Issue 178, Summer 2020

Wild

Australia's Wilderness Adventure Magazine

Wild4 min read
Wild Letters
[Letter of the Issue] Hi Wild, I read your article in #177 ‘Know Nothing’ and I have a few thoughts that stem from there. I recently did my first multiday, off track, solo hike. It was great, and an entirely different experience to trips with groups.
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Wild
EDITOR: James McCormack PRODUCTION ASSISTANT: Anja Fuechtbauer DESIGN: Sam Grimmer, Jess Van De Vlierd, James McCormack FOUNDER: Chris Baxter OAM CONTRIBUTORS: Jennifer Johnstone, Dan Slater, Ryan Hansen, Craig Pearce, Anja Fuechtbauer, Johannes Hend
Wild4 min read
Let's Talk
We need to talk about having fun. Specifically, we need to talk about recreation in national parks. And by 'we', I don’t mean you and me at a personal level, or me as editor and you as reader. I mean we as a community. As a community of adventure rec
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Central Plateau Plunder
www.facebook.com/Bob.Brown.Foundation twitter.com/BobBrownFndn?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor www.bobbrown.org.au Tasmania’s Central Plateau is the largest alpine area on the island. It is a glaciologist’s dream. Look at the r
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Glowing In The Dark
www.instagram.com/meganholbeck/?hl=en www.meganholbeck.com It’s November as I write this. According to my mental calendar, we should be eating hot cross buns and sliding gently into autumn, and instead we’re building up to Christmas. The blur of 2020
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In Deep Water
It is more valuable than gold. It is the elixir of life, the quencher of thirst and fire, hard to keep out and even harder to keep in, the original mirror yet clear as glass. It is sometimes silver or white as snow, and is snowflake delicate, the mak
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To Rent Or Not To Rent
I was recently in the unusual position of having to hire a full set of equipment for a five-day hike in a remote and snowbound location. The hows and whys of the matter make for a complex and entertaining story, but that’s best saved for another time
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Restore Lake Pedder
There is only one road into Tasmania’s Southwest Wilderness. This is the Gordon River Road, bulldozed and constructed in the 1960s to allow the Hydro Electric Commission (HEC) to install dams on the Gordon, Serpentine and Huon Rivers. In doing so, th
Wild20 min read
Luxury Lodges = Wilderness Lost
“We all come from wilderness. That’s why we love nature. It’s why we delight in flowers and seeing wildlife because it’s part of our genetic structure. Now we live mainly in cities, where wilderness has been 90% or totally destroyed. It’s arguably th
Wild8 min read
The Closure of Taipan Wall
FEEL TERRIBLE Taipan is as much an idea as it is a place of climbing. A wall that dominates both the landscape and the mindscape. A towering, intimidating wall that burns orange in the afternoon, not just from the rays of the setting sun but also bec
Wild10 min read
Corse I Can
‘Long, steep, rocky descent.’ Four words to strike fear into the heart of any hiker. This threatening combination, repeated with worrying frequency in my guidebook, is an accurate description of roughly 45% of the 180km trail to which I’ve committed
Wild15 min read
The Cord
"You came from where?" asked a lady standing on a short, wooden jetty. Behind her, sat the rest of her family eating afternoon tea, but she hadn't directed the question at them. She had posed it to the end of her jetty. There, bobbing in the small sw
Wild1 min read
The Real Yuki Guni
YUKI GUNI (literally, Snow Country) is a resonant term in Japan. It’s the title of one of Japan’s all-time classic novels, written by Nobel Prize winner Yasunari Kawabata in 1930s and 40s. Set on the border of Gunma and Niigata Prefectures in Central
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Nine Lives
It’s a surreal experience to watch someone’s life hang in the balance. To be almost within reach, yet unable to help or intervene. Frozen with shock, as the events unfold before your eyes. Powerless. It wasn’t supposed to be dangerous. This is Plan B
Wild9 min read
Goodbye To Beauty
Ka-whump! It was 2am, dark as tar, and a cyclonic blast of wind semi-trailered into the tent. I woke with a spine-jarring jolt. I was 950m up on Southwest Tassie’s Ironbound Range—its upper reaches mimicking a craggy aircraft carrier deck—and in the
Wild11 min read
Return to Lamington
On Friday September 6, 2019, the air was dry and hot on Binna Burra Mountain. Humidity sat at a miserly eight percent, and the usually lush forest surrounding the heritage-listed Binna Burra Lodge—which sits high within Lamington National Park in the
Wild6 min read
The Rivers
Collecting all the water from the Matakitaki, Matiri, Gowan, Maruia, and Mangles Rivers, and fed by Lake Rotora and Lake Rotoiti in Nelson Lakes National Park, the Buller is the big water river of the region. It can hold a LOT (!) of water. During th
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QUEENSLAND’S Scenic Rim Trail
Get set to be transported to another world on the newly opened Scenic Rim Trail. Just 90 minutes west of Brisbane, this four-day walk in Queensland’s beautiful Main Range National Park blends both newly constructed and existing sections of track, and
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Whitewater Paddling In Murchison
You know you’re in a paddling mecca when—while sipping on a morning coffee on the main street of town—cars creaking under the load of too many boats strapped onto (often homemade wooden) roof-racks zip past in regular intervals. Such is the case in M
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The Walk in Sections
9km (approx. 5-6 hours) Following a 3hr+ drive and car-drop, you will depart the walk at the Thornton View Trailhead. There is a carpark, toilet, shelter and rainwater tank here, along with a map of the route. The trail begins in open eucalypt forest
Wild2 min read
ZORALI Eden Reforestation Project
One product sold, ten trees planted. That’s the pledge Zorali—a fledgling Aussie adventure wear and hardgoods company founded in 2019—has made. “A lot of people think it’s ten trees for every purchase,” says director Cam Greenwood. “But it’s actually
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Arc’teryx
Basements in Vancouver, British Columbia, aren’t necessarily places you want to be. The city is, well, to be blunt, wet. Actually, make it sodden. Averaging around 2,500mm of precipitation, being stuck under your house—especially if climbing is your
Wild3 min read
OSPREY Ace 38 Pack
Kids are soft these days. Back in my day, if we got breakfast at all, it’d be nothing more than a bowl of poison. And it wouldn’t even be hot; it’d be cold poison. We then walked 15km to school, uphill all the way, lugging more than our body weight i
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CRUMPLER Country Mile Range
After 25 years, Crumpler is moving. Moving into the outdoors, that is. Ever since being founded in Melbourne in 1995—initially growing in prominence as a maker of convenient yet bombproof messenger bags for cycle couriers who zipped around the city’s
Wild1 min read
Subscribe to Wlid
Subscribe now & Get it by Xmas! It’s a great gift! Wild is no ordinary magazine. Since its establishment in 1981, Wild has been the inspiring voice of the Australian outdoors. It is a magazine of self-reliance and challenge and sometimes doing it tou
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[Wild Shot]
“Dan McKenzie, AKA Batman, wondering if he’s stuck or just figured out some fancy new beta before settling in for a night in the Bat Cave. The plan was for a night climbing session and I had barely arrived when a stormy sunset lit up the cave walls,

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