A Tribute to John Easton
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John Easton, one of my best guides in the early to mid 1990s and a good friend, died of a heart attack while on a bushwalk in March 2012. This page is dedicated to his memory.
Updated 5 June 2012.
This page remains a work in progress. It has been updated with a few photos and comments since it first went in April. If you have any photos or memories of John you'd like to share, please email them to walkabout@bushwalkingholidays.com.au.
I first met John when he organised a Kakadu walk for the Maroondah Bushwalkers with Willis's Walkabouts in 1989. They enjoyed it so much that John organised a Kimberley trip for the club the following year. He enjoyed it so much that he decided that he wanted to lead trips for me. I knew what he was like and couldn't have asked for a better guide so I jumped at the chance. He led trips for me for the next six years, more often than not with his dear friend Robin Baillie along as his assistant. Always cheerful and smiling, John was a tremendous asset to the business in those early years.
Even after retiring from guiding, John and Robin couldn't resist coming back as clients. They joined me on a trip to the Charnley trip in 2002 and organised one last big Kimberley expedition for the Maroondah Bushwalkers with Willis's Walkabouts in 2005. The Australian bush has lost a true friend. The photo at left shows John and Robin on the Bungles walk in May 2005.
The next three pictures show John on the 2002 and 2005 trips — they are among the few that I have. John really loved his cups of tea.
Here is the eulogy that Robin delivered at John's funeral.
John was a man of many loves — he loved his family and extended family and he loved me — and he loved physical activity and adventure.
He had many skills — from architectural drawing, pottery, woodwork, sketching, map reading and navigation, structural building, furniture making, handyman skills of concreting, bricklaying and landscape gardening.
Many of you here will have benefited from John's skills or have had something built by him. He was totally willing to help people out. He was generous with his time and got pleasure from helping people.
Those of us born in the Great Depression and who lived through the second World War lived by a common truth — waste not want not — and John practiced that well. If ever a plank of wood, a piece of wire, a bracket, handle or bolt, or a dab of paint was needed, John had it in his shed and willingly gave it.
His physical strength and his adventurous nature led him into the British SAS, then into travelling the world, and later into bushwalking in the wildest and most remote places of Australia. He learnt to love the space and colour of Australia's landscapes. He said he came to Australia because of his need for the space.
In his mid 50's he found a job that encompassed all his loves and abilities — a wilderness backpacking guide for Willis's Walkabouts in Darwin. In each dry season for 6 years he (and I) would take groups of up to 14 experienced and bushwalkers into the untracked regions of Kakadu, the Kimberley and the Red Centre trekking for periods of 2 to 4 weeks. It was an enormous responsibility for the guides as satellite phones and GPS were unavailable — we relied on map and compass bushmanship alone.
Some of you here will have experienced the tough hot scrambles into the deep gorges of the Bungle Bungles where we followed the dry watercourses into towering chasms only wide enough for a person to squeeze through. Once we ended up in a cavern below a waterfall cliff face, lit from above by a hole in the rocks — a natural cathedral. John had been carrying his tape player and a recording of Pavarotti and that wondrous voice filled the cavern and our hearts.
His homes and his vehicles were always pulsing with the thrilling sounds of orchestras or sopranos or tenors or choirs or opera. He would stop and listen to the carolling of curawongs and magpies, and could always distinguish the call of a lyrebird.
John's reputation for boiling the billy and having a cup of tea on any occasion and in any place (often inappropriate) was legendary. As well as John's physical activity there was a spiritual aspect to him — his appreciation of beauty, especially in sounds, and landscapes and medieval architecture.
He had a natural affinity with animals, both domestic and wild. In the bush I was constantly challenged attempting to stop him from inappropriate feeding of birds and animals. I mostly failed. We had our many differences but we always got over them.
I remember his awe as we unexpectedly came across a cliff face in the Kimberley, full of ancient, exquisite aboriginal art — or in a crevice, a cluster of tiny furry bats no bigger than moths, or a swaggering water monitor defending its crystal clear rock pool.
All John's experiences of our forests, bushlands and deserts led him to an understanding of the value of natural places to our well being and the survival of us as a species.
Over the 30 plus years of bushwalking he saw pristine places being degraded and exploited and he was urged to take political action. He joined environmental groups. He took action. He joined the Greens. He wanted to protect and restore our environment — our life support systems. He did it for his children and grandchildren.
I am grateful, John, for having been able to share your life, for a short time, and I am grateful for the adventures we had together.
That was Robin.
Simon Hull, another former guide, sent in the picture at right and the following.
I had the privilege of working alongside John for Willis's Walkabouts through the 1990s. As John had started before me, my first few trips were with him so I could learn the ropes. John was always very generous with his considerable knowledge, and his enthusiasm for what he was doing was obvious to both his fellow guides and his clients. No doubt, like me, he realised we had stumbled on to something special working for Russell, with the amazing places we got to visit and share with others. I am sure this period of John's life was one he loved.
