We’re excited to be giving away two copies of Fiordland by Grant Dixon & Ian Brown to our GrownUps members!
To be in the draw, simply make sure you’re a GrownUps member, signed up to our newsletter, and fill in your details at the bottom of the page.
About Fiordland
Fiordland is New Zealand’s largest wilderness – a vast maze of mountains, sheer-sided valleys, dense forest, and dauntingly high rainfall. Consequently, it presents some of the most challenging tramping and transalpine terrain in this country.
These challenges did not deter Grant Dixon and Ian Brown, two hardened Australian adventurers who, over decades, traversed the length of Fiordland, almost always off-track and on the tops, braving the steepest routes and ferocious storms while climbing numerous mountains along the way.
Both men have had a long love affair with the region.
“It was in the late summer of 1977. I stepped onto the tourist bus to Piopiotahi/Milford Sound, wondering what the windows in the roof were for. When we came around the corner into the Hollyford valley and the Darran Mountains, tourists and climbers alike, agog as one, pushed their faces against the misty windows to gape up the valley walls, and then up through the roof to find the mountain tops,” says Brown.
Brown says his memories of Fiordland are a precious horde that he is thrilled to memorialise in book form.
“Kea crying through the rain in high basins. Resting out the storm in a flapping tent. Squeezing delectable rock against a blue sky, fingertips worn to crying point. A rock wren hopping over boulders. Battling an ice wind and stinging, horizontal rain. Fresh snow on the summits. Strolling over alpine turf and daisies with jagged peaks all around, yellow-tipped at sunset. Sniffing out a passage through an unknown steepness. The magical beauty of the streams, forests and meadows.”
Dixon says although he had wandered parts of Fiordland on trips during the latter decades of the twentieth century, the concept of linking a series of trips as an alpine traverse of the entire region evolved with Brown after the pair’s first sojourn there together in 2011.
“This informal vision provided the planning context for repeat visits to the greater Fiordland region over the subsequent 15 years. I have spent a cumulative total of six months tramping and scrambling in the Fiordland hills during this time, and many more weeks during the preceding decades.”
Both Dixon and Brown are outstanding photographers, and Fiordland: Mountain Journeys is a stunning portrait of wild Fiordland, country most people never experience from the ground. With essays describing the highlights of their journeys, the book provides a unique perspective on what makes our largest national park so outstanding in a country already brimming with extraordinary backcountry. It will have great appeal to trampers, hunters and mountaineers, as well as armchair adventurers who prefer to experience epic journeys vicariously.
It will have great appeal to trampers, hunters and mountaineers, as well as armchair adventurers who prefer to experience epic journeys vicariously.
About the Authors
Ian Brown lives with his family in the Blue Mountains of Australia. He has been climbing, mountaineering and tramping in New Zealand since the 1970s, accumulating more than a year in the Southern Alps. Ian has made several first ascents in the Darran Mountains and was part of the first Australian team to walk to the South Pole without resupply. Ian is a former national park ranger and environmental consultant, a small publisher, a naturalist, and an activist. In 2000, Ian was awarded the medal of the Order of Australia in recognition of his South Pole journey and associated fundraising.
Grant Dixon is a photographer, earth scientist, wilderness researcher and conservation advocate. He was born and lives in Tasmania and ventures frequently into the wild country of Australia’s island state. Since the late 1970s, he has crossed the ditch to New Zealand on many occasions to explore its wild mountain country, particularly in and around Fiordland. Grant has also travelled extensively further afield, visiting parts of all seven continents on trekking and climbing expeditions. Images from Grant’s travels have been widely published; his work continues a Tasmanian tradition of photography that activates awareness of the environment.
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Terms and conditions
You must be a GrownUps member and subscribed to our newsletter to be eligible to enter.
The competition closes on 21st October 2026. Winners will be notified via email by 22nd October 2026.
It is your responsibility to provide a correct New Zealand postal address for prize delivery. GrownUps is not responsible for prizes sent to incorrect addresses.
Winners will be drawn at random by the GrownUps administration team.
GrownUps employees and their immediate families are not eligible to enter.
By entering, you agree to GrownUps using your name on social media as a winner of the competition.
One entry per household.
The prize is non-transferable and cannot be exchanged for cash or other items.
You must reside in New Zealand, as the prize can only be delivered within New Zealand.
You must be over 50 years of age to enter. Please ensure your membership details are up to date in your dashboard.
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