Outdoor Magazine

a life lived in moments

COUNTLESS COLD, winter hours pounding the dirt or concrete upon a predawn course. Then sweat, exhaustion and gruelling repetition in stinking summer heat. Thousands of punishing kilometres pushing your body to the brink of collapse. Sacrifice and commitment have become second nature. Until, finally, the moment arrives. Life is made of moments such as these. The training, the preparation, the gaining of experience. All of it designed to ready yourself for key moments that add significance to the grand journey ahead. Each of the stories that feature in our end-of-year issue have been planned and considered. In many respects, they are the culmination of years of training and organising. At their heart, the adventures covered in this issue are parts of bigger things to come. Perhaps Catherine Lawson and David Bristow will…

right here, right now... right here, right now.

DAVID CAULDWELL David's most memorable trip to date was a 10-day solo hike in the Isle of Skye, Scotland, an initiation of sorts where his feet aged like fine cheese, and he also matured as a lone vagabond. He's itching (not from all the midge bites) to soon disappear into the wilds of Patagonia or Canada, where he'd love to sit by a turquoise lake or watch a bear catch fish. LAURA WATERS Laura is a nature nomad with a passion for hiking, paddling, scuba diving and anything else in the great outdoors. A 3000km/5 month hike from one end of New Zealand to the other ended up being a life changing journey, inspiring her to give up a corporate job in favour of a life of adventuring. CATHERINE LAWSON Captivated by wild places and…

outdoor magazine

Editorial Editor Aaron Flanagan Deputy Editor Sam Richards Senior Designer Janina Roque Production Manager Danielle Beadman Contributors Ash Gray, Richard Bowles, Bel Smith, Catherine Lawson, David Bristow, Johan Augustin, Laura Waters, Jack Phillips, Adam Jane, David Cauldwell. Digital Marketing marketing@emprisegroup.com.au Head of Marketing Lauren Grigg - 0436 407 493 lgrigg@emprisegroup.com.au Digital Marketing Executive Shubhangi Bhalekar sbhalekar@emprisegroup.com.au Marketing Coordinator Rebecca Lamplugh rlamplugh@emprisegroup.com.au Marketing Coordinator Craig Gonsalves cgonsalves@emprisegroup.com.au Marketing Coordinator Will Hayward whayward@emprisegroup.com.au Advertising Enquiries sales@emprisegroup.com.au www.emprisegroup.com.au Head of Partnerships VIC/SA Christopher Jefferson - 0477 775 020 cjefferson@emprisegroup.com.au NSW/QLD - Serena Prasad - 0429 489 615 sprasad@emprisegroup.com.au Danielle Gowan - 0435 065 325 dgowan@emprisegroup.com.au QLD - Heath Parry - 0412 957 475 hparry@emprisegroup.com.au WA - Ian Glyde - 0447 318 114 iglyde@emprisegroup.com.au Private Advertising www.tradervs.com.au/sell07 3340 0000 Customer Service info@emprisegroup.com.au Executive Group Chief Executive Officer Robert Gallagher rgallagher@emprisegroup.com.au Chief Financial Officer Matthew O,Meara momeara@emprisegroup.com.au…

the clearest views from memory lane

What makes certain memories sear into your memory more intensely than others? The theme of this issue – unforgettable moments – got me thinking about this question from an outdoorsy perspective. For me, at least, memories of camping trips seem to be more vividly portrayed in my mind's eye than, say, a weekend in a new city. Why is this? To find out, let’s go on a deep dive into the mysteries of memories and why some are more enduring and powerful than others. Here I'll focus on autobiographical memory – that is, your mental record of lived experience, not semantic (factual) or procedural (skill-based) memory, although they can overlap. First up is emotional context. The connection between emotion and memory makes perfect evolutionary sense. If something makes us feel good, it's…

to capture or enjoy the moment?

The mantra that smartphones are making people insular and closed off from the world around them, though true, is now in the realms of cliche. We’ve all heard it and said it a billion times. It is imprinted on our neurons like text on the page. Which is why I feel slightly awkward about that other piece of tech, the camera, that preoccupies us when we should really be enjoying the outdoors. I’m an avid photographer myself, I’m not having a dig. It’s just that when I’m walking around a beautiful place, tweaking settings and seeing it only through my viewfinder, I become slightly self-conscious. But then, is the alternative of simply standing around in the outdoors with arms spread wide, soaking it up, any better? Is the idea that you should force…

ethical adventures, award winning destination

“Lord Howe Island is so extraordinary, it’s almost unbelievable”SIR DAVID ATTENBOROUGH Lord Howe Island’s existing Sallywood (Lagunaria patersonia) Swamp Forest is an endangered ecological section of Earth’s biodiversity endemic to the island alone. Nearly 200 years ago, it was cleared by the island’s early settlers because the forest’s natural habitat, a relatively small area of flat land on the otherwise mountainous island, was deemed suitable for pasture and crops. Back then, the settlers weren’t to know the land they cleared for food and farming was in fact the only place on Earth where the relatively innocuous-looking forests existed. In 1834 when British whaling vessel, Caroline, sailing from New Zealand, landed on Blinky Beach carrying the first permanent residents of the island, such things were non-existent concerns. Fast forward to today and the urgency…