought to have perpetrated with the involvement of his children, have ensured he will not be remembered as a hero.

However, spending time in the bush with children will continue to be celebrated.

Many of the icons of New Zealand bush lore are criminal, such as sheep rustler James Mackenzie who gave the Mackenzie country its name and Tekapo its famous dog statue. The dog is said to immortalise all working dogs but for many it represents Mackenzie’s loyal dog Friday, who continued to drive flocks while his owner was incarcerated.

The famous dog statue in Tekapo, New Zealand.Credit: Getty Images

The most famous bushman in modern times is now-deceased author Barry Crump, immortalised in Toyota Hilux ads as a laconic, laid-back bush basher. More recently he’s been described as a different kind of basher as well as sadistic, violent and cruel by many of his five wives and nine children.

It was Crump that gave us the modern bush-going heroes in Taika Waititi’s Hunt for the Wilderpeople, based on Crump’s 1986 book Wild Pork and Watercress. The movie tells the tale of wayward adolescent Ricky Baker and his reluctant caregiver Hector. Together, they evade authorities in the bush learning resilience, understanding and cementing their friendship in a shared love of adventure. The movie has become New Zealand’s biggest-ever home-made box office earner.

Going bush is such a part of the kiwi character that we do posh-bush too. You can spend thousands for a night at an exclusive hunting lodge with its pre-prepared prey and Michelin-starred chefs, or simply hang a humongous set of antlers above the fireplace in your wood and stone panelled lakeside dwelling.

Even the Swanndri – once the preserve of farming and hunting types and exclusively producing the bush shirts, known as Swannis – has gone upmarket with a series of designer stores featuring expensive woollen dog jackets, tote bags, dresses and underwear.

Personally, I prefer the brands of old and still own a Swiss Army knife and a MagLite, which I once dropped into a Nepalese long drop. Such was its importance that a few locals got out the next day and removed stones from the walls of the toilet to rescue the torch from the poo and give it a thorough clean. My tramping partner and I were very grateful as it was the only torch we were carrying and there’s an understandable lack of street lights in the Himalayas. The knife was useful too, but I suspect I found greatest value in its corkscrew appendage.

My own experience of the great New Zealand bush will never be that of our nation’s heroes. It will inevitably involve more comfort, less altitude and zero weapons. But like all of those who spend time in our great Aotearoa backyard it will be enjoyed with a deep appreciation and respect for the peace and the challenges it holds.

Stuff NZ

Make the most of your health, relationships, fitness and nutrition with our Live Well newsletter. Get it in your inbox every Monday.