Peter Andrew Shera 15 October 1952 - 4 October 2025
When Pete Shera died in a fall on Mount Barney in 2025 — 11 days before his 73rd birthday — there is arguably nowhere else in the universe he would have chosen for his final resting place. He knew Mt Barney pretty well — he was on his 81st descent of Logan’s Ridge that day and it was the 197th time he’d stood on the summit of his favourite mountain. He was a superbly fit, enigmatic character who found his way into the lives of many of us through his often eccentric approach to life and his enduring passion for the great southeast Queensland wilderness. There were few places around the Scenic Rim that Pete had not explored — many on multiple occasions — and although he had something of a reputation for being parsimonious, he was extraordinarily generous in sharing his knowledge and time in introducing others to the magnificent natural world he was so passionate about. A long-standing member of the Brisbane Bush Walkers, he introduced literally hundreds of people to the wonders of our stunning mountain landscapes during the many years he was a member.
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On Leaning Ridge |
Although family was important to Pete, he wasn’t a big fan of socialising and hated small talk, a trait that seemed to become more apparent in the past few years. A week before his death, a group of us, including his brother Mark, met up with Pete — by arrangement — on Tibrogargan after a group of us had completed a climb on the east face. He didn’t like climbing in large groups — too much socialising! We had barely started speaking when he announced suddenly that he was going because he didn’t like conversation. Mark was less than impressed and told him so. He just laughed. That was Pete. I often shared a car with him on the long trips to and from various mountain destinations in the border ranges over the years and he always talked enthusiastically about his nieces and nephews and their interests and activities. He loved the thought of introducing them to his beloved wilderness and had over the years organised several trips to Mount Barney, along with various mountain bike experiences at Mount Coot-tha.
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Pete in his early 20s |
My first meeting with a rather sullen 14-year-old Pete was in the late 1960s. My brother Chris and I had met Pete’s oldest brother John at uni through the UQBWC (University of Qld Bushwalking Club). We soon bonded with John and another brother, Michael, over the need to do more challenging hikes than those offered. Inevitably, we struck out on our own and were soon drawn into the vortex of the rambling Shera family house at 8 Roderick St, Ipswich. It had been modified to cater for the seven Shera siblings and seemed to have corridors and small rooms everywhere. We planned our epics in the family dining room. As we canvassed options, sitting around the huge dining room table, I recall Pete often lurking in the background in his school uniform — shorts and long white socks — he was too young to join us at that stage, at least that’s what his brothers told him. Pete once told me he revisited the family house some years ago for a check-up as it had transformed into a medical surgery. He said he felt weird consulting a doctor about his personal health issues in what used to be his parents’ bedroom.
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The first on Mt Lindesay after the 2019 fires |
So who was Peter Andrew Shera? He adopted the alter ego Anthony William Blake — a novelist and artist — and self-published Arcadian Daze, a claimed fictional novel in which, I think, all of his siblings have been able to identity themselves as the thinly-veiled characters. It’s a challenging read with a significant appendix listing numerous sources and influences, although strangely, no mention of family!
Anty W Blake was his second alias — a bushwalking supremo whose astonishing accomplishments in the past decade bely someone of his age. All of his incarnations were very private people, although the copious and often lengthy posts on Facebook and Strava by Anty, perhaps challenge that idea. Anty would regularly post his twice or three-times weekly training circuit on Mount Coot-tha on Strava with 57 photographs of gum trees…and the occasional cockatoo. The posts of his enterprising walks took on a similar tone but with 87 images of trees and the occasional shot of his companions! He loved trees and as Harry Joy in the novel, Bliss, once remarked: ‘You can’t muck around with trees without them affecting you.’ And that was certainly the case with Anty W Blake. Apart from his walking and climbing exploits, the only other content he posted on Facebook were articles from the Guardian Australia which invariably documented the evils of capitalism. Pete was multi-skilled, exploring an array of tertiary studies including geology, business and fine arts. He held the position as director of a small gallery in Sydney at one point and leaves behind a collection of artworks that yet another brother, Geoffrey, is curating. Amongst all that, he taught English in Japan and Korea for some years, worked as a roadie in his then girlfriend’s band, and was a carer for his father in the last four years of his life.
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Pete (right) with his brother Mark on Mt Lindesay, August 2023 |
Pete was the fourth of seven siblings — a sister and five brothers. He lived alone and frugally in a one-room annex of his falling-down Queenslander at Red Hill with several of the rooms rented. He refused to spend money unnecessarily, doing his own house repairs and although always smartly dressed, curiously spent as little as possible on his walking shoes. It was like a badge of honour with Pete and he’d laugh hysterically when we pointed out the technical failings of his latest supermarket purchase — on special of course. Despite years of badgering, he refused to invest in more expensive (and longer lasting) versions, even though his budget footwear sometimes barely lasted one outing on the Mt Barney granophyre before being torn to shreds. He used a lot of gaffer tape!
