Robbie 0:00

I said to Craig, it's traversed the something up this summer and he didn't hesitate and said, yeah, it was a massive project. I spent a full month preparing the food

Speaker 10 0:17

Kiro and welcome to the Tramping Life, a podcast about hiking in outro New Zealand, or as we call it here, tramping. I'm jt, and in each episode I chat with people who share passion for exploring this incredible country. We'll hear about the tracks they love, the huts they return to, the lessons they've learned, and what keeps them heading back into the bush.

Jonty 0:37

My guest today is Robbie Burton, tramp mountain lover, publisher, and author of Bush Line and Memoir. He spent decades leading pot and Burton on of museum's most influential independent publishers. I'm delighted to welcome him to the podcast, Kira.

Robbie 0:52

Nice to be here.

Jonty 0:53

What are your first memories of being in the outdoors?

Robbie 0:56

I was lucky enough to grow up in, in Nelson. With a, a mother who was a great lover of the bush and the outdoors. my first real experience was my best friend's parents had a batch at a place called Torrent Bay, which is in a little enclave of. Private batches and Abel Tasman National Park. And in those days we are talking here the early seventies. It was really remote. There was no real tourism. The odd t tramper the tracks were overgrown. The tourist boats hadn't really got going. And, that, that was a hugely influential part of my life between the ages of five and about 15, I probably spent a month a year down there. We used to go down for all the school holidays and that was marvelously, the cliched sort of free range New Zealand childhood. We were left to do our own devices and just spent our time mucking around in this, the lagoon and on the beaches. Fishing and walking and all of that sort of stuff. And my mother was a huge influence on me. she loved the forest and the bush was a great amateur botanist, and her and I used to walk the tracks often which I loved. But that progressed in my teenage years as I discovered skiing at the little club field at Mount Robert and Nelson Lakes National Park, which in those days was incredibly, healthy vibrant club field. It still got plenty of snow. It was an hour and a half walk into The huts. So it was a mixture between tramping and skiing. And I became obsessed with the mountains. As a teenager, it was my great teenage obsession. I loved skiing, but then I discovered tramping. And from I guess 14 or 15, I remember my mother let us walk into Lake Angeles, I think when I was 15 on our first sort of tramp again. No one around. I'm sorry to play the nostalgic card, but it was very different to what it's like now. I went to the local boys college which was not a happy experience for me, to be honest. I was the wrong person at the wrong time. I just wanted to grow my hair and be naughty. And they didn't go down well. But what they did have was an outdoor education center on the fringes Of Nelson Lakes National Park. And that was a huge revelation to me. I loved it. And you could become what was known as a leader, which all it meant is you went for a walk for a week with another teacher, and then you could take out groups of third and fourth formers, tramping. Which you would never be able to do these days. It was very loose, I have to say. But I loved it and I scanned the system in my last year, I think I spent six weeks, in my last year at high school tramping. So by the time I was ejected out into, supposed adulthood. I was a great lover of the outdoors and it was the central focus of my life, which was wonderful. Really. I feel very privileged

Jonty 3:31

Were there any memorable learning trips, I guess if you're leading at such a young age where things may or not have gone entirely to plan?

Robbie 3:38

Yeah, there was a teacher we had, whom. was a very experienced, climber. He, took us for our leaders course and I'll never forget that 'cause he although we didn't realize at the time, quite deliberately, pushed us one night, we'd taken ages to get over a pass in the head of the durable valley and we were all a bunch of. 16 year olds. and he wanted to push us a bit to see what we were made of. And he made us walk. so we had a big day and then he made us walk till 11 o'clock at night, I think it was. And, we didn't have torches or headlamps. and we stumbled down this valley trying to find the track. And he kept on pushing us on. And I've never forgotten. I've still got a scar on my arm actually, where I tore it open on a piece of carer. But, we finally got to this clearing and he made us cook dinner and made us pitch our tents. And I'll never forget that. And we didn't get to bed till after midnight. And it was a at the time a horrendous experience. But by the time the next day, I felt puffed up and like we'd actually done something hard and actually. It was a wonderful thing. I wasn't, someone who was into the sort of hard man sports, rugby and such like that weren't my thing at all. But when I look back now, I think it was a, an important step in actually discovering another way, of being a bloke, a bit of masculinity really. That was a real I could realize that. I had never thought of myself as being particularly tough. Not that I am tough, but realized that you actually, you can push yourself a lot further. It was a very memorable experience, but luckily I didn't have any, close shaves or nearly kill anyone as others did. but that was a, very formative experience. It was great.

