ROLFE OOSTRA                                             Mountaineer at 360 Expeditions

I first came to Australia as a little boy from Holland. My father had been offered work in Canberra and him and mum saw this as a great opportunity to pick up sticks entirely and set up a permnant home here. Both my parents wanted to explore as much of their new country as they could and they dragged me and my brothers along on many a camping and trekking mission. They sowed the seeds to the fantastic outdoor potential Australia has to offer and fully encouraged our integration with wild places.

On the back of this, at age fourteen, i began rock-climbing on the many granite outcrops in the ACT and then rapidly expanded my climbing horizons to include as much of Australia’s incredible vertical landscape that lay within hitching distance.

An alpine climbing trip to New Zealand came about after i’d read a book by Eric Shipton called “upon that mountain” which i had “borrowed” from my high school liberary. This book introduced the concepts of both alpine climbing and travelling to foreign countries to climb really big mountains. To a kid used to climbing in shorts and t-shirts on sun-kissed rock those notions sounded as far out as landing on the moon but I was soon able to enthuse my climbing buddies and before long we found ourselves on a flight to the Southern Alps.

My first alpine season was a disaster. Two of my best friends were killed in an avalanche on the slopes of Mount Cook which my twin-brother was very lucky to escape from . The aftermath of this naturally led to a lot of soul searching as to where i was taking my climbing obsession (or where it was taking me) and the value that this way of life held. I think I suprised everyone when I decided to leave Australia to attempt the north-face of Mount Kenya a few weeks later. For me it was the right thing to do and set the ball rolling to the life I enjoy today.