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Setting out solo. Dick completed the first solo

helicopter circumnavigation of the world in 1982–83 in a

Bell 206B JetRanger.

Although Dick Smith failed at his first attempt to climb Balls Pyramid, that adventure started him on a lifetime of challenges.

HOOKED ON ADVENTURE

88 A u s t r a l i a n G e o g r a p h i c

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Classically trained. Dick was a keen Scout. From an early age, he knew his way around adventure tech such as his navigational plotter (bottom left) and a theodolite (bottom right).

STORY BY PETER MEREDITH

himself in a magical world of the imagination. If he had a job aspiration in those days, it was to be a park ranger; for him there could be nothing better than being out in the bush all day. The notion that adven-ture and excitement were waiting just outside his back door wriggled its way into his soul early in life.

“I’m just so lucky that I grew up in the ’50s when there were few rules,” he says. “I would come home from school and then go out and the one rule was ‘Be home by dark’. I would disappear into the bush by myself or meet other kids and we’d be jumping off cliffs and things like that. I once built a raft and paddled across Middle Harbour, where people in those days were being eaten by sharks!”

In 1952, when 8-year-old Dick joined his local Cub Scouts troop, the adventuring became more organised. Now camping, bushwalking, rock climb-ing, canyoning and canoeing joined his list of experiences. And in his later teens, when he owned a Morris Minor, there were car-based escapades. These included a game known as fox-hunting, which involved driving around in cars fitted with direc-tion-finding antennae trying to track down a radio ham (the fox) who was transmitting from a remote spot, possibly in the Blue Mountains. In 1962 the Morris Minor took Dick and a mate on a camping trip to Melbourne and along the coast to Adelaide.

After leaving school at 15, Dick might have settled for factory work and compensated for the drudgery with his scouting adventures. “I might have ended up being the general manager of the factory when I was 65 years old,” he says. But in 1964 he had an experience that redirected his life completely.

By then he was a Rover Scout in the First East Roseville Troop. In May that year he saw an article in a magazine describing how two Sydney climbers had tried unsuccessfully to scale Balls Pyramid, a dagger-like rock spire projecting 561m from

90 A u s t r a l i a n G e o g r a p h i c

Here’s how he explains it: his exercise regime consists of a daily walk on any route that ascends a vertical distance of 650 feet (198m) and returns. Mt Everest is 29,029ft (8848m) high; dividing this by 650 gives 44.66. Which means that every 44.66 days, Dick climbs a total vertical distance equivalent to the height of Mt Everest.

Equating Dick’s regular bushwalks to a climb of the world’s highest peak may be a bit of a stretch, but it does provide a symbolic link between the adventures, great and small, that have defined his life story. They have included exploits in the physical world, some record-breaking, such as his 1982–83 solo flight around the world in a helicopter, his solo helicopter flight to the North Pole in 1987, his pole-to-pole circumnavigation in a Twin Otter aircraft in 1988–89, and his non-stop balloon crossing of Australia in 1993.

There have also been bold enterprises in the world of commerce – his founding of Dick Smith Electronics, AUSTRALIAN GEOGRAPHIC and Dick Smith Foods, for example. And there have been spirited forays into the world of ideas, including his high-profile questioning of prevailing beliefs on population growth and perpetual-growth economics.

Dick’s outdoor adventures started small, naturally. As a boy growing up in the Sydney suburb of Roseville, he would take off into the bush as often as he could. Here he escaped the boredom of school and lost

Every 45 days or so, Dick Smith climbs Mt Everest.He doesn’t fly to Nepal to do it; he just finds a patch of bushland somewhere on Sydney’s fringe and strides out. It’s an offbeat, convoluted concept that delights him.

Vertical leap. Between 1988 and 1989, Dick circumnavigated the world again – this time north–south via the poles, in a Twin Otter aircraft.

Chain of events. Dick (left, at Lord Howe Island) credits his 1964 adventure to Balls Pyramid (below, bottom row, second from right) as a key impetus for starting his electronics business (above). Dick’s analogue flight computer (below) has kept him safe on his circumnavigations of the globe.