Jonty 5:13

Who have your tramping companions been through your life? Do you do solo tramps or through tramping clubs or friends?

Robbie 5:18

I was lucky. My older brother, Pete is seven years older than me, and he, was at the time. my now business partner, Craig Putin's best friend. And that's the connection actually. And Craig, and Pete took me under their wing. I'm, six or seven years younger. But they took me under their wing and I think they were the most significant influences on my, tramping in mountaineering experience. 'cause they started introducing me to mountaineering. They both were more experienced than me and we started having regular. climbing was in the Easy Peaks in Nelson Lakes. And then that progressed to coming with them on Christmas trips down to Mount Cook. And without a doubt Craig and Pete were hugely influential I was very lucky actually, that they would tolerate a much younger kid on their trips And we were a very happy team. My brother Pete's a very natural mover in the mountains and he's very good at it. And Craig, had huge stamina for a thin rangey guy. He could walk all day and keep a sense of humor. So they were great company and I was very lucky. they were the primary, people that got me into the hills, obviously as I got older, that expanded out and I made lots of different friends, but I was never really aware of tramping clubs and that sort of thing. I had the luxury of being able to choose my companions, which was great.

Jonty 6:34

Now I spoke to Craig. He's got a few uh, back issues due to heavy PSY claims. Do you have any similar ailments from, were you counting 30 kgs of Caber gear around?

Robbie 6:43

No no. I don't have any issues. I'm incredibly lucky now 'cause I'm now pulling a pension, so I'm getting on through my sort of midlife period, I didn't do nearly as much tramping just because I had kids and chose to spend my time with them. but in recent years, over the last five or six years I've really got back into it. And, I'm really lucky actually. touch wood. I've got no, I keep fit. and, Make sure that I keep some strength up. So I'm lucky I don't actually have any issues. So while I've never been naturally that strong, it's always been the thing that's dogged me in the hills. I'm not someone with natural stamina. But, I know that I can push myself and I know that I can still do it, and it's a great joy, to be, in my position and still get out there and I can still put on a pack and walk for a long time. It's great. It's still one of the great joys of my life to be able to do it. Don't have the stamina that I once did and I gave up mountaineering when my children were born 'cause I did not want to be a dead father. so I restrict myself to tramping these days very much.

Jonty 7:42

That's a sensible approach. Looking back, what were some of the most, physically or logistically challenging trips that you did?

