I've put a link to my own trip reports and route guides for one possible interpretation of a 'Length of the NZ Main Divide' trip (both north and south islands) here:
http://tramper.co.nz/?10244
The trip is still incomplete (have yet to walk the section from Wanaka south) and there are sections yet to be written up, but it's a start.
Be warned - look at the details of each leg. Some are relatively easy - others are extremely difficult. All are rewarding.
You've given me a bit of a kick up the arse, and I'll try and work on the remaining route-guides in the next few weeks. Some are still sitting in notebooks from 2006!
I'm sure your routes were a lot more interesting. There's a lot of boring retired pastoral leases to walk through in Canterbury but apparently the Te Araroa walkers are happy to walk along something easy going.
I've heard of a few people piking from the route Janet and I took through Fiordland due to the weather forecast. We were very lucky with the weather when we did it.
Just read a fascinating account of someone's pioneering trip from Puysegur Point to Te Waewae Bay in the 19th century and it rained for the first 14 days of his trip. A better account than even the Lauper/Whitcombe story. And they had some good ideas such as taking well-fed dogs along in case they ran out of food and a very resourceful 'half-caste' who excelled at handling the flax raft when crossing a flooded river.
By crickey Madpom. I thought that trip only existed as a bucket list trip in my head. To see youve all but done it. Top stuff.
"all but done it"? - I think the hardest (and best) bit's left!
Just got to get up hilary step aye?
Yes Honara - I put together my own Fiordland traverse route, pouring over maps, but the end result is almost identical to yours, and many other people's. I suspect given the same terrain we'd mostly chose the same route.
Next year ... hopefully. If they're wrong about 'El Nino' that is.
From more of a Te Araroa perspective, this guy's recently been blogging about his experiences in diverting his North-Island route through the Ruahines and Kawekas, towards getting a more interesting experience than the official TA route.
http://www.rambleon.co/#!blog/cmy4
He's going south to north and I believe he's still going.
Thanks for all the good info! Lots of research to do. I'm not familiar with all the town and mountain range names like you guys so I may end up plotting some things in google earth alongside the TA kmz file. You guys mind if I bug you for details later on?
I don't mind walking on dirt roads or farm tracks but I am not real interested in sidewalks and paved roads so eliminating some of those would be great, as well as getting off the beaten path.
be aware a lot of nz tracks can be fairly rough going, and you may need to navigate to stay on your route... theres a lot of overgrown tracks, its not like the PCT or appalachian trail..
@Hikerbox: I guess you know you can study the routes on the free topomap site.
http://www.topomap.co.nz/