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N o v e m b e r – D e c e m b e r 2 0 1 4 9393 A u s t r a l i a n G e o g r a p h i c

the ocean, 23km south-east of Lord Howe Island. Dick knew one of those climbers, 21-year-old university student Rick Higgins, who was also a Rover Scout in the Roseville troop. The other was Dave Roots, also a student and a member of the Sydney Bushwalkers.

Dick was so taken with the idea of climbing Balls Pyramid that he persuaded the First East Roseville Rover leader, Tony Balthasar, an anaesthetist and radio ham, to stump up £2000 (equivalent to about $50,000 today) to charter a boat and take a group of scouts to the rock. So it was that on 25 November 1964, the 16m ketch Tai Hoa sailed out of Sydney Harbour carrying Rick, Dave, Dick and half-a-dozen other scouts heading north-east.

Despite the skills of the expedition’s most experienced climbers, no-one reached the sum-mit. They faced tricky climbing conditions, wild weather and flocks of nesting seabirds angered by the intrusion; but their main hurdle turned out to be shortage of time and food. Early the next year, a seven-man Sydney Rock Climbing Club expedi-tion reached the top. And in 1980 Dick returned to the rock with John Worrall and Hugh Ward,

and climbed it successfully. At the summit he unfurled the NSW flag and claimed the rock for the state.

The 1964 Balls Pyramid expedition

remains a highpoint in his life, Dick says. It flicked a switch in his brain and sent him off down a road hitherto undreamt of. “That really was the adventure that set me on the course for a life of adventure,” he says.

It did that not merely by offering him an adren-aline-pumping experience, but also by introducing him to the concept of risk management – the idea that by carefully analysing and quantifying the risks of a venture, one could devise measures to minimise them, making the venture safer and more likely to succeed. In this way, enterprises that seem impossibly risky may in fact turn out to be achievable.

The significant thing about Balls Pyramid in 1964 was that it offered the opportunity to take risk; unlike today, there was little bureaucratic red tape preventing climbers from clambering onto a wave-swept ledge at its base and having a go at getting to the top.

“As a 20-year-old I was able to take quite extraor-dinary risks and it wasn’t frowned upon,” Dick says.

For Dick, adventure has always been a drug. Once he was hooked, it changed the way he looked at all of life, not just outdoor activities. He once said that if he hadn’t been on the 1964 Balls Pyramid expedition he wouldn’t have started Dick Smith Electronics. “That was my other great adventure, one of my best adven-tures,” he says. “Why did I take that risk? I reckon

“That really was the adventure that set me on the course for a life of adventure.”

Bent on big trips. In 1980 Dick (below, at left) finally made it to the top of Balls Pyramid. In 1993 he crossed Australia in a hot-air balloon (bottom, at right) with John Wallington.

KEYHIKE/CLIMBCARBUSINESSPLANEHELICOPTERBUSBALLOON

1982–83

2006–08

Circumnavigates Earth via poles in Twin Otter. First pole-to-pole circumnavigation.

1988–89

Completes first solo circumnavigation of world in chopper DIK, setting out from Fort Worth, USA, where the helicopter was built.

1991

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1993

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1952

1961

1986

1978

1987

1980

Born 18 March, grows up in Roseville, where he spends

much time in the nearby bush.

Explores Blue Mountains tracks in old Land Rover.

1962Road trip in black Morris Minor to Coorong. Also ski tour of Snowy Mountains with Bob Pallin, son of Paddy.

1963Completes Overland Track walk, Lake St Clair to Cradle Valley, as a Rover Scout.

1964Attempts to climb Balls Pyramid, Lord

Howe Island, with Rover Scouts. “It was the best climb I’ve done. If I hadn’t

climbed Balls Pyramid I wouldn’t have started Dick Smith Electronics,” he says.

Joins local Cub Scouts.

1968Founds Dick Smith Electronics, his “greatest adventure”.

Learns to fly.

Competes in Perth–Sydney Air Race.

Buys first chopper, flies around Australia and to Lord Howe Island (the first to do so). Finds 1929 wreck of Kookaburra aircraft in Central Australia.

Climbs Balls Pyramid with John Worrall and Hugh Ward and claims it officially for NSW.

1975Buys first plane, a Twin Comanche, then a Beech Baron.

