INSPIRING GALS
These ladies are out there having adventures! For too long women have been excluded from the landscape of the adventurous, here at Local Dehy we want to support women on their mission in the outdoors. These women value the preservation of our wild places. They love our food and love our commitment to sustainability. They make up part of the Local Dehy whanau.
As well as supporting these gals, we have also sponsored outdoor events by donating prizes to the women’s categories exclusively. Time to celebrate wahine!
Anna Cochrane
“I’m your typical adventurous Kiwi, based in Invercargill. You’ll find me either hiking, swimming, lifting weights or taking on challenges out of my comfort zone. In 2018 I hiked the Kokoda Track in PNG, I wanted to try new skills and challenge my long-held beliefs that I couldn’t do some things. Since being home in New Zealand I’ve tramped the Kepler, Milford, Heaphy, Routeburn, and the Raikura tracks and swam in the Tasman Lake, Lake Tekapo, Lake Marian, McLean Falls, and Lake Wakatipu to name a few…and yes, they were cold! My superpower is connecting with people, I’m that curious person in a hut talking to strangers. 2022 is about ‘Challenge and Movement’ ensuring the decisions I make are moving ME in the right direction, and not because of what others or society expects of me. That means to keep learning to love the body I’m in, its strengths, changes, wrinkles and scars, as heck we’ve had some journeys together!”
Follow Anna’s adventures on Insta: anna_cochrane
Lydia Bradey
“I am a mountaineer, IMFGA Mountain & Ski Guide and part-time physio living in Lake Hawea. I live in a house I co-designed partner – who is very funny, and my cat that’s really sporty – but not very academic! I fell in love with the mountains when I was young, and over my life, I’ve loved to travel, camp and climb. I got into big wall aid climbing in Yosemite back in the early ’80s, completing 10 big walls with 7 first female ascents. By the mid-’80s I discovered high-altitude mountaineering without the use of supplemental oxygen, climbing on Himalayan and Karakorum expeditions in India, Bhutan, Pakistan and Nepal. In 1988 I became the first woman to climb Everest without oxygen, which I have since guided five times. It’s important for me to share that I was always SUPER bad at sports, was clumsy and was teased about how I walked when I was at school. Sport came to me through the love of Big Nature, and the mountains. Life responds to those of us who try hard and find a passion. It’s the journey or the path that is the important thing to experience and relish, not the end goal”.
Lauren Murray & Paige Hareb
“Heya! I’m Lauren, a spontaneous and ambitious adventure photographer based out of Queenstown who is constantly looking for huts to enjoy, trails to hike, and peaks to shoot due to an obsessive passion for nature and creativity in imagery. In my earlier life, I represented New Zealand in football, now I like to capture and share captivating imagery of our beautiful landscapes and mountains whilst exploring our backcountry. I go into the mountains to shoot but also to escape, to allow my energy and mind to recuperate. Thoughts are de-cluttered and clear; dreams vast; and life is appreciated. In the mountains, I disconnect from expectations and worries and just get to be insignificant. Any struggle I might be facing is minuscule compared to the expanse of my surroundings and that allows me to just be. This is what it means to explore”.
“Hey there, I’m Paige, a New Zealand-born and raised professional surfer, with passions, aside from surfing, in skiing, snowboarding, hiking, and exploring. The Covid-19 era meant more time at home than the last 13+ years of my life on the World Surf League Championship Tour. This gave me the opportunity to properly explore my birthplace and backyard, leading to an appreciation that is different to when I am in the water. Being up on top of a mountain, often in the snow or cold, is a different kind of adventure but I embrace it all the same and am always happier than not that I did it when I come out the other end!”