With nearly two years of high school still ahead of me, and with a few long day walks in the Adelaide Hills to bolster my sketchy confidence, I bravely walked into a room somewhere behind the SA Museum. 

It was early 1965 and my purpose was to attend an ABW General Meeting. As I entered the room, I was immediately struck by how everyone was older than me, with a moderate spread of years either side of thirty or so it ...

Let’s make eating the highlight of the day!

Here is a list of over 50 tried and trusted recipes suitable for preparing on an overnight walk, with the food carried in the pack. No fresh meat, chicken or fish are included in recipes because of their vulnerability to contamination.

Quantities of ingredients in recipes are on the assumption that bushwalkers are usually hungry on a walk. Amounts may need to be varied depending on the nature of the trip or appetites of ...

Everyone knows protein is important on hikes. If you don’t factor enough in, your body may not adequately manage its wear and tear. The result is a gradual loss of strength and endurance instead of a gain in fitness. It isn’t a big deal for just a few days but the longer the trip, the more it matters.

The amount needed is up for debate, but it’s somewhere between 30 and 80g per day. But like so much in nutrition, we ...

It’s right in the middle of the peak South Australian walking season, so I’ll keep this brief. You’ve got trails to walk.

The headline article is the sort of thing we all want to see a LOT more of. That is, stuff by you, in your voice. I can’t tell you how much I love this article. Just read it and see for yourself.

Mike has then written an entertaining piece about the big pond at Wilpena. It’s so great to ...

So, I’m watching episode 7 of House on Netflix, fiddling with my laptop and staring at the ABW website walks page.

Packrafting in Tasmania. End of March this looks good. TREVOR oh no! That can’t be good.

Hit the View button, the red JOIN THIS ACTIVITY button is staring at me, voices in my head say no don’t do it, press it, no don’t do it, you know he’s crazy, don’t do it.

5:15 pm March 5th, 2025, and I’m stepping off flight ...

Wilpena Gap’s ‘Big Pond’ as I call it, sits in a peaceful setting just meters off the dirt road that takes you into the Pound from the tourist village, and this surely must be the most visited pond in the Flinders. It’s filled by water from Wilpena Spring which is situated in the Pound as close as the creek gets to the former Hills homestead and with probably a much larger contribution from underground flow.

Below the pond, ...

Look out there, what do you see?

I see a blaze of sun coated peaks surrounding this rocky mountain zenith,

A scarlet currency of outback and altitude that draws both climber and gaze,

And like the many climbers up here before me, I’m not disappointed atop Patawarta,

So I see the world as others do, mostly, logically, typically…

Look out there again … what do you see?

I see jagged summits guarding a distant plain, postcard soldiers beneath a blue Camelot sky,

I see an encircling ...

Patawarta Hill, an impressive landmark some ten miles north of Blinman, is a red sandstone peak, 3,306 feet high. It is at the south-western end of the pound-like formation which has Mt. Hack at its northern end, but unlike Mt. Hack, which appears simply as a bump on a ridge, it is a distinct peak rising well above its surroundings. A trip to Mt. Hack was described by Alison Beer in “Tarndanya”, 1967. [Mt Hack is the highest bump on ...

The Arthur Range in Tasmania sits at the pinnacle of Australian hiking experiences. Spectacular, unique landscapes line a trail that is both challenging and extremely fulfilling. It contains some of the hardest on-trail experiences in Australia.

So your question is: ‘I’ve done easier hikes, am I ready for South-West Tasmania?’ This guide aims to answer that question.

This is a region where many hikes don’t go according to plan. Mostly it’s for mundane reasons, but occasionally they become tragic ones*.

I first found reference to this in the Australian Emergency Plus app (a very useful app to have on you phone for emergencies) and saw it used in the UK by the driver of a broken-down car to give his location. 

what3words is an app that has partitioned the earth into 3-metre-square areas and given each square a unique three-word ID. For instance “strike.eggs.sake” is the front door of the ABW meeting hall.

As can be seen from the above, when entering an ID, the ...

Are you interested in hiking the Larapinta? Hopefully after reading you’ll have a better idea if it’s for you, and what preparation you’ll need. Then you might like to take a look at our 17-day itinerary.

This article is designed as a quick summary of the important points. Additional resources include the excellent official trail site and Chapman’s guide to walking the Larapinta Trail. While all effort has been made to ensure accuracy, please do not rely on this information alone.

Five of us recently walked the entire 223km Larapinta Trail route west to east, including a highly recommended side trip. We took these notes along the way.

Why west to east? To all of us it felt more significant to finish in Alice Springs. That and it was less hassle not having to coordinate with a transport company*. A lot of ink has been spilled about walking east to west so the sun isn’t in your eyes. It wasn’t in ours ...

The creature challenge for readers this month is to identify the moth or butterfly in Ann’s excellent photo from the Gammon Ranges. For the moment, it could be either a butterfly OR moth – see below!

Butterflies and moths differ in their wings, antennae, body shape, activity patterns, and how they transform from larva to adult. 

The following is a brief account of a walk in 1992 round the perimeter ridge of Wilpena Pound completed by Steve Weir and Graham Dingley with Jan Dingley supplying back up support.

Anyone visiting Wilpena Pound can’t help noticing the broken ridge running all the way from Pompey Pillar to St. Mary’s Peak – that’s what makes it the ‘Pound’. It’s such an obvious feature that the idea of walking round the ridge probably jumps to most walker’s minds when they ...

What an epic:

‘The Aussie 10’ is a hike I’ve been planning for years: to summit the highest 10 peaks in Australia; but the timing to do this has been continuously thwarted. These mountains are all conveniently located within the Kosciuszko National Park, NSW. Also though, there are very interesting mountains in vicinity of the Aussie 10 – all about or above 2,100m, so my list of summits to ...

Members will no doubt be saddened by the widespread recent burn in Gariwerd / The Grampians. What started as two fires in late 2024 had by January 2025 merged into an enormous area in the central Grampians.

The map shows the final extent of the fires. Thanks to heroic efforts of firefighters, there was only minor damage to structures, but the toll on the bush and its wildlife was unavoidable. Special efforts have been made to ...

Whether we know it or not, ABW members owe a large debt to Peter Beer, who passed away in the Royal Adelaide Hospital on Sunday 22/9/2024. On joining in 1959, he and a handful of energetic, young members found a club entering its adolescence after foundation in 1946. It could not have been in safer hands.

Peter was one of those people who put their best into everything they do. He was a frequent and popular walk leader, and intrepid explorer of ...