Expand your horizons with Australia’s longest running wilderness adventure magazine. With in-depth features and stunning photographs from some of the world’s greatest adventurers, WILD will keep you up-to-date on all aspects of wilderness pursuits.
There are those rare nights where everything just lines up, and this was one of them. We headed to Lion Rock—nine kilometres from the eastern terminus of the 85km South Coast Track at Cockle Creek—with a decent chance of catching an aurora with the western fall of the Milky Way; it was already an exciting combination. But what we did not see coming was the magic in the water: bioluminescence. That made it a photographer’s perfect ‘hat trick’: aurora, Milky Way, and bioluminescence all in one frame. You cannot plan for nights like these; they just happen, and when they do, you have to be ready. I stayed up most of the night, completely immersed in capturing every angle, every detail of the scene. The sky was perfectly clear: No…
[Letter of the Issue] MAIN RANGE CANYONING Hello James, In October 2023, on a combined canyoning and ski weekend to Tuross Falls in Wadbilliga National Park followed by some chutes at Club Lake in Kosciuszko NP, Kev said to Ned: “I’ve got a brilliant idea. Let’s canyon Lady Northcotes Falls … it’ll take three days … we can stay at Opera House Hut … easy weekend trip.” So in March 2024, our packs loaded with wetsuits, ropes, food and gear for three days, seven of us set off from Charlotte Pass for what would be more bush-bashing, more spectacular views and less hydration than we could imagine. “Let’s make our approach via the Sentinel” suggested Rosie in the week preceding. The western face proved to be quite the bash, and…
One of my very favourite books over the last decade has been Robert Moor’s On Trails. My copy is beaten up and dog-eared and almost floppy and soft after having been taken out on so many walks as my reading material. Moor is a fabulous, thoughtful, erudite writer whose flowy prose makes reading the deep topics he tackles—natural history, science, philosophy—an effortless joy. As I said, the book is dog-eared, made worse by the fact that whenever I hit an interesting point, I’ve folded the page corner to mark it. There are many folded corners. And one of them is to mark a passage I’ve been thinking a lot about in the last two weeks, a passage about modern trail-building philosophy, at least as it relates to the US. I’ll…
After our descent of the Crossing and Davey Rivers in Southwest Tasmania, the most logical onward route back towards civilisation was to continue using our aquatic transport across the open waters of Port Davey. Packrafts aren’t ideal for seafaring, however, and are very susceptible to wind and waves. Where possible, near-shore paddling felt safer, and was certainly more scenic, but swell rebound and surf occasionally proved a bit exciting. Here, David Bowman is caught by an unexpected wave. by GRANT DIXON Simon Sharples about to drop into Danae Brook’s ‘chockstone’ abseil. The chockstone isn’t actually the huge one at the top of the image; it’s another one halfway down the abseil, and it’s infamous for catching ropes. Danae is certainly a place that makes it worthwhile to bring the fisheye…
There’s something in the air at lighthouses. It seems lighter, clearer somehow. I’m sure it’s because of their location—by definition lighthouses are isolated, unobstructed, surrounded by ocean. But the feeling is mystical, almost monastic, with a yearning loneliness and undertone of sacrifice. Or maybe that’s all in my mind, formed from a mist of romance and remoteness absorbed from picture books and tales of tragic shipwrecks and gallant rescues. Regardless of the reasons, I love a good lighthouse, the more remote the better, flavoured with tales of bravery and hardship and shining beacons in dark times. I’ve wanted to visit the one at Wilsons Promontory for decades. It shines out over some of Victoria’s most stunning coastline, and you can stay there as part of a classic four-day bushwalk, breaking…
As time moves on, my playlist of tunes has a growing number of cover songs, something that would never have happened without digital music apps, or I guess, getting along in life—the years piling on means more versions of any given song get made. Of course, personal taste dictates that there are some covers of songs or tunes that I warm to (gold), some I am indifferent to (most), and some that are just unfathomable noise to my ears. The good covers range from complete makeovers to accurate copies of the original with nuanced changes. For me, the binding element is commonly the lyrics; of less importance is the theme of the tune. A good tune can be sullied by banal lyrics or a voice that grates, but great lyrics…
