Where Are All The People?

During our recent, and reasonably extensive, nine weeks travelling around southern NSW and eastern Victoria, we spent almost all our time in National Parks, Coastal Reserves, Conservation Areas or similar. In other words, we were out and about in the areas of the country where you would be most likely to see other people hiking (or walking as it is called in the land of Oz), kayaking, canoeing, or just generally being physically active. Some of our trips, such as the Nadgee-Howe wilderness walk or the Light to Light walk are world class multi-day backpacks and the waters around Nooramunga/Corner Inlet are about as ideal as you can get for ocean kayaking – plentiful and exotic bird and marine life, clear and protected waters, literally dozens of beach front campsites - touring with an ocean kayak just doesn't get any better.

But where were all the people? If any of these trips had been in Canada, there would have been many other people hiking or kayaking. Some trips, in fact, would have been so popular that a lottery system would be used to allocate spots along the route. Yet, in Australia, we saw virtually no-one. Well, that's not quite true, we would always know when we were within 5 to 10 minutes of some road side access because we would see people. Other than that, the country/ocean side was virtually vacant (with the exception of power boaters).

From an outsiders perspective, and, despite being born in Australia and now returning to live here, I still consider myself an outsider, Australians appear, on the whole to be much less active than Canadians. Repeated studies have shown that participation in physical activity among Australians is declining every year and, while some 50 to 70% of Australians (depending on the survey) report engaging in physical activity, that same 50 to 70% consistently over-estimates their level of physical activity by as much as 50% compared to objectively measured levels. Canadians participate at about the same rate as Australians but participation in physical activity is actually increasing in Canada, not declining.

Australians do seem to like the outdoors, every weekend and school holiday sees them out in throngs packing the local campgrounds to a much greater extent than Canadians (perhaps the more benign climate encourages more camping), but, all the Aussies seem to do when they are camping is sit. Well, again, that's not quite true, sometimes they lie. What they don't do in significant numbers or to a significant extent is engage in physical activity.

There are hard-core Australians out there – I've even met some of them – climbers who've gone to the US to climb big wall routes, kayakers crossing Tasman Strait from Victoria to Tasmania, cyclists racking up 400 km rides in 24 hours, but the average Australian just doesn't seem to believe in doing anything much of anything.

The quixotic thing about Australia is that there are gyms everywhere – even small towns will have a gym, and around the Sutherland area, there must be a dozen gyms within walking distance (if, of course, anyone actually walked) of each other. There are almost as many gyms as there are pubs and pie shops, and that's a large number! Yet, despite all these opportunities to exercise, very little seems to actually get done. At some point, each individual and the country as a whole, is going to suffer serious consequences of this population wide sloth.

Deserted beach on the Light to Light walk