Robbie 7:49

I dunno if Craig talked about this, but the most significant thing that I did when I was a 20-year-old was my brother Peter and another friend, Paul Roy, did a traverse of the Southern Alps. So we started from Milford and walked home to, Mount Robert Nelson Lakes. that was, possibly, one of the defining experiences of my life. none of us were, especially, Gifted or leading. Kind of mountaineers or trampers. it was just an ambition that was, dreamed up once we thought this would be a good thing to do. I know exactly the spot Craig and I were walking back from a winter climb in the head of the Travis Valley and walking around the lake. I said to Craig, it's traversed the something up this summer and he didn't hesitate and said, yeah, and that meant my brother Pete had no choice but to join us. It was a massive project. This is remembered before Dehy food, before polypro so we're talking 1980. This is now ancient history, I spent a full month preparing the food and that was a full on job, actually getting that organized. We, got, these big tins that we got from the local health food shop and stored everything and sold at the tins up and then got them dumped. wherever we could. many of them we could leave and dock. What were then Anson survey on National Park headquarters and some, we flew in and walked a few in as well. So we had food dumps all the way up the Alps and, set off from Milford, in early January and it was an amazing experience. what we struck, unfortunately one of the worst, summers weather-wise, that had in years. Of the 90 odd days we were walking, I think we had something like 40, lying in huts or under bivy rocks or in week tens. and then we got credibly fit. So of course what would happen then we'd get a day when it was fine, and then we'd take off and do two days walking in one. which was how we got up at. what I loved most of all about that experience was just everything quiet and down. You got really used to it. I loved that just became completely at home in the hills and, it was a very. Just the world was left behind. And I found that a very profound experience. I've still been looking for that, the kind of silence we had by the end of it. You just don't get that with, week long trips. It's not the same. it was an amazing experience. Nelson Lakes if I was able, I would've happily turned around and set off back. Would've been no trouble to have done that, but life unfortunately called. The biggest challenge actually was hunger. I found that we just simply couldn't carry enough food. Until we got to Arthur's Pass, we were carrying ice axes and crampons and ropes and stuff. So we had, and tents and was all white spirits and heavy food So we had big loads and that, meant that it really restricted the amount of food that we could actually eat. I think I was a bit younger and the others at that stage and they had all taken tobacco. Which is what we used to do in those days. And I decided not to, 'cause I thought I'd end up as an addict, which I probably would've. But anyway, I've really suffered with the food because we were just hungry. And the only reason actually we pulled the trip off was because in those days there was hot food everywhere. So especially between, mount Cook and others passed. We got caught in a huge storm in Mechs and Hut, which lasted I think six days. Dumped a whole lot of new snow and we ran out of food, but we decided to carry on and we kept on finding food in the huts we went through, which was what saved us. The Forest Service huts often still had leftover food from the colors was still accurate. So it was, hut food that kept us going. It would be very different now with dhi. It would make a huge difference. That's been a revelation to me how light you can actually go, but we didn't have that luxury. We got to um, park Morpeth Hutton, head of the Wilberforce and we'd been forced off the main divide by bad weather and passed through one of the huts from one of the high country stations and had a huge big sugar bag of potatoes. And that had obviously been bought in for the mustard or something. And there was a note on the top saying, help self. So we took some potatoes, which was great. We had that night. But the next day it was pouring. So Paul thought this is too good an opportunity. So he walked for hours down the valley in the pouring rain and hours back with this huge sack of potatoes, which we then proceeded to boil up the entire sack. It's all we had was potatoes in a camp oven until the point of which we were just lying on our bunks, just groaning. It's it wasn't a pretty side, but it's pretty confronting how animalistic you turn into when you're starving. So yeah, it was, that was an interesting and unexpected side to that trip.

Jonty 12:18

On the theme of huts, do you have any particular favorites in your heart?

Robbie 12:23

Oh, that's a hard question. I'll tell you the thing that I love most with the rock bies. Harper's Rock and the Head of the Douglas, which is a tributary of the really, it's quite hard to get to now. That place was amazing. And I loved Arawa Rock. Which I was lucky enough to get back to a few years ago. That's an incredible spot. They were really good, there's just terrific cuts everywhere. Places like. Godly hut at the head of the Godly was just amazing. The huts, the head of the Wilkin, I remember those as being, we'd had a terrible time up the East. Maki took a storm and, having those beautiful huts to stay on was great.

Jonty 12:54

Are there any particular memorable wildlife encounters

Robbie 12:57

I remember seeing tar in the head of the Douglas, which gave me a fright and I'd never seen them before, walking around a corner and, seeing a huge big bull tar and thinking he was gonna charge me. that was worrying. What was, Really striking is that at that time, the Deer wars, the venison recovery had absolutely exploded. So I don't think there was a fine day in that three months where we didn't hear a helicopter or see a helicopter. so that was full on. So we didn't see deer much all, 'cause they were all, being hunted so hard and obviously were, wary of humans. Of course, the thing we did see and which has completely changed is Kia everywhere. And huge flocks of Kia. They were just to be expected, which of course you very rarely see now. Only in patches.

Jonty 13:40

You said there was a bit of a gap raising family and work between your early years of tramping in your later years. What kind of changes had you seen over that period?

