TUCKING IN AGAIN
BUSH LEGEND JOURNEYS INTO DIGITAL WORLD
THE Far North’s man with the hat is back.
From his rainforest sanctuary at Kuranda, Les Hiddins, aka the Bush Tucker Man, has revealed his plans to update his iconic work for the digital age.
“When I did it way back when, we used to put information on bush foods on the back of maps,” Major Hiddins said.
“There was no internet and no digital photography, just slides and paper.
“Now it’s quite a different set-up.”
Hiddins, who grew up splitting his time between Cairns and Brisbane, leapt into popular imagination thanks to the television series, the Bush
Tucker Man, which began production in 1987.
But his knowledge of bush tucker began years earlier, after the-then Captain Hiddins applied for a Defence Fellowship through James Cook University in Townsville.
“There was no one in university who knew much about it,” he said.
“It was a matter of getting an army vehicle and trailer and driving around Northern Australia. That started on January 1, 1980.”
His push to digitise his records of bush foods have come after the steady national decline of knowledge on the subject.
“It doesn’t matter what social environment you talk about, white or black, it has gone downhill,” he said.
“Probably for the same reason no one is very good at riding horses, it’s not a necessity.”
He said the internet would revolutionise how bush foods were taught.
“You can go in and change information overnight and reach the people you want to reach straight away,” Major Hiddins said. “I would suggest they should make use of that resource and make use of the digital side of things.
“But that’s something that is probably up to the high priced help in Canberra.”
Last year Major Hiddins instructed Australian, Chinese and American soldiers and marines in the fine art of jungle survival during Exercise Kowari near Josephine Falls.
“In an army environment, when you are pushing yourself out on a limb, you should be aware of what is surrounding you,” he said.
“We gave them some input not on what to eat but on what not to touch.”
Exercise Kowari included a two-day jungle phase and a trek up Mount Bartle Frere.
The Bush Tucker Man’s jungle experience comes from the hard classroom of the Vietnam War, where he served two tours including one as a forward infantry scout.
“I’d get hung up in wait-awhile vine while the bad guys were shooting,” he said.
“Of course we laugh about that now.”