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Late afternoon descent on Mt Lindesay, 2022 |
Pete loved measuring things, possibly stemming from his accountancy training, and kept every receipt he had ever been issued. And he was obsessed with logging altitude, distance and time taken on his outings although more often than not, his phone — bought on special, of course — somehow seemed to muddle up the stats. He was both a joy and frustration to walk with, always ready for a laugh — often at himself — but he’d walk at his own pace … which was fast … but then stop for 15 minutes for a long chat before suddenly disappearing up a ridge or off into the undergrowth, wondering why we were taking so long. His achievements around the Scenic Rim are extraordinary, given that he only seriously started exploring the Scenic Rim in earnest a little over a decade ago:
Maroon: Best time 48:49 in 2015
Barney: 197 times
Logan’s Ridge: up 91, down 80; 24 times under 2 hours. Best time 1:42 best in 2015
Leaning Peak: 38 times/22 solo
Lindesay: 37 times/10 solo — best time 1:50
The list goes on…
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On Leaning Peak |
Pete’s brother Mark spent a lot more time with him in recent years, particularly following Pete's obsession with a climb called Trojan on the upper cliffline of Tibrogargan. Pete wanted to climb it and decided that abseiling down it multiple time might result in an epiphany. On one Saturday, Mark asked me to go with them but I was unable. Mark sent me a photograph looking out towards the coast, obviously high on the mountain. I observed that it looked like he was having a great time. He replied that he was just about to push Pete over the edge!
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The east face of Tibrogargan |
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Leaning Peak, 2020 |
Despite invoking some frustration in his climbing companions and relatives, Pete rarely showed any anger himself. He was once unfriended on Facebook after he suggested — perhaps a little too directly — that his nephew Nicholas (a Film and TV production graduate), should rethink the way he was editing his growing collection of drone mountain footage. It took a few months for their friendship to be restored. Although there was that long dispute with a neighbour over a pair of barking sausage dogs. Despite his best negotiating skills, the neighbour refused to take any measures to quieten them so Pete set up a contraption that triggered loud horse-racing commentary through a speaker each time the dogs started up! In itself, it’s a work of art although it caused just as much disruption as the dogs! Then there was an exchange with another neighbour whose trees were blocking the light on Pete’s solar panels. After a civilised discussion, the neighbour agreed to let Pete trim them while the neighbour went away for the weekend. When he returned, to his horror he discovered that Pete had ‘trimmed’ the trees almost to ground level! Words were exchanged and the next day, Pete handed over a peace offering — a couple of grevillea tube seedlings. By then the neighbour had calmed down and announced he was buying half a dozen mature palms to plant along the fence line — at $200 each! It was Pete’s turn to be horrified.
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Mt Lindesay, 2023 |
The other more recent altercation involved critical comments about Pete published in a memoir by Alan Frost — a 90 year-old pioneer of walking and climbing in southeast Queensland. I gave Pete a copy of the book and he was loving it — until he read Alan’s brutally honest description of climbing with Pete almost a decade before. Alan was shocked by Pete’s reaction and apologised, agreeing to remove his name from the book. Pete reluctantly agreed to the resolution following a series of to-and-fro exchanges and a meeting with Alan, who was in awe of his accomplishments — and told him so. A week before he died, Pete dropped over to see me for a cuppa and to return a rack of climbing gear he’d borrowed. He was in fine form and great spirits that day and I was so relieved to hear that he’d finally decided to move on. He could be very stubborn as those who knew him learned on many occasions.
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Pete and Mark engaged in another debate |
Despite his long list of infuriating traits, Pete endeared himself to all of us when we shared time on the mountains of southeast Queensland. It was there that he was in his element. When we finished a climb, he would inevitably pull out of his pack a crushed packet of the sweetest (and cheapest) sugary confectionery he could find as a reward! He always had multiple spoons of sugar in his tea, but perhaps that was a family tradition! In recent years, Pete seemed to become more fixated on specific projects. This included climbing practice at Frog Buttress and Kangaroo Point with his younger longtime (and very patient) bushwalking and climbing friend, Ruby, trying to improve his climbing skills. And then there was his battle with the climb, Trojan, on Tibrogargan. Despite his frenetic campaign, he confessed to me just a week before his death that he probably wouldn’t be able to climb it. As part of his training, he built a climbing wall on the side of his house with a belaying system. He told me that he tried climbing it when it was raining because it was more challenging.
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Mt Lindesay after the 2019 fires |
Strangely, for someone who traversed the heights so often and so easily, Pete had a fear of exposure. John recalls dragging his fearful young brother up local mountains excursions in SEQ in the 1960s but whenever Pete climbed on steep rock, I could see the fear in his eyes. When he visited his sister Jean and her husband, Jean-Noel in France a decade or more ago they reported Pete once refusing to cross an exposed razorback ridge on a mountain in the Pyrenees because of the exposure. There was one exposed section on Leaning Ridge that he always seemed to baulk but it was extraordinary how he managed to overcome this obvious fear through stubborn persistence. Perhaps this stemmed from his early success in overcoming a significant speech impediment in his younger days. Another of Pete’s obsessions for several years was mountain biking. Introduced to it by his BBW bushwalking friends, Matt and Henny — and myself — he took to it the same way as everything else he did: flat out! But again his parsimony quickly became obvious with his embrace of a bottom of the range supermarket bicycle with supermarket-grade inner tubes — on special for $5.00 — that seemed to explode with incredible regularity. I remember one ride we did where the solitude of the Bayview Conservation Area near Mt Cotton was shattered by the crack of yet another of Pete's bicycle tyres exploding — the third on that ride! I explained to him that a tube costing $12.00 had remained intact on my bike for two years…but he just could not resist a ‘bargain’.
