Community mourns hiker Lily Hooper as body recovered from NSW bush

Eight days after eighteen-year-old Lily Hooper disappeared into the dense bushland of New South Wales' Southern Highlands, her body was recovered in the dark — a discovery made all the more devastating by the cruel interval of false hope that preceded it, when authorities mistakenly reported she had been found alive. In the small town of Oakdale, where she had grown up and trained and smiled and left her mark on the people around her, a community now turns from searching to mourning. Her loss is a reminder of how swiftly the living become memory, and how deeply a single young life can root its