The Kimberley region is a barren land in Australia and also a famous adventure destination. Recently, adventure expert Sarah Marquis ventured deep into it to enjoy a fantastical journey. In the photo, she is picking edible plants.Photography by KRYSTLE WRIGHT, NG CREATIVE
Sarah Marquis is not only a columnist for the National Geographic Society but also an outstanding adventurer. She has wandered across the Mongolian grasslands and trekked through the jungles of Laos. During one trip, she unfortunately came down with a fever and, to prevent falling into the water, she tied one of her legs to a tree and endured it for three days. Sounds tough, right? But in her own words, the hardest part was actually having to search for food every single day.
Marquis is a fearless extreme adventurer. For over 20 years, this Swiss woman has embarked on numerous solo expeditions, lasting months at a time, often in near-total isolation. Additionally, she is a vegetarian, which made her time in meat-centric countries like Mongolia especially challenging — her top daily priority back then was finding enough polygonaceae plants.
Recently, Marquis completed a three-month survival journey in the Australian wilderness, instantly earning the awe of us soft office editors. Lilies, wild passionfruit, and even crickets became her meals — even vegetarians make exceptions. Now, let’s welcome our survival queen, Marquis, to share some wilderness knowledge.
Sarah Marquis is exploring the Kimberley wilderness in Australia.Photography by Krystle Wright, NG Creative
Marquis places the highest priority on food supplies during her preparation phase. Typically, she packs around 20 kilograms of healthy rations, including quinoa, buckwheat, pasta, rice, vegetables, and fruits for snacks. Alcohol and tobacco are obviously not included.
“A strong body is my reward — it’s like my sports car, and I have to fuel it with the best,” Marquis laughs.
“Every time I go to a new country, I research its plants in advance,” she says. She needs to figure out which plants are edible, which have medicinal properties, and which are deadly. Even if she can’t identify the exact plant species, she can often draw analogies and stay generally safe.
If a plant looks harmless, she doesn’t rush to eat it. Instead, she crushes it and applies it to her wrist to check for any redness, swelling, itching, or pain.
Sarah Marquis is examining leaves.Photography by Krystle Wright, NG Creative
The second step is touching the plant with the tip of her tongue. If there’s no adverse reaction, she will then chew small pieces.
In the wild, she dislikes red plants because they’re often toxic. She also keeps a bit of food in reserve just in case. In the arid northern regions of Australia, she makes palm-sized pieces of flatbread from 100 grams of flour each day as a supplement to whatever food she finds.
It’s also important to frequently assess your physical condition. “Fear is not entirely useless.” If you feel something like an electric current shooting up your spine to your head, that tingling sensation, then you should be cautious.
“For ordinary people who frequent shops, my lifestyle might seem terrifying. But after years of practice, I’m usually at ease. If you spent this much time in the wild too, you’d become more natural and primal. My instincts are much sharper now than those of office workers,” Marquis laughs.
In truth, it’s precisely because she’s spent so much time close to nature that she’s fallen in love with it. “Humans are so small — sometimes you can hardly feel your own existence. It’s an incredible feeling, like an ice cube melting into the desert. And suddenly, the wind, the sun, everything around you seems to cast your shadow.”