Things I wish I knew before walking Te Araroa from a New Zealand girl who thought she was prepared

In 2016/2017 my partner Jack and I walked Te Araroa.  About 5 months before we set out on Te Araroa we were able to attend a talk by Debby McColl at our local tramping club about her Te Araroa thru walk in 2010/2011 with husband Rob.  You might recognise their names from  Te Araroa book by Geoff Chappell as there a few photos of them dotted throughout.  Deb’s imparted some sage advice to future TA walkers.  Two things in particular that stood out were
1.Make your rules
2.Be flexible
It was the best possible advice to hear and was applied early on in our TA experience.
With the benefit of hindsight and while the TA is still a fresh memory there’s a few other things that were poignant during our experience that I would like to share.

Side note: Obviously everything I’ve written here is from a personal experience and It would be futile of me to think I could influence another person’s walk.  You can take it or leave it.  If you are anything like me you probably might leave it. So here we go, some thoughts on what I wish I knew before we started Te Araroa.

Be aware of false advertising

The trail is sold in a way that way that really makes you want to buy it.  After finishing the North Island section in January my partner Jack and I skeptically made our way to Picton on the ferry to start the South Island section.  I picked up the onboard magazine that happened to have an article about the trail.  I distinctly remember a snippet of the article that made me chuckle – You will walk along new Zealand’s best beaches, cross mountainous terrain, walk through moss covered forests…… There was no mention of the countless kilometres along state highways, the  allergy inducing bush bashing through gorse bushes or schlepping through cow shit covered farms.

In many ways Te Araroa is touted as such a grandiose experience.  When the reality is it’s a new, rough and ready trail with plenty of room for improvement. The media around Te Araroa is incredibly optimistic and has the tendency to promise the moon and  the trail has the impossible task in trying to deliver.  I get the distinct impression that a lot of published Te Araroa media is from the perspective of section walkers or those who are skipping particular sections.  Its seldom that you hear about the 3 days of road walking from Whanganui to Palmerston North or the monotonous road and farm walking from Mercer to Hamilton.

Before starting the TA I refused to believe anything that painted the trail in a poor light. Maybe I was optimistic, maybe I just wanted to find out for myself but there is something very true in the reviews that I wish listened to and there are plenty of them.  I remember listening to a scathing review of  Te Araroa by the Trail Show podcast (http://thetrailshow.com/tag/te-araroa/) but put it down to Americans being “soft” and not understanding New Zealand tramping. Well, Ha! It turns out their views are warranted but I just didn’t want to be believe them. So ignorance was bliss, for a while, then it meant quite a few not so pleasant surprises.

Ratea Forest and we had to put those shoes on in the morning

Herekino Forest

Roads, roads, roads

The people you meet will be the best part

I absolutely love the people we met and hiked with on the trail and I will remember them for life.  The TA community  is amazing and it’s a very special shared experience. It’s been many years since I spoke with people on such a personable level. Without phones and internet in your face 24/7 it’s very easy and it’s seldom that you spend time with so many people that have the same common goal.  I did not expect to met so many fantastic people and I certainly didn’t expect to miss them so much when we finished.

Claudia and Olaf

Anton, Tinothee, Harriett and Eloi

Mudskipper team mate Martin

Don’t worry about 90 mile beach, it’s what comes next that will test you

I was so worried about starting  Te Araroa.  Four days on a beach! What would that be like? Well It hurts and I never figured it out.  I walked with two pairs of socks and trail runners, I walked in sandals, I walked barefoot. My feet were still hamburgers with blood blisters at the end but you just do it.  The excitement and the resolve for the trail is there in every way and will spur you on.  No one really worries about what comes next but they should try and prepare because the Northland and Waikato forests are beautiful and challenging beasts.  There are now a few hundred hikers passing through each season and that means mud, a common experience on Te Araroa.  In fact my feet were wet and muddy for 80% of the time on the North island. For a while I was convinced I would get trench foot.  The forest trails are poorly maintained and subject to windfall but while the forests were challenging we were OK.  We would try and have fun with it and that included singing and laughing out loud.  We figured out that it was better for us to laugh and sing than cry and there was plenty of angry tears.  We also had to be honest as well, being thru hikers meant we were contributing to the problem.  Jack and I were simply two of the few hundred stamping through the forest eroding what little trail is left.  I do wonder about the sustainability of these sections in years to come and if issues with trail maintenance will ever be addressed.

