A selected set of links to sites related to bushwalking and ski-touring in Australia. Some of these sites contain extensive link lists to even more sites.
Some of these personal sites have extensive sets of links to other personal sites.
Aushiker A personal blog site
by Andrew Priest which concentrates on outdoor activities in Western
Australia. Includes bushwalking and has some detailed notes about the
the major walking trails in WA
David Noble The one that writes for WILD magazine has about the same amount of walking in Tasmania as I have done. (There are two Dave Nobles, the other one is a park ranger and discovered the Wollemi Pine.) This site contains lots of information about the canyons behind Sydney and has an excellent photo gallery – well worth looking at.
Danny Yee As far as
I know, this was the first significant web page focused on bushwalking
and has always been an interesting source of information.
David Simpson An
interesting site which has some galleries for day walks in Tasmania but
the really interesting part of the site is its emphasis on storms and
the site contains some dramatic images and good information and links
to weather stations.
Geoff Murray A small site containing photographs of some of Tasmania's walking areas. There are some nice photos here that will give you another view of what these places look like.
Hiking
In Tasmania A personal website by Krishna. The major feature
are three very lengthy photographic tours of the Overland Track,
the Western Arthurs (including Federation Peak) and the Southern
Ranges (including Precipitous Bluff). With around 100 images in
each tour, they provide a very good feel of what there is. The
site also contains some useful links to walking resources for
those intending to walk in Tasmania.
Keith
Lancaster The diaries of this walking legend from Tasmania are
being placed on the web. They provide an interesting read of what it
was like many years ago. There are very few detailed records left from
the exploration period of the mid-twentieth century.
Ken Beath A photographic gallery site highlighting a number of bushwalking destinations in Australia.
Wise's Wilderness Has some good trip reports, a selection of photographs and a set of links to other sites. The Links page is extensive and a great site to browse for other bushwalking related sites. This site is also regularly growing and is worth revisiting.
WildTiger A new site
that attempts to cover Tasmania in detail, currently only has
some information. The site is programmed in XML and will not work on
old browsers, you require Netscape 7 or IE 6 to open the pages.
Bushwalking Australia This is the national body that represents the state federations with links to each state body. For those states without federations this site links the major clubs and sites of interest for each state.
Confederation of Bushwalking Clubs This is the site for the Confederation of Bushwalking Clubs in New South Wales. This represents about 67 clubs with around 10,000 members. The site contains a lot of information that is well worth reading if walking in New South Wales.
Bushwalking Victoria The Federation of Walking Clubs of Victoria is also fairly large representing about 70 clubs with 12,000 members. The web site is still growing and contains useful links to local clubs.
Kosciusko Huts Association While the association concentrates on huts in the Kosciuszko National Park, they also include information on huts in other areas as well.
Bushwalking Queensland
Another large site operated by the confederation of clubs for
Queensland with very
good general advice and a useful set of brief notes to many walks
in southern Queensland. While detailed track notes are not usually
provided, the information given will assist any walker planning
a trip to southern Queensland. There are 2 guide books to the
area - see my Bushwalking Guide Book
list page.
Walking
Federation of South Australia Represents 40 clubs in the
state.
Maroondah Bushwalking Club. One of Melbourne's largest clubs with a wide variety of trips running every weekend and also some during the week. Most members mainly do day walks and there is also a smaller (but keen) core group of overnight walkers and ski-tourers. Monica (my wife) is a life member of the club.
Victorian Mountain Tramping Club. The VMTC is one of Melbourne's larger and oldest clubs. It is well known, as for many years, the club published the walking sketch maps drawn by Stuart Brookes for the alpine region. These maps are now published under the trade name 'Bush Maps'. The club welcomes visitors and publish their 'Walks Program' on the web.
Bureau of Meteorology. An Australian Government organization that collates and keeps weather records and produces climate information to Australia. A very useful site to consult before visiting a new region - the only difficulty for visiting a new region is knowing which weather stations are relevant - consult an atlas for the closest towns.
Bibbulmun Track The Conservation and Land Management (CALM) site about the newly re-cut and extended long distance track (963km) from Perth to Albany. There is general planning information - the 'new' track was opened in September 1998.
Bibbulmun Track Foundation. This is the friends group is responsible for much of the track's maintenance and they also publish a lot of useful information about current track conditions. The web site has general information, membership details and sales lists. Most of the useful information is sold for a low price and the profits are used for the track.
Cape To Cape Publishing. The web site of the authors of the 'Cape To Cape Track Guidebook' and 'Cape to Cape Daywalks'. This is a walk from Cape Naturaliste to Cape Leewin in Western Australia.
Cape to Cape Friends Group. The web site for the friends group who maintain the track. The authors of the above guide are also active members of this group.
Department of Environment and Resource Management This is the Quuensland department that manages national parks in that state.
Queensland
Government camping
bookings for Queensland National Parks. Essential for bookings
for Thorsborne Trail
Department
of Lands NSW. Latest information on the Great North Walk, the Hume
and Hovell Track and the Six Foot Track.
Friends of the Heysen Trail. They are responsible for much of this track's maintenance and should be contacted if you are contemplating this trail. The web site does not contain a lot of information to download but they do produce good printed information for walkers to purchase.
Great Dividing Trail. The Great Dividing Trail Association has constructed a walking track from Castlemaine to Ballarat. This active group is currently working on extensions to Bendigo and the side track through Lerderderg Gorge to Bacchus Marsh.
Fraser
Island Taxi Service. Provides transport and food re-supply delivery
on
Fraser Island.
