Te Araroa - The Long Pathway Aotearoa
On schedule
Starting 18th of October 2023
Te Araroa - New Zealand's Trail - is a continuous 3,000 km walking track from Cape Reinga to Bluff.
Te Araroa is the ultimate 4 to 5-month New Zealand experience, but also offers section tramps lasting anything from a few days to a week or more, and many attractive day or overnight walks. It is a different kind of trail from the traditional back-country tramping tracks. Te Araroa connects settlements, townships and cities. It's a corridor that encourages social and economic transactions en route – for marae stays and other cultural experiences, also food and accommodation. The track corridor showcases a wide variety of New Zealand experiences - natural, cultural, and historic.
Te Araroa’s boundaries are the natural boundaries of New Zealand itself. It starts and is brought to a natural halt against the sea. En route it explores New Zealand’s tombolos, its volcanoes, its range and mountain uplift, its rivers, lakes and valleys. Successful long trails overseas generally have a geographic and geological unity. Te Araroa’s variety is underpinned by the mightiest geology of all – tectonic plate subduction. When walking New Zealand, you are walking also the Pacific Plate boundary or – at least sometimes – along the Rim of Fire.
The long trail concept in New Zealand has a venerable history. In 1975 just such a “scenic trail” based on the Pennine Way, was the founding idea of the NZ Walkways Commission, which carried the long-trail torch briefly, but found it too difficult. The Department of Conservation (DOC) put the same goal into its Walkways Policy of 1995. As part of that policy, DOC also proposed giving high priority to countryside tracks traversing private land. DOC did not have the budgets, or the co-operation of Regional Authorities (RAs) or Territorial Local Authorities (TLAs) to achieve either goal.
© 2020 Te Araroa TrustM
