“It’s the soup” | Te Araroa (Waikato)

In the summer of 2023/24, I travelled to Aotearoa/New Zealand and walked the entire length of the country on Te Araroa, The Long Pathway. Although I had completed many multi-day trails in the past, I had never attempted something of this magnitude. Traversing the entire country over the course of 4.5 months and 3000 km, I experienced an adventure that blew away my expectations.
To put it mildly, I wasn’t exactly enthralled with Waikato over my first few days. The tracks were poor, overgrown, straddling farm paddocks and highways with little in the way of scenery. Once out of Hamilton, however, the trail took on a completely different character as I dragged myself up and over the first proper mountain of the trail, diving off the edge of boardwalks into pools of mud. Some good old fashioned Kiwi hospitality helped me recover from all that, leading onto another vividly green forest in which I took things a bit easier by travelling on two wheels instead of two feet.
My blog of my journey along Te Araroa: a-dangerous-bu...
Thumbnail and location artwork done by Eli Southward: eli-southward....
Sheep used in Te Kuiti location card: www.freepik.com/
Drone footage taken by Matt Tomkins: / matt.tomkins
Music:
Yehezkal Raz - Long Away
Michael FK - Yearning
Max H. - Empty Room
Flint - Experience Sonder
Borrtex - Cold
Christopher Galovan - One Word Reworked
Narrow Skies - Nightfall Embers

[@dougwinter2653]

Enjoying your travels . Looking forward to the next chapter

[@deanherring8623]

Obviously you didn't do your research. 2000 plus people manage to accomplish this trail without winging. Please don't come back