Tramping the whole of NZ

This reference has been mentioned in these forums before, but if it helps anyone to plan and you've not seen it already, Andrew Barker has been documenting his plan and trip to walk the length of the South Island in several stints. http://andrewbarkersoutherntraverse.blogspot.com/

Thanks for all the help guys!

In the latest FMC Bulletin there is an article about Paul Kilgour who has done a SI traverse who could be a useful contact. There's also a book review - a guy called Rex Hendry has published a book of his tramp down the length of NZ. I could post you the mag if you want the info.

It will be good to catch up with the FMC article. I'll see if the book's in the library. I love that kind of reading.

It's called "A Wee Walk in the Wilderness".

Hi, how long do people on long distance trips usually go between resupplies? For how many days do they typically and / or at most carry food? No exact figure needed, just curious to get an idea. Thanks! Matt

It depends on the support for frequency of food drops. I have seen people doing 19 day stints on one packload. I think I would need a drop every 10 days because on these traverses you carry extra gear so you can be pretty self-reliant if things break! Also if I was carrying a mountain radio, that would encourage me to stick to a 10 day pack. On these big trips, you can't get away with stunts like bringing 500g food/day which is my normal ration. On our traverse, we ate 250g of starch alone for the evening meal each which would be half of a 500g packet of pasta for example, not including the dehydrated flavouring e.g. curry. I think we carried 1kg of food/day each. Pat Deavoll told me years ago when she was about 17, she did a full traverse of deepest darkest Fiordland with another teenager on one food drop. This is possible if you go her speed i.e. twice as fast as me. On the other hand, we didn't need rest days as we went so slowly and only tramped about 8 hours a day (in the summer)! You'll need to take multivitamins too or you will notice your cuts festering and not healing properly. For this reason we wore polypro gloves the whole time to protect our hands.

My experience of this is no food drops are needed: I walked Picton to Wanaka with no 'food drops' - there are 5 roads to cross on this section of NZ and it is possible to resupply at shops on these roads without needing to oragnise food drops: St Arnaud, (Lewis Pass/Springs Jn - not really required as only a short leg), Otira/Arthur's Pass, Mt Cook Village, Makarora. Beyond Wanake there's: Glenorchy, Te Anau/Manapouri and then you're at the south coast in a week! The longest South Island leg without shops is Arthur's Pass (or Otira) to Mt Cook Village. I had this down as 14-17 days, and took 17 days including 3 days laid up sick in the Whitcoumbe. The rest of the legs are 10-14 days each - which with sensible food choices should be easily manageable. I carried enough food for my planned maximum plus 3-4 days, PLUS an extra kilo of rice which will keep me going for 6 days tramping in emergencies. In the North Island should also be easy: more roads and shops! I don't know your planned route, but at the south end, from the Napier-Taupo road to Palmerston North was easy without resupplies: took me 10 days, and a further 4 days to reach Wellington. Even taking it a bit more gently, you shouldn't need more than 14-days or so between hitting roads/shops. I took the usual tramping basics: rice, porridge, dried veggies, salami, dried soups, dried fruit, muesli bars and some seasonings. Oh, and a pickling onion per day as a token vitamin C intake (did you know an onion has more vit C than an orange - or so I'm told!) Hope that helps. madpom

Thanks for sharing your experiences madpom. I think you are something of a Superman and I think that I will try to plan so I don't have to carry food for 14 days plus emergencies unless I really have to! Firstly I weigh 45kgs so will be trying hard to keep my pack weight down. Secondly, I will also be trying hard not to lose any weight on the trip. In the meantime, I have an excuse to eat plenty of chocolate cake :-)

Yes, plenty of people do it without food drops. I guess it's a choice between the hassle of carrying a heavier pack vs the hassle of organising food drops. I certainly wouldn't have wanted a heavier pack than the one I was carrying which at times could only be put on when it was first lifted up onto a low bench as I couldn't otherwise put it on. So food drops for me! The gear has probably got a lot lighter since those days though e.g. better lofting down, lighter tents (silnylon vs polyester) and improved isobutane/propane canister stoves amoung other things. Madpom's menu sounds pretty dull but I know traversers have awesome appetites so it would be enjoyed.