Wild Horizons

Huw Kingston

Huw Kingston, whilst claiming to be Welsh, was actually born in England, something for which he has never forgiven his parents! He moved to Australia in 1991. At least he now lives in Wales: southern New South Wales.

Huw has had a long interest and involvement in environmental issues as well as a passion for the great outdoors. He has spent 25 years enjoying travelling by human powered means in wild places across the world. This has included a longstanding love affair with the Indian Himalaya, particularly travelling by ski. In Australia, Huw completed the City2City project, 25,000km of walking, skiing, mountain biking, river and ocean kayaking linking each of the State Capitals in a series of 7 journeys. Each journey followed the most interesting and challenging human powered route through mountains and deserts, along rivers and coasts.

Before Huw set up his business, Wild Horizons, 18 years ago, he worked in the outdoor equipment industry in the UK and Australia where he was Marketing Manager for Paddy Pallin; Australia’s oldest established outdoor company.

Wild Horizons is a multi facetted business with its common link being the outdoors. Wild Horizons run some of Australia’s best known and most popular mountain biking events. This included the Polaris Challenge, Australia’s first mass participation endurance MTB event in 1997 and now includes such events as The Briars Highland Fling MTB Marathon (Australia's ;argest MTB event), The 3 Ring Circus and the Mountains To Beach 5 day stage race. Wild Horizons also run a range of tours (walking, skiing, cycling) in Australia and overseas. The events are particularly renowned for their fun and community involvement.

Some of Huws past expeditions can be seen here

Huw is a regular contributor to a range of publications in Australia and elsewhere on outdoor topics and consults in various areas such as equipment and event management.

Until recently Wild Horizons had as its home base Ye Olde Bicycle Shoppe in Bundanoon in the Southern Highlands of NSW - a café and bike hire operation. YOBS was sold to some of the staff in February 2012.

Huw has a particular disdain for the stultifying effect of bureaucracy and the insidious creep of the nanny state taking away personal responsibility.

Huw’s strong belief in real action as a driver of change led him, in the environment arena, to bring about a number of successful initiatives. In 1991 he conceived and launched ‘Don’t Bag The Environment’ at Paddy Pallin outdoor stores. This initiative, still going 20 years later, saw 10 cents put towards a selection of environment campaigns each time a customer refused a bag for their purchases. He made The Highland Fling (a mountain bike marathon event attracting some 2000 riders) into Australia’s first Carbon Neutral cycling event and first bottled water free event.

In 2009 he was the initiator of Bundy on Tap, making the small town of Bundanoon, Australia’s (indeed the world’s) First Bottled Water Free Town. This created huge worldwide interest with the media across the world picking up the story. Hardly a country or major media outlet did not cover the story. Bundy on Tap in turn has led many individuals and communities to question the madness of bottled water and to look at turning back to the tap. Huw received a number of awards including being named one of Time Magazine’s 25 Worldwide Responsibility Pioneers and the 2009 news.com.au Green Hero.  In 2010 Huw was awarded the Sharing Citizen prize, judged by a grouping of European Cultural Organizations promoted by the Council of Europe and in 2011 Huw was awarded the Peter Rawlinson Award from the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) which recognizes outstanding contribution to the environment.

Huw Kingston can be contacted on This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it Tel 02 4883 6509. The website of Wild Horizons is www.wildhorizons.com.au. The website of Bundy on Tap is www.bundyontap.com.au