Robbie 13:49

One of the big changes obviously is gear. I've loved the way that it has neatly tied into my aging body is all this lightweight gear. We clumped up the Southern Alps in a pair of trans alpine galibier, which were a French brand, and they had a half shank in them and I hate to think what they weigh 'cause they got wet obviously on the first day and never dried out three months. The tents we had were useless, heavy and leaked. the discovery of really good quality, dehi meals changed my traveling life. It's just brilliant to actually go out pack for some days and only be carrying whatever it was, 10 kgs. I remember having packs on that big trip in the Lansbury, which were, nearly 30 kgs I think or something. You couldn't lift them. You had to get onto a log. I don't miss that. I really don't miss that. PBS is an interesting one too. We had, No communication at all. None whatsoever. So we had no forecast, no way we'd chose not to take a mountain radio when we did the traverse. And again, having a PLB, frankly is great. I think it's a really comforting thing to have. I think one of the sad things that's obviously going to happen is with starlink and such is people having access to all the media in huts in the back country. I don't wanna sound like an old crunk, but I think that's sad. Sit in the hut and someone's watching a, a movie. but I can't do any, that's a personal choice and I don't have to do that. But it can be very intrusive.

Jonty 15:11

How did you get into the publishing business and what was the first tramping related book that you published?

Robbie 15:17

So I got into it purely through nepotism, which was through Craig. We were close friends and we'd worked together, in the conservation movement. And I'd gone on to do something completely different he, Started the publishing company and realized very quickly that it needed someone to actually drive it. And he didn't wanna do that. He was a photographer and also doing tons of conservation work. And so one day he invited me to lunch, which I thought was weird, and made me an offer and, said, why don't you come and manage the publishing house It was a quite a hard decision because I was doing some very interesting work, but it didn't take long for me to actually think this is a fantastic opportunity. so I eventually said yes, and I was the first sort of full-time employee and he had a part-time person with a little warehouse and a part-time person doing some accounts. But back when I got going, which was 1990,. There was a huge gap in the market for the photography that Craig was doing. He really led the charge in terms of taking photos that were of wild places that were moody and dark and interesting and, had got going with a little range of calendars and some books and they'd done really well. So it was, in retrospect, a fantastic timing. It was somewhat improbable though JTI because I had no experience. I'd written a a ting guidebook about national parks in 87 I think Commissioned by Reeds to do that. And so I had some very slim insight into that world and I'd done some in those days sort of basic layout on bits and pieces of. Projects, but I really was a complete amateur, so that was pretty challenging. That said, Craig had the entrepreneurial sort of spirit to set it up and he too hadn't actually come from a background, but he was, sick of having his books murdered by other publishers and wanted the freedom of doing it. So that's how it started. And here we are, whatever it is, 35 years later. It's been in a fascinating career. I think the first real tramping book was actually with Sean Barnett and we did a a tramping guidebook, which we combined with some 3D maps, overview maps that had been done by a guy called Roger Smith, who was a innovative cartographer with a company called Geographics. And at the time, they now, passe. You see them everywhere. But at the time they were completely radical and that book sold incredibly well because people had never seen it. It had these sort of 3D overviews of tramps and that was the start, I think. And we went on with to do lots with Sean and with Rob Brown and various people around that sort of area. It started, which is a wonderful fit for us to be able to do outdoor books.

Jonty 17:50

So how does that process work? Are you commissioning work or authors coming to you, or a bit of both? A

Robbie 17:55

bit of both, I used to, when we were small getting going and no one knew who we were, I used to have to commission the books largely. But these days, pretty much everything is just being offered to us. There's more than I can deal with. Commissionings very hard because there's a huge lead in, and also because no authors can make any. Money out of books now. Unfortunately, you can't make a living as a writer in New Zealand which is very sad. so people have to be passionate about it and there are happily still people passionate about doing it. The one that, you've talked with Rob Brown and Sean Barnett and Jeff Spearpoints book on Huts shelter from the storm, which we first did, I think 12 or 13 years ago, was a real turning point for me A landmark book. I think that helped really genuinely helped to change the conversation around how precious huts are as part of a picture there. There's lots of people doing stuff, permanent on the west coast, but that book, I think, was a real turning point when it was realized that at that time Doc were thinking about pulling huts out and I think that really stopped that slide. So that's been a great privilege to do those kinds of books.

