Is the Te Araroa Trail a con?

Where do people get the idea that our tracks and routes are any rougher then elsewhere in the world... I done quite a bit of tramping in North America and Europe and was on tracks just as rough as I have seen in New Zealand.

@Gaiters, maybe. In the end I think it comes down to what volunteers are willing to put in the effort for. With a few exceptions Te Araroa has been largely volunteer and enthusiast driven, with some occasional local and national government acknowledgement, certainly until very recently. I'm not sure of how Te Araroa is sold overseas, if at all. From what I can tell it seems to attract the people it does because of simply existing as what it is. If you already like long distance trails and you want to visit New Zealand and you happen to google it, Te Araroa is now what you find. Lots of the Te Araroa development focus has been about finding or creating legal and reasonably practical ways to connect many of the walking routes that already exist. Without especially caring about walking the length of NZ, I personally like the precedent of connecting stuff together for making it possible to walk between places in reasonably logical ways that don't automatically assume you should simply walk next to crash barriers on the asphalted shoulders of State Highways everywhere. Longer term, I hope we'll see some motivations for connecting walkways in other places, getting a better network which goes beyond more than just the traditional back-country conservation estate.

@ militaris. Ive done quite abit of tramping overseas too. I dont think anyone said our tracks are rougher. But in general they are rough. Very rough. But i will say our 'popular' 'well known tracks are quite rough and very rough and need a higher level of self sufficiency than a lot of overseas 'popular' 'well known' tracks. A lot of countries have rough and rugged outdoors for rough and rugged people. But in general tourists/back packers expect a more organised and catered for level of outdoors experience than they sometimes find on arrival in New Zealand.

I think I would be more likely to ask if the Te Araroa was a trail at all. It seems to me, simply based on all that I have read, that the amount of road travel that you have to do it sounds more like a walking track than a trail. The concept is fantastic and I think "izogi's" last 2 paragraphs sums it up quite well. With time and more people providing constructive criticisms it will get better.

in the states theres a community of long distance trail walkers. theres a lot of word of mouth information and people picking up blogs. so they hear about others doing the trail over here. although by the sound of it, a lot of them arent doing their homework before they come. they hear such great things about nz and various popular tracks, it doesnt occur to them te araroa is a hotch potch of tracks and routes of varying standards cobbled together with a single label stuck on it to make it sound like theres more continuity to it than there is.. you can whack some markers anywhere and create a guide book and call it a trail. someone wanted a trail, he set up a group to create the trail got some govt funding and volunteers together got approval to pass through private land here and there, established a route, got official approval to name it the te araroa trail... someone chapman started it? then he quit running the trail. he decided the path but he's not involved in managing it anymore. i'm not aware there was much widespread consultation on where the track was going to go, just chapman deciding where he would go and where he could get approval to put it. personally I dont want to road bash, and i dont walk to walk through pastoral land or on endless flat sections or endless open countryside without much in the way of vegetation or decent hills. so I guess I won't be walking the trail anytime soon that rules out a large portion of the trail i'd consider walking... It's just a name and a squiggly line running through varying scenery, but to some people it's a goal they think is worth trying to achieve. people are travelling half way round the world to walk the trail that misses the coromandel, Kaimais, mamaku's, raukumaras, ureweras kaimanawas, kawekas, ruahines. kahurangi, westland, mt cook, aspiring and fiordland.. and its our national trail. I dont know what chapmans traming history was but its not a lot of NZers version of a national trail if it doesnt include some of those areas...

That seems like a very simplistic mis-representation of what I've understood Geoff Chapple's, and many other people's involvement and dedication to the idea to have been. And it's still happening.

i dont doubt the commitment shown to Te Araroa by the volunteers. its a massive task they have to try and maintain a trail like that. how many voluneteers do you need to maintain 3000k of track properly? how many do they have?

Check out http://www.teararoa.org.nz/overviewhistory/

I think we tend to confuse "harder" with "rougher". Some TaT walkers say the trail is harder than those overseas but what they really mean is THEY found it harder. What we lack that the US and European trails have is a trail community. If you walk the AT/PCT/El Camino you tend to be walking with a lot of other people and keep running into the same people all the time. There are towns which exist to cater to trail walkers. We don't have that here. I was following a TaT walker online last year and he encountered 3 other walkers the whole way. I imagine that would be very isolating, demoralizing and would not make for a fun walk. I imagine that would happen to a lot of people on the TaT.

The internet certainly makes a difference to the loneliness aspect, I think. With the TAT at the present time there tends to be a season where a bubble goes from north to south. If you check out the Fcebook groups, people are constantly making arrangements to meet up with others in nearby areas.