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    "I Wouldn't Hike In Anything Else" Official Outsider Jodie After Her Trip to Australia's Red Centre.

    November 05, 2025 4 min read

    "I Wouldn't Hike In Anything Else" Official Outsider Jodie After Her Trip to Australia's Red Centre.

    Australia’s Red Centre: Hot. Cold. But always comfortable with io.

    Despite having been on some pretty epic adventures all over the world, (including a relatively recent one in Africa that you can read all about here), one place Official Outsider Jodie had never quite gotten around to visiting was Australia’s Red Centre, despite it being in her own ‘backyard’!

    “I guess I knew I’d get there eventually” she said, “but I’m drawn to what’s different”. So having prioritised some of the world’s more exotic places, where she enjoyed how different both the environment and the culture was, it was time for Jodie to go to the Red Centre with io.

    While she didn’t have the time to hike the entire 231kms of the Northern Territory’s famous Larapinta Trail that follows the rocky spine of the West MacDonnell Ranges, she decided to take in some highlights with 9 days of back-to-back hiking, combining the hike with her first trip to the iconic Uluru, Kata Tjuta and Kings Canyon in Watarrka National Park.

    The scale of Uluru. The spectacle of Kings Canyon. The comfort of io. 

    Uluru itself made a real impression. “I don't know how I can explain it, but it was just the scale of standing next to the red wall of rock and looking up. It was the scale and it being so different. You can be near a cliff or something, but this is so different because these massive walls of red rock were just unique.”

    In addition to being a deeply sacred site for the Indigenous Anangu people, as one of the world’s largest and oldest rock formations, it really is quite unique. 

    Next stop was Kata Tujta and then on to Kings Canyon where Jodie did the full rim walk at sunrise, something she says was also “spectacular”.

    It was during this first part of her adventure that her io came in handy, not just during the day, but also at night.

    Sleeping in open swags in the outback posed a few challenges, only one of which was solved with io. 

    “A few times I heard noises in the bushes behind me and it kept me awake. Plus it got pretty cold at night so I ended up sleeping in one of my io shirts and that kept me nice and warm.”

    When it came to Larapinta, it turns out Jodie’s perception of the lay of the land was a little disconnected from the reality. 

    While Mt Zeil in the ‘West Macs’ isn’t exactly a giant on the world stage, at 1,500+m it gives a hint at how ‘not flat’ the MacDonnell Ranges can be in places. 

    “I guess I was a bit ignorant before and thought it was pretty flat out there without too much elevation - but there’s a whole big mountain range which I wasn’t expecting! We hiked some fairly serious elevation and I struggled a bit in the heat at times. The main challenge was doing multiple days in a row, but you get into the routine of it pretty quickly and you say to yourself ‘Yeah, this is what we do - we get up and walk’. You sleep, you eat, you walk.”.

    As for the pace, it was fairly relaxed, with the exception of one particularly enthusiastic 71 year old woman. “She was a gun! She was probably the fastest one in our group. But there was no pressure to go fast and we could just go at our own pace.” 

     

    It’s absolutely game changing, I wouldn’t hike in anything else.

    Regardless of pace, when the temperature rose during the day, staying as comfortable as possible was a priority. 

    “I get a bit sweaty when I hike, so one of my favourite things about io is the non-smell. I wore my io every day and it was good in the heat. I bought a new blue ultra tee before I left and I wore that most of the time during that day. And I wore my green universal tee that I bought for Botswana, on the last day to feel nice and fresh.”

    As with the first part of the adventure, even though they were no longer sleeping in open swags, come night time the temperature shifted significantly again, and it was more about keeping warm than cool and comfortable. Yet again, Jodie’s io was the go.

    “In the evening I went for my long sleeve Mongrel because the minute the sun went down it was freezing!”

    From Uluru to Larapinta, from hot days to freezing nights, Jodie yet again proved that io is the way to go.

    Marketing hype aside, in her words, a real person, wearing real clothes on real adventures, Jodie had this to say:

    “I was pretty much head to toe in merino. It keeps you comfortable even in the heat. You don’t know you’re wearing it, it’s nice and soft, and you can wear it day after day - that’s the best thing for me. I don’t know how I travelled without merino, it’s absolutely game changing, I wouldn’t hike in anything else.”

     


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