Jonty 19:00

You've ridden the wave of publishing I in the nineties and two thousands, and they sold well, and when did things start to slip

Robbie 19:08

The big change for us is that how I grew this publishing house was the easy money, if you like, was doing scenic books of landscape photography, which sold in huge quantities to tourists. And they were not necessarily very interesting publishing, because they're pretty formulaic. But that's completely died. Interestingly. That was huge. And that's just gone. There's two main reasons for that. Mostly it's social media and the fact that everyone's got a phone. With a camera on it. And they're obviously getting really good and it's, I. The idea of going out and buying a book with beautiful photographs is quaint now. I think people just wouldn't occur to a young traveler to do that 'cause they've got all their own photos, plus the quality of cameras. And the digital revolution has really changed that. So people are able to take photos of much higher quality than they were 20 years ago. So that's completely killed that market. So that's been a big shift for us. I reckon it's probably in the last decade we've started to see, a real slide in the number of books that people buy. And that's got really tough recently, but it's always hard to unpick what's going on with the recession, which is very real. That plus the cultural change I think we're seeing is really strong. There are just so many different ways to entertain yourself now, and I find that fascinates me how I actually have to put aside time to read and I love reading. But once you line up podcasts, which I'm a huge devourer of. Spotify 'cause I'm a music buff. Anything you want streamed to be honest, I think very enriching, offering now in terms of how the world can come to you. I love it. But, people don't read. They just don't read as much as they do. And if they don't read, of course they don't buy books. So I think we are seeing, some real challenges ahead for, especially for the New Zealand publishing industry because it's all about economies of scale and we simply, we don't have the population to front it. Books are not gonna go away. Because if you're publishing in a big market in the US or Europe, for example, even Australia, the numbers are completely different to what we can do here. So I think the New Zealand ecosystem is really struggling. Would be my reading of it. And again, the huge problem is that authors can't make a living, so I think that's very sad because that just diminishes the number of people around to tell our stories and to do that. There's still people out there who utterly passionate and do it. But that's very different than what it was 30 years ago.

Jonty 21:37

What about the rise of eBooks, just in terms of reducing the cost to publish

Robbie 21:41

eBooks have stabilized out and there are really a significant market, especially in genre fiction, so science fiction, romance, crime, thrillers, that sort of stuff, especially if it's books that people churn through eBooks I think are huge. And obviously in the scholarly market they're enormous as well. And so we do eBooks, but just for the New Zealand market, we'll only generally do them for text only books. Converting, a big illustrated book into, An ebook. It can be done, but the economics of it just don't stack up. And the great growth market, obviously in publishing in the last five or 10 years has been audio books. But again, the cost of producing an audiobook for a limited market, unfortunately, the economics of this stuff just doesn't stack up. And there's a huge problem with eBooks is that if you produce an ebook, it cannibalizes the physical book sales. So you're faced with a dilemma there that's not straightforward.