In April, tries unsuccessfully to reach North Pole in DIK. Makes another unsuccessful attempt in July–August.

Succeeds in April, becoming first to fly a chopper to the North Pole.

Solo helicopter circumnavigation of Papua New Guinea.

First non-stop balloon crossing of Australia, with John Wallington.

1995Climbs Carstensz Pyramid, Irian Jaya, with Peter Hillary and Greg Mortimer.

Flies over and circles Mt Everest in Citation jet, becoming the second person to fly over the mountain.

73,000km circumnavigation of world in Sikorsky S-76 chopper with wife Pip.

First east–west balloon crossing of the Tasman Sea, with John Wallington.

Flies Cessna Grand Caravan from Sydney to west coast of New Zealand’s South Island to mark 75th anniversary of Guy Menzies’ 1931 flight, the first trans-Tasman solo flight.

Double-decker bus jumps over 14 motorcycles with Hans Tholstrup as driver and Dick as conductor.

1980

1987

1987

A LIFETIME OF EXPLOITS

1986Launches the AUSTRALIAN GEOGRAPHIC

journal.

Buys Twin Otter in Kenya.

With Pip, completes 40,000km round-the-world trip in EarthRoamer vehicle.

Honoured at the Australian Geographic Society Awards for 50 incredible years of adventure.

Safety first. The emergency torch

from Dick’s first circumnavigation

of the world.

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1980

WATCH Use the free viewa app to scan this page and see a film about Dick’s life of adventure, or watch the video on our website.

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daughter Hayley and grandson Caz in his Cessna Grand Caravan light aircraft on a week-long trip that took in Wentworth on the Murray River, Port Pirie in South Australia (for an air show), Kingoonya on the Trans-Australia Railway – “I like to watch the trains go by” – and Uluru. Then he was back into office work, which these days centres on two charita-ble bodies, the Dick and Pip Smith Foundation and the Dick Smith Foods Foundation, which between them give away nearly $3 million a year. And, of course, he climbs Mount Everest every 44.66 days.

So when he insists that, although relatively fit, he’s slower than he used to be, I don’t believe a word of it. AG

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it was tied up with the risk-taking I had learnt on the expedition.”

Asked if the success of his adven-tures could be entirely put down to good risk management, meticulous planning and painstaking prepa-ration, Dick readily acknowledges another major factor – luck.

“The main reason I’m alive is I’m bloody lucky, unbelievably lucky,” he says. “On my flights around the world, one breakage of one part in the JetRanger engine would have put me down in the ocean.”

But after a moment’s thought he adds, “Actually, it is the combination of both; it’s being very lucky but always having a way out. I always had a way out. All those precautions I took must be why I’m alive.

“Everything I have set out to do I have succeeded in doing because I am very realistic and don’t try to overachieve. I do things that are possible if you put the hard work into it, do all the organisation. So that’s why I have been successful.”

He admits to having been scared witless some-times. He reckons the riskiest thing he ever did was land on a container ship in the north Pacific Ocean to refuel in 1983 during his solo helicopter circumnavigation. Searching for the ship in fog was nerve-racking, taking off fully loaded with fuel from its heaving deck was treacherous, and time to reach his next destination was fast running out. “I finally reached a little island at the end of the Aleutian chain right on darkness, just as it was start-ing to get too dark to land. So again I was very lucky.”

Fifty years have passed since that first Balls Pyramid venture. Dick has packed enough adventure to fill several lifetimes into that time. He has also zealously encouraged others to get out there and have adventures of their own – and to do it responsibly. He’s proud of AUSTRALIAN GEOGRAPHIC’s financial and philosophical support for adventure over the years. In 2008 he personally donated $1 million to Scouts Australia to foster responsible risk-taking.

At 70 he’s still the bundle of energy I remember from my early days at Australian Geographic 30 years ago, still exuding infectious enthusiasm for whatever projects he’s focused on at the particular moment. And he’s still adventuring: the day after I inter-viewed him for this story he flew off with wife Pip,

He has also zealously encouraged others to get out there and have adventures of their own.

Proud Aussie. Dick founded AG in 1986 (top). This was right before flying south in 1988 to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the first aerial explorations of Antarctica, made by Aussie adventurer Sir Hubert Wilkins.

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