Te Araroa will smash your ego

Before starting Te Araroa I was convinced I would become a trail warrior conquering beautiful mountains, rivers and volcanoes! I would skip through National parks having idyllic nature experiences. Well……that didn’t quite happen.

Eating shit after falling face first into a clay puddles on the Wione – Cokers track made me hulk mad but in hindsight it was what I now call ‘character building’.  I was to learn that this would happen over and over and over again and I had to change how I reacted.  I eventually I became cool with sliding down arse first on scree slopes and falling off broken fence stiles.  Yup it was scary but I had to remember that I was human and I will fall over.   In the wise words of kiwi’s everywhere I just had to ‘chill out bro.’

Pavement stroll to Devonport

Hiker gang heading to Auckland. Some people skip the entire Auckland section

More gravel roads

If you are through walking you will be, or at least feel like the minority

Leaving Ahipara we hit our first road section before Herekino.  A 4 wheel drive passed us and asked us if we wanted a ride to the trail head.  We politely declined and that was that.  We just made our first “rule”. For the next 4.5 months we would never get in a car on the trail. But while we thought this normal we met many others making their own rules.  We considered Te Araroa to be a thru walk and a walk that allowed you to walk the length of a country but many people don’t share the same ethos and will hitch all possible road sections.  I wasn’t expecting to have any emotions about this at all but I did. Quite frankly I was envious of the their experience.   Hitchers suffered less shin splints, experienced more kiwi hospitality and still received the same amount of kudos for much less effort.  There are even walkers that will sit in a car for over half the trail and still collect a finisher’s medallion.  Because hike your own hike right? Right?

 ‘Just do the South Island’

I didn’t want to believe that the North Island was as average as the podcasts and blogs would say, but the reality is I can count the highlights on one hand.
1.Tararuas
2.Mangawhai heads coastal walk
3.Tongariro crossing and Whakapapaiti track
4.Cape Reinga to Scott hill staircase
5.Whanganui river journey

Altogether these highlights are less than 500 kilometres and the rest is quite a lot of filler hiking and really mentally challenging stuff.  On the plus side you can get through a lot of podcasts and audiobooks.  An example of typical section on the North would be something like Pureora Forest park to National Park – Two days of road walking to 42 traverse which is a pretty dull bike/4 wheel drive trail which then goes onto Waione- cokers track, a muddy clay track (track is such a loose word on the TA, series of mud puddles is more accurate) where the only person we saw who was dumb enough to be in there was a weed farmer replanting new buds in a well camouflaged pot farm (yes he was surprised to see us too).  Then a road walk to Tongariro crossing where, while we had a stunning bluebird day we shared the trail with about 1000 other tourists.  The only time we didn’t have other people in our photos was once the trail joined to the Mangatepopo track and we walked to Whakapapa village. Then onto the stunning and oddly quiet Whakapapaiti track before your back into the mud then back on the road to National Park.  It’s too much average walking to get to the good stuff.  If you are short on time and cash just do the South Island – that’s why everyone says ‘just do the South Island.’

