The purpose of this article is to explore and problematise teachers' talk about outdoor education in New Zealand. The focus is on what can be said, how it is said and the discursive effects of such ways of speaking. The inquiry draws on Foucauldian theoretical insights to analyse interview transcripts derived from semi-structured interviews with eight outdoor education teachers who work at secondary schools in New Zealand. Findings suggest that different discourses co-exist and are intertwined in the participants' talk. Associated with a dominating discourse of adventure are subdiscourses of risk and safety, pursuit-based activities, skill and assessment. Connected to a discourse of learning are subdiscourses of environment, sustainability and social critique. Resistance towards a dominating discourse of adventure with pursuit-based activities can be traced in a discourse of learning in the form of a more place-responsive pedagogy.