Jonty 22:36

How did you come about, writing and publishing your memoir

Robbie 22:39

oh, that's an interesting one. started out as a very personal project. my father died when I was 3-year-old, and I didn't know him at all. And I was sitting there one day and I've got two sons. And sitting there one day some years ago thinking, I'm sad about the fact that I dunno who my father was really. I didn't know who he was as a human being and you don't think to ask those questions before it's too late. After my mother died, I regretted the fact that I hadn't interrogated her, but it was awkward. She was with another partner and things and I didn't really do that and I thought, I should write this down. I should actually write something down for my children. And so I started just doing that and I was telling a friend of mine, author I've worked with a lot and publishers, and told him what was doing and he said, oh, for God's sake, turn it into a book. You're a fricking publisher. and so I thought, okay, so I did that. I turned it into a full sort of memoir and found the process fascinating. I'd always wanted to write, I've always spent my life being the midwife to other people's writing. Anyway, I self-published 70 copies of this little memoir which I. Gave out to all my friends at my 60th birthday party, and only about two or three people in the room knew I'd done it. And so it was a fantastic occasion and very amusing, and people were stunned. Anyway, that book started getting passed around and I started getting emails from strangers saying, I love this book. So I thought, oh maybe I should take this more seriously. So I used that as the basis and turned that into my own memoir. The original book I did had nothing about my work. as a publisher, and I was really reluctant to write about that, frankly, because I thought it would be boring. but that's not what, people are interested in seeing, what the machinery of publishing's like, so I used that first book and then expanded it out. and it's been a actually fantastic process for me, to be honest. I've had, tremendous feedback, from people. it mixes a whole lot of things up. Obviously that's very personal about my own life and the hard bits and the good bits, and, a lot about the outdoors and a lot about publishing. and I determined that I like books where people are honest, so it's quite an honest book. Someone just said the other day actually that just how intimate it was. So yeah, I've had, a fantastic response. tons of people have contacted me about it and so that's been really gratifying. It's been really nice to be, both, actually have written something as a publisher, to actually be on boots on the other foot, and I love the process. I genuinely loved collaboration. I really liked having good editors on the case and tearing my stuff to shreds. Luckily I didn't mind it, it just made it a better book. So it was a really rewarding process.

Jonty 25:05

Do you think you have a second book in you?

Robbie 25:06

Actually have just written a the text for a children's book which a friend and colleague of mine who's an illustrator has been working on this story for years and asked me to actually see whether I could come up with a text, which I've done and which we'll publish next year. And it's about the Castaways of Disappointment Island. That's a a ship that Dun Donald plowed into this little rock off the Auckland Islands in 1907. And their story of survival is. Just extraordinary amazing story. Took them whatever it was. I think it was seven or eight months before they were eventually rescued. But it's a marvelous story. of human ingenuity and survival. They had to build this little boat out of tiny pieces of wood to get across to the main island. and it's an incredible story.

Jonty 25:48

Now speaking the other day to Victoria and Emily, who've publishing a book with you. Which is Emily's perspective on the Tierra Children's books, is that a market that's still viable?

Robbie 25:58

it is, again, in decline actually, interestingly, but again, is that the recession? I suspect it is. I think it's probably the most, robust area of publishing still because inevitably and sensibly people don't really want to have their kids reading an iPad. at bedtime. And Emily and Victoria's story and Emily walks the, and it's just been published. it's great. It's really very different, I could find nothing really like it 'cause it's a photographic book about, their trip. Very inspirational as a 7-year-old. Another children's tramping book that we did a couple of years ago, which I really enjoyed and which was supported by the Mountain Safety council. was written by Jillian Ler and illustrated by Gavin Maldi, and it's called Leo and, Mia Go Wild, which is a lovely sort of primer about, tramping in New Zealand.. Yeah, we do some children's books. It's a relatively small part of our list, but then we are a relatively small publisher, John, we used to do a hell of a lot more, but we've cut our cloth to deal, with the declining market, at one point I was doing 20, 25 books a year. It's now down to about 10, which is about all I can cope with, and it's good. it's a nice number to work with.

Jonty 27:06

So just to finish off with what's on your tramping bucket list,

Robbie 27:10

that's easy. I don't have one. I just feel really grateful that I can get out there and I don't really care where I go or what I do. But if I can get out there with friends and with family, I just love it. Where I'm in Nelson, if you go to the port hills or to the beach, you look across at Mount Arthur Fadi, Papa. And I keep on discovering, I did a beautiful trip with a whole bunch of friends on the Lewis Pass tops last summer, which we just walked along for four days or something, so I'm lucky I don't have anything to prove

Speaker 2 27:41

so

Speaker 10 27:44

Thank you so much for listening to the Tramping life. If you've enjoyed today's episode, please follow the podcast in whatever app you use. Tell a friend about it and consider leaving a rating or a review. It really helps more people discover the show. you have any questions or feedback, I'd love to hear from you. Drop me an email at the tramping life, one word@gmail.com.