Te Araroa Trail forums

looks good

i dont have a lot thats positive to say about the trail. i've spoken to people from overseas who've done it disappointed by teh standard of teh track in places, there was no information to tell them how hard some of it would be.... personally some of the terrain is pretty mundane, i'm not interested in most of it... epecially in the north island

At the moment I think there's a lot of mis-interpretation about what Te Araroa actually is*. Now that it's officially "opened" it's often presented as being a sparkly tourist-polished top-down consistently designed track from one end of New Zealand to the other, full of fascinating sights and experiences for the entire stretch, brilliantly marked and ready for people to follow in the same way as a variety of well-established long distance trails overseas. In actuality, it's a bottom-up effort to link together a large number of pre-existing shorter tracks and routes. It provides for being able to walk the length of New Zealand, but more to the point it promotes the concept of actually being able to walk from one place to another, in a world where it's becoming not unusual to find situations where it's not possible to walk even if it used to be, because society's shifted towards a place where walkability isn't always prioritised. eg. There are several roads I know in Wellington which now fill the most direct and obvious walking routes, yet if you're allowed to walk on them at all it's frickin' dangerous because there's been no provision for anyone other than vehicle owners in the road construction. (Try walking direct between Wellington and the Hutt Valley without at least 400 metres of completely exposed highway walking, for instance. Never mind that prior to domination of vehicles, it was a much more accessible walking and cycling route.) Te Araroa's partly about connecting the two ends of the country, and what I've suggested above certainly doesn't mean that it isn't full of interesting sights and experiences, but I think it's also at least as much about promoting the ability to actually get between two places on foot and simply having that ability. Over time I'd expect the signage and the flow and the consistency will improve, but considering how piecemeal the thing is to begin with and the inconsistency of local authorities and politics, it's been a huge task just getting it to where it is at the moment. Presently I'm happy that there now actually *is* an official available walking route which will always be prioritised for people on foot, and I hope the model of continuity and connection that's developing for it will spread into other walking routes around New Zealand as things develop. *Disclaimer: I don't have any direct affiliation to Te Araroa. I'm making this stuff up, but it seems reasonable enough to me.

it was about one man in love with a concept he helped piece together and now he's resigned from running it in it's partially finished state , it will probably never be complete as a decent trail with the govt gutting doc's budget. and the recession, its a long way of from ever getting finished, the govt instead sunk it's money into the national cycle trails... but that isnt continuous, its a broken set of trails but most are built to a decent standard because they have ten times teh money as te araroa was given by the govt... te araroa was a trail going through a mixture of scenic and historic areas.... it's a mish mash of both. bypasses a lot of the best scenery in the country to be continuous and or go through historical areas that can be quite monotonous. i met an american who was appalled by the trail she found and abandoned it in northern northland and instead switched to teh great walks, and belatedly found out about other tracks that covered even more scenic areas than the great walks...

"*Disclaimer: I don't have any direct affiliation to Te Araroa. I'm making this stuff up, but it seems reasonable enough to me. " pretty obvious your not there marketing manager. That much like how I see this walkway. Then again though how much better are trails like the Apaleution etc.

yes well you mentione the appalatian trail. americans expect te araroa to be similar , not a trail that is an unmarked junngle track in places...

Geoff Chapple spent 17 years trying to make this happen, and at over 90% open you could hardly say he hasn't done a good job of it. I think that because the trail is officially open, there's an expectation by some hikers that it should be up to Great Walks standards. I think part of the beauty of a long distance journey like the Te Araroa is that it attracts a certain kind of hiker and that isn't necessarily supposed to be the easiest tramp you've experienced, whether you do part or all of it. I have hiked the first 1000km from Cape Reinga to Taumarunui, and although there are still road sections in place the ultimate goal is get it completely off-road. As the trail gains more popularity there will be more impetus for work to be done on the more overgrown and lesser used sections - often those used only by through hikers and rarely by day or those on shorter multi-day trips. That being said, there are already community groups that volunteer time to fix up sections of the trail. Also as it becomes more popular and more people have done it, there will be a lot more information available. These things take time. I also have no affiliation with the Te Araroa Trust, I'm just a tramping enthusiast. Even though the TA "misses" a lot of amazing NZ landscapes, it also takes the through-hiker to a lot of amazing places that many trampers might never have otherwise thought about going to.

"pretty obvious your not there marketing manager" I don't mean to sounds as if I'm putting it down, but for now at least I see its main benefit as being for walkability culture in NZ (if that means anything) more than as a big tourist driver. I can understand why some people might come here and be disappointed, and it doesn't really bother me because I think there's a more important side to this than bringing in a few tourists or letting a few people walk a really long way. The fact that it exists and has, in effect, succeeded in defining an official trail for the length of the country, signifying the importance of being able to walk on foot between the two ends, is an extremely positive thing. I hope that attitude spreads into other scenarios where there's consideration of allowing for good walking routes between significant places.

I think this trail is a great idea and project. Its only real weakness is that people expect it to be of a similar standard all the way through and they see it compared to other famous trails so expect similar standards. It was never intended to meet those standards and some sections would be impossible to maintain to those standards. Most overseas trails have a cost of going through them and this money at least in part is used to maintain the trail. Here that is not done for a variety of reasons and I hope it never is but this does deny the trail a major source of funding.