Katrina “Kat” Jensen passed away peacefully and on her own terms on 24 September 2025, after many years of living with Motor Neurone Disease.

Known to many Adelaide Bushwalkers (ABW) as Kat Vogt, she is fondly remembered for her brilliance, creativity, dark humour, infinite curiosity, and remarkable courage.

Brought up in Hawthorndene and educated at Blackwood High School, Flinders University and TAFE.

Her childhood was carefree roaming the local streets & bush lands. Her first degree was teaching (years R to 7) & she taught in some country schools. During Retirement, she added studies in electronics engineering and horticulture. She worked for the Education Department as a “Teacher of Many Things,” including physical education, music, science, and French.

Kat’s former husband was Tim Vogt, active in ABW in the 1980s and ’90s as a bushwalking and canoe trip leader. He taught outdoor education. They had two children, and Kat returned to her surname Jensen in the early 2000s.

Kat was an active member of the Adelaide Bushwalkers from the 1980s through the 2000s. A capable navigator, canoeist and caver, “push biker”, she was also a frequent participant in 12-hour walks – being in the winning team in 1984. Her interests stretched from the natural world to the cosmic: astronomy, geology, horticulture, orchids, foraging for edible plants, frog surveys, Monarch butterflies, auras even in Adelaide, and birdcall impersonations. She led walks in numerous locations in the Flinders and the Grampians and went on over 50 ABW trips.

Beyond ABW, Kat’s passions were eclectic: she enjoyed fire spinning, speaking French (and a touch of Russian), salsa & belly dancing, choir singing, karate & cemeteries.

She made hula hoops with fancy lights inside, had her own hula hoop business teaching children, & performed at venues.

She played the piano, didgeridoo (actually owned one), guitar and the ukulele. She closely followed developments in space technology, structural engineering (Darlington Motorway) and took delight in the unusual, the brilliant, and the beautiful.

She never stopped exploring, even during winter. Night was her favourite time. She continued attending Wednesday Walk ‘morning teas’, and led monthly full moon walks from her wheelchair/motor scooter & trains. She particularly loved the Flinders/Tonsley precinct with its curious intersections of science, art, and community. Generously paid for friends’ coffees & lunches.

Kat leaves behind two children, four grandchildren, and a bewildering variety of friends, former students, and fellow adventurers.

In true Kat style, she chose not to have a traditional funeral.

Instead, she hosted a series of social farewells that culminated in a spectacular final farewell party – Kat called her early 70th UnBirthday – attended by over 80 people. In Kat’s own words, the evening was spent “burning the tax records, melting the marshmallows, dodging the rain, garaging with the band, and being wowed by the fire spinners” .

She would like Donations to MND Association.

Deeply intelligent, often darkly funny, her last words to many of us were:

“Stay weird.— Katrina.”