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

In May 2022, at the age of 55, Kiwi journalist Claire McCall and her partner James set off to attempt four stages of the Hexatrek, a new 3034km high-level hike in France. In this excerpt from ‘Hiking the Hexa’, Claire ponders whether she’s cut out to

THE only Japanese force to land in Australia during WWII was a small reconnaissance party that arrived in northern WA’s Kimberley region on 19 January 1944, to investigate reports of the Allies building large bases there. The party consisted of four

The 32km Thorsborne Trail on Munamudanamy/Hinchinbrook Island, FNQ has been around for years but soon they’ll be an extra experiences for this challenging tropical hike. The Thorsborne Trail Enhancement Project will see facilities upgraded, the numbe

I didn’t start hiking until I was 30 when I did the Inca Trail in Peru and fell in love with the outdoors. Since then, my life has pretty much revolved around chasing adventure, which led me to move to the stunning Blue Mountains. When people ask me

THERE’S a stretch of sand where the tide lifts and lowers stories. With each ebb and flow, the passage of time etches in stone and escapes through estuaries. On the rapidly shifting shores of Inverloch, 150km south east of Melbourne, sandbanks stretc

THE last person to claim to have seen NZ’s famed giant moa was a seven-year-old girl who lived on Fiordland’s west coast in the late 1800s. Alice McKenzie kept a diary of life in one of NZ’s most remote settlements and in her 1947 memoir she says in

THE Grand Cliff Top Walk is a scenic 19km/two-day walk linking Wentworth Falls, Leura and Katoomba. Walkers will be able to stop and enjoy a night in a mountain village, choosing from a variety of accommodation options, and complete the track the fol

HERE in the antipodes, we’re sometimes a little slow to catch on to new hiking gear trends. For instance, many of our Northern Hemisphere trail buddies have been utilising trail running shoes in place of boots for years now, especially the ultralight

RENJO WINS A YETI YONDER 1L BOTTLE WORTH $42.95! Parisa Bajelan, Iran Camera: Canon 6D Parisa: “In the heart of the Lut Desert, a lone mud brick building stands atop a hill in Nayband town. Its triangular eco-designed windows glowing with a warm, in

NORTH Queensland Army Captains Monika Georgieva and Wes Walsh have completed the first recorded unsupported traverse of the Australian Alps Walking Track, trekking more than 730km in 19 days, 9 hours and 30 minutes. They had already come a long way b

THINGS are done a little differently in Okinawa. People are a little different too. ‘We are quite unlike the rest of Japan down here,’ they’ll tell you. ‘Our landscapes, our culture, our food, is really quite different to the rest of Japan,’ they’ll

THE northern road out of Kathmandu climbs quickly out of the city smog. Our Jeep swings around switchbacks, overtakes colourful trucks on blind corners, brushes past dust-covered foliage. The seatbelts don’t work and neither does the air-con. I drop

IT started with a casual conversation around the kitchen bench one weekend. In the wake of my stepfather’s passing six months earlier, Mum was navigating her loss and what the future might look like. For over 40 years, Mum and Sid had explored the wo

IN April 2023, we completed our ambitious project, “Project Base8000”. The goal was to trek to the base camps of all 14 of the world’s highest mountains over 8,000 metres – “the 8000ers”. This took us to the remote heart of the Himalayas and the Kara

RECENTLY we put up a post on the Great Walks Facebook page (facebook.com/GreatWalksmag) asking people what they thought were Australia’s toughest day walks and the response was overwhelming. Seems like a lot of people like to get their heart rate up

YOU hear all the time about experienced multi-day hikers who go to great lengths to whittle down their backpacking pack weights - many even sawing off the ends of toothbrushes and cutting the logos off their gear to save a few more grams. Such extrem

EVERY news outlet does it. At the end of the year they love to republish their silliest and craziest stories of the last twelve months. Really, it’s a just cheap and easy way to fill space and any self-respecting magazine wouldn’t stoop so low as to

John Evans, Gordon, ACT Camera: iPhone John: "An overnight trip to camp near Seamans Hut in Kosciuszko National Park. A new, sympathetically built matching stone toilet saves packing a poo tube. We exited to the south over the upper Snowy River valle

PORTUGAL is more than just the historic cities of Lisbon and Porto, velvety custard tarts (pasteis de nata), rich port wines and bacalhau (cod) dishes, more than grilled octopus and sardines, big wave surfing at Nazare and the golden beaches of the A