Life of adventure without regret
• Jeff Jennings preparing for another flight with drone at his side.
By Tony Scott,
July 21, 2021
History buff and outdoors adventurer Jeff Jennings has something of a fatalistic outlook on life and no regrets on the course his own has taken.
Born in Yorkshire, England, he remembers a relatively care free childhood despite the ravages of war on the country.
“Dad had joined the Navy in the second World War and rose to be a petty officer, but when it was over he came home and didn’t like how the class system came back to the fore.
“Some of our relatives had emigrated to Canada and we nearly followed them, but then the soldier settlement schemes in Australia presented an opportunity and off we set.
“We were originally going to Queensland, but we were delayed because Dad had to have some medical treatment and we ended up in Smithton, where there was a big project to drain Britton’s Swamp to make the farms.
“Dad was a diesel mechanic so there was plenty of work for him on the heavy equipment.
“People were telling us we’d see tigers and I thought about Bengal tigers, but they were talking about Tasmanian tigers, which probably were still about in 1953.”
With the settlement project nearing completion his father realised an ambition to be his own boss, taking over a service station at Somerset.
Young Jeff went to Burnie High School and quickly found an exciting outlet with the air cadets.
“We used to have exercises in the bush all that sort of thing.
“Sometimes things could have gone terribly wrong.
“I can remember one time we were supposed to have a mock battle somewhere up behind Sheffield supposedly in a commando group, in the middle of the night, didn’t have a map, didn’t have a compass hardly knew where I was and I got separated.
“But they’d said if you get lost we’ll meet up at Paradise – good name.
“I eventually made my way by myself to Paradise and all these blokes popped up and said ‘Jennings where the hell have you been?’.”
Promoted within the cadets, he had a role teaching others and enjoyed it.
“I didn’t know what I wanted to be, to be honest like most year 10 kids.”
He took a job as an apprentice building estimator, but reckons in only took a couple of weeks to realise an office job was not for him.
Back to matriculation college, where he won an Education Department university scholarship to become a teacher.
“There was certainly no plan in it, just a series of events that led to something.
“My parents couldn’t afford to send me to uni so it really depended on a scholarship.”
“A lot of things have happened in my life where at certain times there was obviously an intersection, where if I’d gone a certain way I wouldn’t have ended up where I am now, not that I’ve got any regrets.”
A couple more of those intersections came during his time at university, when semester breaks were spent diving for commercial catches of crayfish and abalone.
“I had one of the first abalone licences that cost about 10 shillings ($1) at the time.”
It was around that time that the market for abalone started to develop and licence holders had an option of becoming full time.
Committed to his teacher scholarship he let the opportunity pass.
Despite the financial benefits such an early entry to the abalone fishery would have meant Jeff still has no regrets.
Neither for his choice not to join his mate on a trans-pacific yacht delivery voyage, which might have led to an life sailing around the globe.
He did take up teaching, found it rewarding beyond measure and when he was promoted to head of department, prepared for a move from the North West to Hobart.
Fate intervened again and because of some department processes he wound up being posted to Scottsdale in 1972.
“I didn’t know anything about the North-East.
“I might have been once before to have a look at the old dredge up at Gladstone.
“So it was a bit of an accident that we came to Scottsdale.
“Anyway I thought we’ll be here for six years. I’m still here.
“It was the start of a new life in lots of ways.“
Now married to another teacher Bev, they started a family and having given up his diving pursuits, Jeff threw himself into other activities.
“Of course I’d always been interested in bushwalking and the school was keen on outdoor education and that led to the idea to have a field study centre up at Mt Cameron.
“That’s a long story and it’s still going.
“And other things like the survival camp.
“I’m always a great believer the best way to teach anybody something is to do it.
“So rather than teaching them in the classroom about the history of the North-East, because it wasn’t taught before I came here, we’d go out on excursions and I think the kids appreciated it too.”
“The centre made you realise how lucky we are to live in a community like the North-East, where I had the idea of it but there’s no way I could do that by myself.
“I was just amazed that people like Don Dickenson and the service clubs, when they saw the value of what you were trying to do there was no trouble getting volunteers.
“The Commonwealth Government gave us a total of $46,000 and from that we bought a four wheel drive a Toyota bus and built the field study centre.
“I don’t reckon you’d get better value for money anywhere.
“It really did open my eyes about the value of living in a community that looks after itself.”
Other staff members at the school sparked an interest in kayaking and students made their own fibreglass craft put to use on the Ringarooma and Boobyalla delta.
But there wasn’t quite the challenge for Jeff, who was soon leading week-long sea kayaking treks from George Town to Boobyalla and Coles Bay to Schouten Island and away from school he got into some serious adventure paddling around lots of the Tasmanian coast, including Maatsuyker Island and island-hopping across Bass Strait.
Many of his adventures he’s photographed and videoed.
In more recent times his videos have been shot with the aid of a drone.
“My brain is still as active as ever, but my body tells me I’m not what I used to be.
“I think my days of mountain climbing are gone, but with technology you can still get to these places.”
His latest project is aerial photography to document the district for posterity with the Dorset Historical Society.
Life has gone full circle for Jeff, from involvement with the air cadets at high school to diving under the water, kayaking on top of it and back in the air with his drones. And no regrets along the way.