Among lessons learnt were the best time (anytime) and spot (anywhere) for a cup of tea. No chance of being dehydrated on one of John's trip. One of the enduring memories of my trips will be the wonderful desserts made from fruit leathers prepared from Johns own trees. John was justifiably proud of these. Of course, these were always accompanied with custard. On one trip John was unable to cook and so I was left with this responsibility, and I knew I would be OK as a bush cook when John declared it as good as his. Other less pleasant memories include driving from Darwin to Alice Springs listening to polka music. I guess he was trying to broaden a young fellows horizons.
Though I hadn't seen John in recent years, I knew he was always off on some adventure, and it is sad to think he won't be doing so anymore.
Jim Happ, a member of the Maroondah Bushwalkers, prepared the following tribute for their newsletter. The photo at right shows John on the Larapinta Trail in the Macdonnell Ranges.
Memories of John Easton
John died suddenly while out on a day walk with the club a few weeks ago. Many club members may have known him from more recent years where he only did day walks due to crook joints, but a core of the backpacking mob know him and Robin from a long way back. Let me elaborate.
I first met John and his partner Robin Baillie on an extended Circuit walk of the Grampians, over 2 weeks in 1988. This was in the "good old" days when the backpacking community in the club were so strong that we had 3 full groups doing this walk, following on consecutive days. Robin had to leave at the end of the first week, so John shared my tent from then on, and we became firm friends. Shortly after we shared many walks in the High Country in Victoria while I was doing numerous reconnaissance backpacks for the Club's second version of the Alpine Walking Track, which we did later in 6 stages. John's bushcraft and toughness stood out right from the start, especially his impressive ability to get a fire going and have the billy boiled before we even had settled down to lunch. He achieved an "Oliver Twist" notoriety after the demanding stage from Rumpff Saddle to Mt Hotham, where we arrived famished and went to a pub expecting a big Counter Tea. John was unimpressed with the spread, went to the bar and asked for "more", without the "Please, sir". No dice!
Shortly after that John and Robin spent 6 winter seasons in Darwin, leading walks for Willis's Walkabouts in the Kakadu, Kimberley (East and West) and the Western MacDonnells out of Alice Springs. These excursions made the foundation for their deep knowledge and love of these remote places in the NT and Kimberley. This grounding was turned to advantage in a series of Club walks in these areas, which many of us will remember among the highlights of our experiences in the Outback: — wonderful vistas, scenery, wildlife, aboriginal art and glorious campsites. After a day's hard walk in 30°C+ temperatures over the tops of the Kakadu escarpment, stripping off to a reviving swim, sharing a rockhole with freshwater crocs, such a delight! Traversing rockholes by swimming your backpack (wrapped up in a garbag) followed, with further lessons on avoiding being stung by green ants and eaten by saltwater crocs. Inspections of amazing rock art, on your back, in caves and overhangs; examining stone axes and grinding stones for seeds left behind by Aboriginal bands long ago. Meals were enhanced using John's home-made dried foods from his own gardens, especially the fabulous Kimberley Curry and the fruit leathers. Sucking the nectar off flowering Grevillea, ending up with orange-tinted beards coated with the pollen; eating kapok leaves.
In later years John's joints started playing up, ending his career as a backpacker. However, he still enjoyed his day walks and sated his deep curiosity for our convict past on the Sydney Harbour Historic Walks. He got carried away and left the group to go into one of the Museums near the Rum Hospital (now Parliament House); got himself separated and lost. A glass of red restored his composure when he turned up, as usual. We will all miss you John, but think of you when camped in those remote places where you are still allowed to light a fire, be entranced by the dancing flames, and yarn and talk well into the night.
Carolyn Harris, a former client, wrote. "Sorry to here of John Easton's death, but what a way to go! I believe my son David and I went on one of your walks with John in charge around late 80s and my memory is of his dried meals which he had prepared and then dessicated and which came out tasting delicious. As I was then a vegetarian (since reverted to some chicken and fish) John put the dried meat into the pot after I was served and did this at every meal so everyone was looked after, even special diets. He also made delicious deserts with custard powder and re-hydrated fruits stewed. I too love a cup of tea, so the breaks in amazing sites to boil the billy were much appreciated.
He also kept the interest and enthusiasm of a thirteen year old who has since (now 35) become a bush enthusiast and moved to a rural life from Sydney where he grew up.
John also insisted we drink a litre of water each before refilling our bottles prior to crossing from one river cross country to another, and thus being many hours away from fresh water. He also showed us so many art sites, undocumented and amazing which he could spot from the distance by the shape of rock outscrops. We would bush bash through and then be stunned by what we saw."
I (Russell Willis) shall always treasure the memory of a good friend and a great guide. I'll leave him where he has been, on the home page of my website since the new one went on line, sleeping next to the love of his life.
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