Australia’s largest horse riding and outdoor adventure centre, Glenworth Valley Outdoor Adventures, has announced a collaborative venture with Australian Survival Instructors (ASI), Australia’s leading bush survival experts.
The multi award-winning outdoor adventure centre has agreed to offer 600 acres of a remote part of its 3,000-acre property at Peats Ridge for ASI to run regular bush survival skills programs. Featuring on Channel 7’s Sydney Weekender program on May 31, Australian Survival Instructors promotes sustainable and responsible survival skills with an emphasis on educating participants to respect the Australian bush. Glenworth Valley’s outdoor activities manager Mr Nick Hall said such values, “match perfectly with the key ideals of Glenworth Valley”.
“Glenworth Valley Outdoor Adventures is excited to collaborate with Australian Survival Instructors to provide a wilderness area for their programs to operate on the Central Coast,” said Hall. “We pride ourselves on being able to share a pristine pocket of the Australian bush with people from all walks of life, and the chance to partner with one of Australia’s leading survival operators was a great opportunity. ”Australian Survival Instructors is owned and operated by brothers Kevin and Brian Newton and Jim Blackwell .All three are highly experienced outdoor instructors, navigators and bush craftsmen.
Each instructor also brings additional specialist bush survival skills to the table including improvised fi re lighting, bow hunting, shelter construction, signalling techniques, emergency first aid, primitive tool making and food and water procurement (including edible mushroom identification).“When we first started, the only means of navigation available was map and compass,” said Kevin. “While we still teach the traditional navigational methods, we also teach people how to set up and use a GPS properly.”
Kevin, a Central Coast local, and his brother Brian, who lives west of the Blue Mountains, grew up north west of Sydney but spent most of their spare time in the bush from a very young age. What began as an interest evolved over the years into a passion and far more than just a hobby, with each pursuing different aspects of their survival skills training both within Australia and overseas. Their business partner Jim Blackwell spent many years fighting fires and performing bush search and rescue missions while working with the Rural Fire Service and as a volunteer with the SES.
He also voluntarily conducted his own personal bush survival experience, during which he survived by practicing what he teaches for a full six weeks in the middle of summer. He wrote a book about his experience titled, ‘A Journey of Survival’. “While we love what we do, there is a serious side to it,” said Brian. “We’re teaching people the skills to help themselves should they ever need to. Mother Nature doesn’t discern between profession, religion, race or social status but nature does provide everything needed to survive if you know how to find it and what to do with it.”
Today Kevin, Brian and Jim are regarded as Australia’s foremost bush survival experts. Their courses range from a one-day Essential Survival Skills course to two, three, four and up to seven day courses covering a range of survival and specialist outdoor skills.
Media release,
23 May 2014
Phaedra Pym,
A Way With Words