Tributes have flowed for 18-year-old Lily Hooper, remembered as an adventurous, multitalented athlete with an infectious smile, after her body was found on Thursday afternoon, eight days after she disappeared while hiking in the New South Wales southern highlands. The teenager was a fixture across local sporting and community groups in the Wollondilly region, training in martial arts, alongside her job as a Sydney BridgeClimb guide. In her home town of Oakdale, the community gathered for a vigil on Friday evening at Willis park.
By Saturday morning, the park fence was adorned with flowers, fairy lights and electric candles. The Wollondilly Performing Arts Centre and the shire library were illuminated in purple. The mayor, Matt Gould, said on Friday that the community had rarely been as devastated.
The brigade said in a statement that the community is navigating a “deep sorrow … as we all remember the shining light that has touched so many of us”. Hooper trained at Toodokan Self Defence Academy, which cancelled classes on Thursday afternoon after the news. The academy said in a tribute that Lily was “a beautiful soul, taken far too soon”.
Her martial arts instructor, Mark Szalajko, said he would miss her smile and conversation, describing her as a talented, tough fighter. She was one of those people who everyone simply liked,” he said. The Burragorang District Soccer Club also posted a tribute on social media in Hooper’s honour: “Our community has lost a truly beautiful person, and our hearts are heavy with sadness.” Hooper’s high school, Campbelltown Performing Arts – where she graduated in 2025 – remembered her as a “kind, humorous and respectful young woman who lit up every room with her infectious smile, positive energy and determination to live life to its fullest”.
Another commented “I feel incredibly privileged to have known her and to have shared so many memorable moments with her. What I will remember most is the loyalty she had for her beautiful best friends.” Sydney Harbour BridgeClimb, where Hooper worked as a guide, issued a statement saying she was “an absolute delight from the moment she joined and lit up every space with her smile and enthusiasm”. Her father, Jim Hooper, showed off a guitar and packet of Tim Tams he had brought to the site “because it might lure her out of the bush”.
Hope was shattered barely 30 minutes later. The police commissioner, Mal Lanyon, later told reporters in Goulburn that the devastating miscommunication was “born out of elation”. The assistant commissioner Joseph Cassar told reporters in Moss Vale on Thursday afternoon that the searchers had carried handheld radios and faced communication challenges in the “thick, dense terrain”.
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