Camping in my 100 year old Gum tree

[Music] [Music] geez this was a mongrel of a property when i first came here i came onto this property at 1 pm on a friday and no fences there were blackberries everywhere fibroshack and a shed that was half down big giant mounds of soil and piles of rubbish the old bloke was pretty crook and he'd been you know he hadn't been here for months um i didn't really care for the the buildings and in fact the property was a bargain because the buildings were crap and i thought one i can fix the buildings but really i bought it because of these trees [Music] even if i'd walked onto the property that day and planted the joint out nowhere near in my lifetime am i going to see trees like this that big [Music] and they're just they're magnificent you know if i've had a crap day at work and i come home and i swing into the driveway well the trees make me feel pretty good because they've been here a lot longer than i have and big i don't know how big maybe i don't know 35 meters maybe nudging 40 meters and this is a story of a man on a small adventure about to climb a tree that's it i mean yes there is a bit more to it but i'll get to that [Music] i think i've always taken gum trees for granted [Music] like kangaroos and kookaburras they're everywhere yeah i'm this australian and you take for granted what is in abundance and gum trees are everywhere i do remember though when i thought gum trees were something special and it quite accidental like these things happened i was off the coast of africa about eight kilometers offshore and an offshore breeze brought the smell of eucalyptus from plantations which was really quite abstract and you know here i am at sea surrounded by ocean and i'm smelling eucalyptus i was immediately homesick and i'd never been homesick before you know in 27 years i hadn't felt like i wanted to be home [Music] it was about two years after i moved in that half of one of the big gums fell over me and my neighbor got stuck into it and we chopped it up and it was probably two winters worth of wood for both of us i know 10 15 tons worth it was heaps anyway i've been meaning to re-cut the scar and count the rings see how old these gums are i might get a cup of water and see if the water's going to make it easier you know they say when you're on the verge of death you see your life flash before your eyes 30. well i can kind of see my whole australian lineage flash before my eyes here you know here's me here's my mum here's my grandmother and he's her mother you know i'm going to use a bunch of ladders and a bunch of ropes and a heap of webbing to try and get me somewhere interesting up in the tree for some reason i tend to collect ladders so i don't know i had this many letters i want to spend a couple of meals up there i'm going to leave behind regular life so i'll turn my phone off and leave them a keys and wallet down here bottom of the tree spend the night have a nice breakfast have a coffee up there wave to my little daughter and my wife and then come back down tomorrow sometime whenever i feel like like any kind of climber or an alpinist i'm looking from afar looking for all right where's the nooks and crannies that are going to help me out what limbs can i use what can i hoist off what's a really good healthy limb that i can put a pulley on i'm going to do an awful lot of talking to myself plank plank [Music] what do we got here two straps you'll be okay yeah that's a good spot to that one this would be a kick-ass temporary place to sit and do yoga and generally have a good time [Music] i don't mind being a bit of a backyard with this stuff i haven't climbed for years you know so i'm pretty rusty on all my systems but i think i'll just go back to the basics and make it work [Music] these beautiful ground gums they grow in fertile soils i love high rainfall so they grow in this really lush farmscape that i live in and they're all over the joint in the middle of paddocks they're generally paddock trees look maybe it's a bit cliche that i love the big gums but we know that you need the big gums to have medium-sized trees and medium-sized trees to grow bushes and under those bushes are ferns and frogs and bugs and all sorts of stuff and so when you take out the top dog you take out all of this amazing biodiversity and it happens so quickly that i don't think we can sort of catch our breath quick enough to know that we shouldn't be chopping down these big gum trees it's hard not to take personally and yet i've got to in a sense and just celebrate these ones that are here yeah it was only last night that i actually it dawned on me because i'm sort of taking a day at a time at the moment with a baby so i said to bo last night so you're sleeping up the tree and what time are you going up the tree and how are you getting up the tree and what's the cherry figure for working it all out it was about four years ago i was sitting on the front porch it was summer it was hot big wind was blowing and i looked up into the canopy of these trees and they were it was bucking like a bronco you know it was like the mast of a ship in a storm and i thought that'd be a hell of an adventure to go up and spend the night in the tree just to experience life from a different angle in a tree that's endangered and on my property and special and 12 metres from the front door you know so where are you sleeping uh up the tree love uh do you plan to sleep on those planks that aren't level yeah not level nor strapped in at the moment i think we're gonna get a lot more sleep tonight than what dad will maybe he'll end up sort of laying on a branch like a panther and just strapping himself around it or something oh heart skipped a