Camera: Olympus OM1 with the Olympus 12-100mm Pro lens Steven: “The Nugget Point Lighthouse walk at the bottom the South Island of New Zealand affords some stunning views. As you wind your way to the lighthouse on the Catlins Coastal Heritage Trail t

SWAPPING the South Coast for the South Island, a group of 10 girlfriends booked a group tour on Ultimate Hikes’ 3-day Routeburn Track guided walk. Here they share some of favourite photos and favourite memories of the trip. The Routeburn Track Guided

K’GARI (Fraser Island) means ‘Paradise’ to the Butchulla people. But the first colonial settlers to arrive didn’t see the Island with the same vision as the traditional owners. Their vision was a paradise for exploitation. The tall trees of blackbutt

MY earliest memory is of walking the trails of Rangitoto Island in Auckland’s Hauraki Gulf. As a child, my family had a small yacht called Cool Change. During the summer months, we would sail to an island in the gulf, row ashore and explore it. Befor

MONICA (65): “I first met Alison about 25 years ago when I started a new job and I was also fairly new to Brisbane. I needed some friends. I wasn’t much of a walker at that time, but Alison and some colleagues used to go on bushwalking social outings

Three hour’s drive from world-famous Uluru is Watarrka NP, home to the mighty Kings Canyon – a majestic destination featuring 300m high sandstone walls, palm-filled crevices, and views that stretch across the desert. Lace up your hiking boots and exp

HIBISCUS red, dragon fruit red, bougainvillea red. Or is it more blood red emerging from the black wisps of horizontal cloud? An apocalyptic and hypnotic sunrise seen through a snow blizzard at 14,000 feet (4267m). Frighteningly beautiful, I lament t

MOUNT Mistake or my mistake? The refrain becomes an annoying earworm as departure looms. At 60km the four-day Spicers Scenic Rim Trail is one of Great Walks of Australia’s longest trips and one of the few rated moderate to hard, with a 700m ascent of

FOLLOWING on from last issue’s ‘trail running shoes for hiking’ review, Great Walks is staying ultralight by looking at the new generation of sub-200g, seam-sealed hard shells. First, a caveat – these jackets are not primarily designed for hikers. Th

FOR Tanzanian, Eliakeney Njau, setting up the first and only all-female owned and operated company leading tours up Mount Kilimanjaro is a dream come true, but it’s been a long road to success. Co-founder of Kilimanjaro Wanderwomen Tours, Julia Mante

THE call of the wild is perhaps stronger than ever before, with more and more of us longing to escape our daily lives and immerse ourselves in the beauty of the natural world. For some, ideal forays may be weeks in the wilderness, hiking, biking or k

WITH our Wilderness Photographer of the Year presented by Mountain Designs up and running we thought we’d offer ten tips for better photography. Light is the key to all photography – whether you’re indoors or outdoors. See how it hits your subject, a

LOOKING back at those coincidences it was the days before starting the French Camino from St Jean Pied de Port that pointed to what would be an ongoing sense of grace and giving. On day one I’d rendezvoused, just, with my hiking buddy at Biarritz tra

HOW you walk your Camino is completely up to you. You may be a purist and want to walk the whole thing independently with just your possessions on your back and stay in dorms with other pilgrims? You might want to do a self-guided tour where a tour o

THERE’S complete silence except for birdsong and distant church bells. Spring has sprung and the countryside is ‘raining’ with white blossom in the breeze. The track is lined with purple wildflowers and red poppies are scattered over the magnificent

TICK-INDUCED Mammalian Meat Allergy (MMA) is increasing hikers’ need to be vigilant against these nefarious arachnids. Do you know the best ways to prevent tick bites or how to remove ticks safely? Hikers with Alpha-Gal Syndrome, known as Mammalian M

ELISE Marcianti is a 24-year-old adventurer and artist living in Bright in North East Victoria. When she’s not trail running in the mountains, riding or climbing you’ll find her with paint in her hair. Since finding Bright after doing a snow season s

AFTER meeting briefly at a writers festival, 27-year-old Elizabeth Best (Eli), pairs up with an historical fiction writer Colin Bowles in a last-minute undertaking to complete a shared goal. The two, barely acquainted, seize the day and drop everythi

Some years ago I completed the Oxfam Trailwalker. The idea was to walk 100km through thick bushland as a group of four. No sleeping, just rest stops. It took us a gruelling 33 hours (and only two of us made it – long story…) but one of the things tha

MY earliest bushwalking memory is walking amongst wombat burrows on the Nullarbor plain with my mum, brother and sister when I was 11. We were driving from Adelaide to Perth and stopping in the desert for a bush walk was an exhilarating and wild adve

HISTORY, diversity, wildlife, and Indigenous culture; the Light to Light walk in Beowa National Park is a special and colourful walk located in the far-south of NSW near the former whaling town of Eden. Logistically, the hike can be a challenge to or

WHAT’S it like to take on a long-distance pilgrim walk? How do you cope on cold wet days? What’s it like meeting other pilgrims? There are so many questions people ask before they take on their first Camino and it would be easy to disappear down an o

WE all have witnessed events on our hikes which make us wonder why some people venture into the pristine parks and wilderness, only to leave that environment in a worse state. How many times have we witnessed dirty pieces of paper/wipes scattered aro

DEBORAH: “The first time we met was on a hike to Tali Karng in the Victorian Alps in 2019. We decided to carpool to the start and basically couldn’t stop talking about the hikes we wanted to do. Tali Karng was a great place to start a friendship that

GREAT Walks was lucky enough to experience the new Grand Cliff Top Walk in the NSW Blue Mountains (pg 10) and wanting to know more about how this walk was created we had a chat with Tim Lanyon, Principal Project Officer, Blue Mountains Branch, NSW Na

WOG Wog Campground from the Braidwood direction is the usual access point for the Corang area of the Budawangs in southern NSW. It’s a spectacular area where the walking is somewhat easier than other areas such as the Castle and Monolith Valley, but

THE Stirling Ranges are one of the most notable mountain ranges in Western Australia and arguably the most accessible due to their close proximity to Perth, located 337km southeast of the city. This makes for a hiker’s paradise, with six trailed peak