Help with Bushwise.

Official DPIRD forest maps as GeoPDF (.pdf) or KMZ (.kmz). Open the file from the Files app, or hand it to Bushwise through the iOS share sheet, and it appears in your Library.

From the NSW DPIRD website. Maps are published per forest and per quarter, so download the current quarter for the ground you're hunting.

DPIRD maps are issued quarterly, and the pill tells you where yours sits: green while it's valid, amber as it nears expiry, red once it's out of date.

It's a nudge to carry a current map. Bushwise won't stop you opening an old one — but the ground rules may have changed since it was drawn.

Yes. Export them from Avenza as KML or GPX and import them into Bushwise, which reads GPX, KML and KMZ — including Avenza's own export structure.

Lines and areas in the file are counted and reported rather than silently dropped, so you'll know if something in the file wasn't a marker.

Yes — that's the whole point. Once a map is imported it lives on your phone, and GPS is a satellite signal, so it needs no mobile coverage and no data.

Bushwise makes no network connections at all in normal use.

Give it a moment first. A cold GPS start under heavy canopy can take a minute or two to settle, and the ring around your dot shows how confident the current fix is — a wide ring means it's still working on it.

If the dot is consistently a long way out, check you've opened the right map for the ground you're standing on. A map from the wrong forest or the wrong quarter will place you accurately on the wrong drawing.

Bushwise pauses GPS sampling while you're standing still, which is where most of the saving comes from. On a modern iPhone, expect roughly 6% an hour while you're moving, and up to about 10% on a long day in poor reception.

For a full day out, bring a power bank.

Only so it can keep recording your track when the screen is off and the phone is in your pocket. Without it your breadcrumb trail would stop the moment you locked the phone, and trace-back wouldn't get you home.

Bushwise asks at the moment you first start recording, not on launch — and the track never leaves your device.

Use Copy coordinates in Google Maps, then paste into Bushwise. It accepts decimal degrees, degrees-minutes-seconds and MGA.

It won't work with the shortened maps.app.goo.gl links the Share button produces — those contain no coordinates at all, and resolving one would need a network round-trip, which rather defeats an offline app.

Zone alerts read the boundary outlines held in a GeoPDF's vector layers, so they work on PDF maps but not on a KMZ, which doesn't carry them. Open a KMZ and you'll see a quiet note saying so.

Either way the alerts are advisory. They tell you a boundary is near; the decision stays yours, and the official map remains the authority.

No. There's no account, no analytics, no servers and no third-party SDKs. The only network activity is Apple's own App Store billing, and only if you choose to leave a tip.

Export them. Markers go out as GPX or KML and tracks as GPX, through the standard iOS share sheet — mail them to yourself, drop them in Files or iCloud, whatever suits you.

Because nothing syncs to a server, an export is your backup.

Everything goes with it — maps, markers, tracks and photos. There's no copy on a server to restore from, so export anything you'd miss before you delete.

Yes, all of it. Every feature, no subscription, no unlock, nothing held back.

Nothing, ever. It's there if the app earns a place in your pack and you'd like to chip in. Tips are handled by Apple, and no payment details reach me.