Heysen Trail. The official government web site for the trail - while there are several pages to view there is little real planning information. The most useful aspect is it is the place to order the trail strip maps or guidebooks. Contact the Friends group above for other information.
Larapinta Trail A good site run by the Northern Territory Park & Wildlife Service. Has information about the trail and current conditions particularly for which sections have been recently burnt and any known water problems.
Meridian Maps A
small publishing company who are creating some very high quality maps.
Most of the maps are designed for touring and driving and are excellent
for planning trips into the bush showing all tracks. Some of these maps
are at a higher scale and useful for bushwalking showing all major
tracks and roads.
Tasmanian Parks and Wildlife Service Has good general information about National Parks and includes information on current entrance fees. All of the information in the 'Welcome to the Wilderness' free booklet is available on-line - this contains some good advice. The site is worth a visit if you intend to walk in Tasmania. Just be aware there are no track notes here - the search engines incorrectly tell walkers to visit this site to get track notes. The notes they provide are general advice - not detailed route descriptions. You need to buy maps and/or one of the guide books - see my Bushwalking Guide Book page.
ParAvion Provide flights into Melaleuca in South-West Tasmania and can also place food dumps at the airstrip. From experience, I would suggest flying in with your food and carrying or hiding it as sometimes others steal just the goodies like chocolate and at other times take the lot (a disaster for your trip). Flights are subject to weather conditions and delays must be expected.
TasAir Like ParAvion above they also provide charter flights to Melaleuca. They also run scheduled air flights to King Island. Web site includes regular flight prices but no charter prices - you will need to contact them direct for quotes.
Tasmanian Expeditions A tasmanian tour operator specialising in cabin based walks, bushwalking expeditions, cycling, rafting, kayaking and climbing.
Tiger Wilderness Tours A tasmanian operator specialising in personal tours and also charter transport to most walking destinations.
Evans Coaches tel 6297 1335 operate a charter bus service based at Geeveston in Tasmania. During summer they provide a scheduled bus service to Cockle Creek and run regular charters to Scotts Peak Dam and Farmhouse Creek. Where possible, they will combine small groups to reduce charter costs.
There are several overseas sites that have asked to be linked here but as these sites contain minimal or incorrect Australian cross country ski content I have left them out. Some of the content to skiing in Australia that I have seen is wrong and obviously the author/publishers have never been here. The web is not moderated and no checking is done to see if information is accurate. If nobody else publishes a good guide then I will eventually expand this site to cover that too. At present I am concentrating on completing the bushwalking areas.
A large number of ski-tourers are also bushwalkers and the bushwalking club web sites near the top of this page run ski-touring trips and have some useful ski information.
All of these businesses sell books and/or magazines on bushwalking and climbing to Australia over the web.
Melbourne Map Centre. A good source for buying maps and guide books for travelling in Australia. You can order any of my guide books from them. At present, they do not yet have their full catalogue on their web site but just ask for books by name and they will help.
Open Spaces Publishing An
outdoor publisher who is also a distributor of our books. I recommend
them as the best source for credit card sales as we supply them direct
with books and they always have stock of all our titles - no waiting
while they order a book from us which is what some on-line bookstores
do.
Outdoor Australia. A national magazine published every 2 months which is aimed at a broad audience covering snow boarding and mountain bike riding as well as bushwalking and canoeing.
WILD. The main magazine in Australia for Bushwalking, Ski-touring, Canoeing and Caving. It started in 1981 and appears once every three months. They also publish 'Rock', which is a quarterly Rockclimbing and Mountaineering magazine. The invaluable 'Supplier Directory' which appears in each issue is now on the web - this is a list to most of the bushwalking shops in Australia.
Rodney Hyett Produces a beautiful yearly calender in black and white and has also self-published books of his photography based on the Great Ocean Road in Victoria.
Richard Bennett Best known for his images of yacht races around Tasmania, Richard has also photographed the south-west of Tasmania. Has published 11 books ranging from landscapes to yacht racing.
Peter Dombrovskis The best known wilderness photographer from Tasmania, he passed away more than a decade ago in 1996 and his photographs are still widely used. Published numerous books,, calendars, postcards etc.
Robert Rankin. Based in Brisbane, Robert has self published 3 books, dvds and calendars for several decades of wild places all around Australia.
Dennis Harding Less
known to many but has some excellent work. Has published a range of
photographic publications to Tasmania primarily for the tourist market
for many years.
Hiking & Walking Home Page While primarily aimed at America, this has a huge set of links to other sites around the world. It dos not contain any data itself but is a useful starting point for searches. A useful source if thinking of visiting another country.
Walking Britain
A fairly comprehensive site like mine to Australia describing
many of the major walking areas in Britain. Also contains an extensive
set of links for Britain and links to some overseas walking areas.
The Outdoor Directory
Another site for Britain about many of their fine
walking areas. Contains an extensive set of links to many walking sites
in Great Britain plus some overseas sites.
BestHikes. A site that
highlights the best overnight walks around the world. Good site to
visit if seeking the very best walks in another country. While
locals in each area might suggest other walks could be included, you
would not go wrong walking any of the suggested hikes.
Henk Nouws Walking Links An Amsterdam based source of a fairly large set of links to walking pages in many countries. Great if you intend to visit some of those more unusual overseas walking areas.
If you decide to link to any pages within this site, that's fine. All html pages will retain their names and addresses except the galleries. Due to limited web space, the galleries have been temporarily retired. I have made it clear from the start that the galleries are not permanent.
If you wish to be linked on this page send me an email. I will visit your site to gauge its accuracy and value to bushwalkers before linking it in here.