Newsletter 10th September 2026: A few new things at Wild Things

Hey,

We've been busy tinkering away at Wild Things over the last few weeks, with a few new ways to explore, plenty happening with our Wild Challenges, and — somewhat ironically for an email — a way to get fewer emails from us.

🌏 Wild Things has gone (a little more) global

We've added Rest of the World to the Trail & Peak Directory.

A recent trip to Rarotonga gave me the final push, so there are already a handful of Rarotonga trails and peaks in there — and we've got members sending us trails from France, Canada and elsewhere too.

There's not much there yet, but that's where you come in!

If you've got a good trail from a holiday, race trip or anywhere else in the world, send it in. And remember, you'll get $10 Wild Things shop credit or a free month of VIP for every trail we publish.

👉 Read more

🗺️ More useful maps

We've also added a couple of new map overlays for VIP members in New Zealand.

LiDAR gives you an incredibly detailed look at the shape of the terrain — handy for picking out ridgelines, old forestry roads and other features that aren't always obvious on a standard map.

There's also a new Public Access overlay, using data from Herenga ā Nuku — a great way to better understand where recognised public access land exists.

Both overlays can have their transparency adjusted, so you can blend them with your normal map while you're researching somewhere new.

And one other handy map tweak: you can now set your favourite map style as your default. Just hit the ⭐ on the basemap you prefer and we'll remember it for next time.

👉 Explore the new map overlays

🏃 Wild Challenges

Our PURE Race Fuel Challenge came to an end last week — and yup, I'm a bit behind drawing the winners...

I also dropped the ball on drawing quite a few of the weekly spot prizes during the challenge...

So the good news is I'll be drawing a huge 38 winners, divvying out our HUGE $1,800 prize pool very soon. Keep an eye on your emails if you took part!

We've also got two other challenges underway at the moment:

Your Routes. Whatever they are.

This one is all about our new(ish) Personal Routes feature. I was beating Katie for a while, then I took a week's holiday and my twice-daily commute stopped — now I don't think I'll ever catch her...!

Join the challenge here (if you haven't already).

Oh, and on the topic of Personal Routes — you can now set a weekly or monthly completion goal, see your progress towards it, and keep an eye on how your times are trending.

The Hunua Hillbilly

Dave and his team behind this epic event are awesome supporters of the Wild Things community, and once again they've stepped up with three free entries to give away, valid for any distance at the 2027 event — worth up to $960!

Want to win a free entry?

And yes, you can join a Wild Challenge late. We'll automatically award any challenge points you've earned since the challenge started, so you won't miss out just because you joined late.

🔔 And finally... want fewer emails from us?

We've added notifications inside Wild Things, so more of the useful stuff can now reach you there instead of everything needing to land in your inbox.

You'll see notifications for things like challenge updates, badges, Personal Route PBs and goals, FKTs, community activity, orders and other useful bits and pieces.

Which also means you can now be a bit more ruthless about which Wild Things emails you actually want to receive.

👉 Choose your email preferences

You'll find your new notifications under the 🔔 whenever you're logged in.

That's probably enough new stuff for one email. Next time: the shop. Although if you want a sneak peek, you know where to look... 👀