Your “through walk” will feel compromised

By the time we got to Auckland we were so sick of relying on people and tides for water crossings. We just wanted to walk. In the Northland section we felt like our lives were being ruled by tides and water crossings and because there are so many options we didn’t know if we’re doing the right thing or being true to the trail.  There were a couple times we had to walk roads instead of beaches and rushed sections to met tide times.  We had to apply Debs “be flexible” approach more than once even though I didn’t want to miss sections of the trail. But of course as we made our way down the country we did. Sometimes we didn’t have a choice.  For example We hit the Whanganui river section during Xmas. We wanted to walk to Mangapurua landing but this meant we would only be able to hire a canoe for one day.  The canoe company needed all canoes back for huge group that were arriving on the 27th of December.  Jet boating in a canoe to Mangapurua landing is also extremely expensive and I’m not sure why the trail doesn’t just officially start at Whakahoro.  Unfortunately we were tied to the canoe company as well as I sent a resupply box to them (bad move, should have just forked out for expensive food in National park or hitched back to Taumarunui).  Anyway we were forced to “be flexible”. We canoed from Whakahoro to Pipiriki and the canoe company offered to hire us bikes as a compromise. So we even biked on our “through walk” from Pipiriki to Whanganui.

Whanganui river journey

Thru biking?

Kayaking from Puhoi to Wenderholm

Water, water everywhere so you better know how to cross a river

Some hikers can’t sit still no matter what the weather. I would see in person and online sketchy behaviour that included people continuing to hike in poor weather, going through flooded rivers and doing non assisted crossings that seemed ludicrous.  I think a lot of people underestimate the raw terrain on  TA and how much the weather can play a part in the experience. I also don’t think the river crossings are emphasised enough. Even I was surprised about the rivers that we had to cross. I’m so glad Jack and I did a bushcraft cross before the TA which taught us how to read and cross rivers. Money well spent.

If you are from New Zealand you will feel my pain

The shared hut experience irked me a couple times which I also was not expecting.  Being from NZ I learnt hut etiquette early on in my outdoor experience so it was difficult to see others not reciprocating good manners.  That included the handful of TA’ers not paying for hut passes but continuing to use all the facilities and the entitled TA’ers who thought it was ok to graffiti dumb shit all over hut ceilings and bunks.  Yeah you’ll see what I mean when you get to Carey’s hut.

Some hikers (mainly males) are also very good at taking up space, making a mess and acting like they own the place. As a female it was too easy to make myself small and allow others to dominate the space.  I had to force myself to take up space in the huts and it’s something I strongly recommend to other women on the trail.  Remember that no one owns the huts.

You will spend more than what you budget and likely spend money when you don’t even want to

We spent the sum total of $12,500.  This seems like a lot and it is.  It doesn’t even include all our gear, this is literally just what we spent on canoe/kayak/bike hire, food and accommodation.  Most of it’s due to our unruly spending on the North Island where the trail continually funnelled us into towns.  It would have been super awkward to stealth camp in urban parks so we paid up. We also didn’t want to be “those cheap TA hikers” who take the piss and ruin the reputation of the trail for other hikers.

There were also times that the trail funnelled us into some of the busiest tourist towns in New Zealand like Lake Tekapo and Queenstown to name a few.  We did more than once end up paying $25-40 to tent at holiday parks who also charge $2 for 10 minute shower. We would have preferred a bed for night and would have paid extra for it too but alas it’s difficult to prepare accommodation from a mountain top with no reception.

It will hurt, right to the very end

When we got to Ahipara after 90 mile beach I was crippled. I couldn’t walk and limped around for a day before we started the Northland forests. While the pain was never again that intense it never stopped hurting.  Right to the very end something hurt. I really thought my body would just get used to it and I would be amazingly fit and strong and fly through the mountains and do 50 kilometre days and it would feel like nothing. Yeah um, that never happened. But I did learn to switch the pain switch off, if I didn’t I would enjoy nothing. When I couldn’t do that panadol and coffee worked a treat. Sure we had some adrenaline fuelled days that spurred us on and we felt like champs but at the end, mostly thanks to the Oreti beach section and a return to road walking Jack and I both limped into Bluff.  Even as I write this, nearly two weeks after finishing the trail I still can’t walk properly when I first get up in the morning and my feet are still swollen, one size bigger than normal.

Regrets?

So there it is – things I wish I knew before I started the trail.  But there’s something else. Te Araroa was quite possibly the best experience of my life. While I would not call it life changing, it’s just a walk after all, I did love being outside everyday, challenging myself and my body.  I saw some amazing things and met some incredible people. I don’t regret a thing.

Mangawhai beach

DAY 6