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Mt Lindesay, May 2019 |
He once stopped me on a ride at Mt Cootha to thank me for introducing him to mountain biking — quite a surprise — before riding off at speed, followed by the telltale crack of another flat tyre echoing through the forest. Over the years, he was found unconscious twice lying beside the MTB trails at Mt Coot-tha with no memory of what had happened. A blackout? A TIA — he’d had a mild stroke a decade or so ago but seemed to recover from that fairly well although his speech was slightly affected. ‘Maybe you should slow down?’ I once suggested naively. He looked at me as if I was mad. ‘I can’t!’ he said, laughing hysterically. He told me he had had numerous skiing accidents in Japan for the same reason. That was Pete.
His love of speed extended to his driving prowess. His arrival at the start of a walk or climb was inevitably heralded by the roar and rattle of his Lipstick Pink Suzuki Alto arriving at speed and sliding to a stop in a cloud of dust. His adoption of this style of dirt road driving may have been influenced by other members of the family, notably his eldest brother, John, who was a talented rally driver. Whenever he’d arrive at the start of a walk or climb, Pete would invite us to inspect the novel way he had effected his own repairs to the bodywork as he slowly destroyed the vehicle — cable ties and wire seemed to predominate. The last time we climbed together in September 2025, we had just returned to the Tibrogargan carpark when Pete sheepishly approached us to announce he thought he had lost his car keys — again. Minutes later he discovered he’d left them in the door lock all day. He said he was surprised no one had stolen the car so I suggested that next time he might try leaving the keys in the ignition! By then, he had destroyed his first vehicle and was onto his second Suzuki Alto — the smallest and cheapest commercial passenger vehicle available, apparently — this one was Uptown Red, he announced, dissolving into hysterical laughter, as he so often did. I’ll miss that. During our many visits to the mountains, Pete talked a lot about the family and serious stuff but mostly we laughed. About silly things, mostly, but I always loved the way he could dissolve into uncontrolled laughter over a comment or observation.
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Rockclimbing on Tibrogargan, September 2024 |
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Pete's first time on Mt Lindesay in 2015 |
I first climbed Mt Lindesay with Pete — with his friend Viv — 11 years ago. I had been first been up there in 1967 with Pete’s brother John. For the past six o seven years, Mark, Pete and I had made annual ascents of the mountain, often with one or two other friends in tow. By 2024, Pete was showing increasing signs of confusion on the climb. On our last ascent together in July 2025, he struggled to climb a short steep section of the route which he had previously soloed 10 times before. His death leaves a huge gap in the southeast Queensland bushwalking scene and in our much smaller circle of climbing friends. It was so easy to message him with a suggestion for a day out on Tibro, Mt Lindesay, Mt Barney, or somewhere else I hadn’t been before and, of course, Pete had. He was always up for it. I’ll miss that too.
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Abseiling off Leaning Peak |
Whenever one of us raised an issue with Pete related to mountain biking, climbing or walking, invariably a YouTube video link or two would arrive from him by email. I learned a lot from that. He began to collect an increasing array of self-belaying climbing gadgets towards the end, always attracted by technology and innovation. That was about the only thing he was prepared to spend money on but he was always generous with his time. And that was priceless. He always had time for another adventure with anyone game enough to get into the car with him — although many had chosen not to.
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Mt Maroon, 2020 |
Peter Shera was a selfless guide with an outstanding knowledge of southeast Queensland’s wild places — and a friend. I think he did leave the world a better place, introducing hundreds of young people (and a handful of oldies) to this wonderful wilderness at our back door. Places he knew so well. Always willing to share his knowledge and passion either in discussion or by offering his time and the inevitable follow-up YouTube link if there was one. In those long drives to and from the mountains with him, we often discussed the future and where we’d like to end up and I know Pete was horrified at the thought of going into care, although that wasn’t suggested directly. We agreed that if we had our way, we’d like to go quickly — on the heights. And in that respect, he got his wish. He often discussed his current health issues: knee, shoulder, hernia ops (2), ankle, stroke, TIA…given his level of activity it’s amazing he could still walk.
The name that appears most in summit log books in southeast Queensland over the past decade — Anty W Blake — will hopefully be linked to this kind, eccentric, gentle and slightly mad person who most of us knew as Peter Shera. And each time we climb — or perhaps even look up at Logan’s Ridge — we can say g’day and celebrate a life well-lived.
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Michael Meadows
October 2026
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