Is the Te Araroa Trail a con?

A quote below from a comment by someone called Jane "What piqued my interest is how such rants would bring about change. However, I remember discussing an article written on behalf of the DOC about deaths and hikers gone missing on the trail or nearby and the writer was blaming it on kits or gear. We were a bit incredulous. Firstly the article was incongruous with other articles regarding individuals and their gear and the elephant in the room, we scoffed, is trail conditions. So basically I don't think there's going to be much support from NZ agencies. Even where a hiker made a fatal turn there was no extra or clearer signage which at very least would have been a gesture to honor him. The main way the trail is going to become more plain to see will be as you mentioned 10-20 years of hikers plying the trail. That said, I did appreciate the 'they'll be right' attitude of the New Zealanders rather than the litigious nature prevailing in the USA. In a way it was a cultural experience and in all a true highlight" This highlights the problem that comes up so often with overseas hikers here. We have Doc and even ourselves saying they were badly prepared but is that actually the problem. How easy is it for an overseas person to find out what they actually need? They can look at weather stats and rainfall figures then look at the recommended gear lists but those weather facts may be perfectly correct but dont tell the real story about our conditions. They cant understand that 300 inches of rain a year might fall in only 20 days They cant understand that a max gust of 160kph and average wind of 10kph means 200 days of no wind and the average for the other 150 is more than 50kph. They cant know that because there are no weather stations to the south or west of NZ our forecasts can never bee 100% correct. How can they know our track grading system. We accept a good track means tree root clambering. A poor track includes missing bits. But we know this from experience. How does a tourist ever get there head around the peculiarity of hiking here?

a nzers expectation of what a trail will be like and an american or europeans expectation can be something completely different based on their experience of trails.... most foreigners get a rude shock when they finally get on Te Araroa... you're not in Kansas now Toto..

Yeah ... But let's work on changing their expectations to suit NZ, not changing NZ to suit their expectations ..

Probably visitors writing and telling lots about their experiences of Te Araroa is the best way to set the expectations of future Te Araroa walkers. I don't think it's an unfair assessment, in any case. imo the best thing about Te Araroa isn't walking the length of NZ. It's the precedent it sets for retaining and enhancing reasonable walking access between places, whereas in the past many of the optimal and relatively direct walking routes and infrastructures have been overtaken or eliminated by roads, or cut off by private land boundaries, with little or no effort being put into catering to anyone who still wants to walk between two places in a sane way. But that's just me.

honestly, we're a country of four million people, its a 3000km track, how many countries with that population with a trail that long have a trail like ours? a lot of nz forest rapidly grows over tracks and high rainfall and erosion can destroy them pretty fast.

I always thought with a country like ours the Te Araroa trail was pointless. Just a gimic to entice hikers to our country to boost tourism. Which is pointless as this country is already one of the most popular and sought after travel destinations for the international hiking community. The idea of walking long stretches of road is an obvious indication that it is a rushed concept and designed by someone with a very limited tramping background.

I don't think that most people can come to NZ for the first time without knowledge of local conditions and set out on the Te Araroa trail with a reasonable margin of safety. Some tramping experience is required including such things as waiting for rivers to come down and off track travel. These challenges are going to catch people out every season.

"I always thought with a country like ours the Te Araroa trail was pointless. Just a gimic to entice hikers to our country to boost tourism." I don't think most of the tourism junkies jumped on until relatively recently, once councils and government suddenly realised it existed in a coherent form, and so maybe there could be some quick and easy way to take advantage of it. But for the several decades over which it's been a concept, it's mostly sat under the radar and many of those involved have just reckoned it's a cool idea for any number of reasons.

I get the feeling were too hung up on 'our' trail needeing to be the entire length of the country. Thats the stumbling block really. Its not like the PCT is from Seattle to San Diego. Maybe the south Island could be a trail of its own and the Te Araroa on the east coast to Wainui coast at the bottom of the Rimutakas could be another for hardcore hikers. We just seem hung up on having one long trail. I think a few quite long trails from moderate to super hard would be better. But this is just my opinion.