little beat then what just happened oh cause the the the um nothing nothing happened he's sweaty it was really good hearts give to me because i'm enjoying myself so much oh yeah the sun going down i feel like he's rushing and sweating and trying to set everything up it doesn't yeah it's not the best oh hns scenario i've been going at it now four hours lathered in sweat i haven't really stopped bringing up my dinner back there it is helen flescher who to our marriage she put that in the tucker bag i just love tomatoes it's my first tomato up a tree i'm going to leave the dirt on because i rate the b12 and the dirt around spuds i'm just going to leave it on it's on a real good limb [Music] what a what an awesome sort of reinvention of the genre you find yourself in pseudo-adventurer things are going to bed now you know my daughter is in the house going to bed and all the birds are you can hear them cheatering and finding somewhere to sit i can hear my my dinner boiling away in a transient nine metres up a tree i reckon we're good to eat i need to drain my water and i don't want to hit the ropes and my sleeping bag bag below me did i hit the bloody bag all over the back that's pretty good that's good grub and your mother she um requests that you have a parachute a parachute from nine meters but i don't know much about sleeping with animals up a tree so tonight's going to be you know one of possums and owls ants i don't know what that thing is what i can hear can you ever persuade him in a round of anything i didn't even try i've got that bastard there that's a bit bad the shoe's coming off is a really momentous part of the day i've got my book gum that's quite a bloody drop down there [Music] first couple of hours i you know the body was saying this is not not particularly uh natural or safe especially one time i sort of shifted my movement and went to lay my leg my legs back down and they just didn't land on anything they were off the side and then the wind started which was really nice because i could feel everything then i could feel the boards under me and i could feel the tree and it sort of gave me a um a reference point which was really nice you know and i reckon it's kind of like being in a boat you know you've got to trust your boat otherwise if it sinks out there and see you're dead and if this tree falls i'm dead so i've got to feel it you know and then you feel safe it was a really neat experience i have forgotten a cup so i'm going to be having a large small pot of coffee mozzies are still about so i'm going to tuck my socks into my pants like a dodgy pe teacher here we are coffee let that just settle for a second i'd rather live in a world with big trees around than not i feel safer around big trees there's this bloody crazy mentality let's chop down the oldest most culturally significant thing in the area so we can put three more houses up drives me bonkers [Music] oh yeah that's one strong brew i've spent my whole life obsessing about wood and it's probably only been the last 10 years where i'm all about trees you know i'm quite personal with them now these big gum trees which are vulnerable these are one of about 130 odd species in australia that are vulnerable of our iconic amazing gum tree a little bit of potato and pumpkin still left in the interior of the pot that is good coffee it's actually not people would refuse that in a coffee store but it's good where i'm sitting baked beans in coffee grounds oh yeah i did spend the night in my tree house as a kid i had to bargain like heck to do it i had to convince dad that there'd be no tomfoolery between me and my mates so i have spent a night in a tree but that was 30 years ago and a very different experience to this [Music] i've got five acres here and we're slowly encroaching the beautiful pasture that it has been for 100 years and making it forest again or some forest again [Music] gee that bird song's good i'm just thinking of birdsong and someone on their lawnmower and how i should sit on this park bench more i fear i've become one of those people that have park benches in their garden and don't sit on them had to come 10 metres up a tree to sit on my park bench hmm i should sit in it more often i think i trust this park bench not sure about the planks underneath me but anyway just two tested one two all right bo thanks for joining me we're just gonna jump straight in can you tell us where we are right now well in very simple terms might rub a gum tree um this is as close to home as i've ever done anything that would be deemed adventure and i'm not sure if this is but it's you know this is just cubby housing for adults in a sense but behind me is the house and i can see the front door and if helen was to do the dishes loudly i'd be able to hear her i thought this was going to be about backyard adventuring you know getting the most bang for my buck so close to home up i go and spend the night and have a meal and a cup of coffee get a different view of the world but you know what it's this has turned into a love letter to these trees they're not just a platform [Music] you have to pay attention to what what is here i've never looked up into these trees and not seen something a bird life or movement or beauty i think we were kind of acquaintances before i spent the night and now we're mates you know there's may and me and helen and a bunch of big gums [Music] you

Channel: Beau Miles

Views: 697,049

Keywords: Strzelecki gums, Beau Miles, 24 hours, documentary, backyard adventure, microadventure, adventure, camping, tree climb, Tree Camping, Sleeping in a tree, Tree Sleeping

Id: pxMQnodQjys

Length: 15min 29sec (929 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 09 2020