Adventure Chronicles: Notes from Exploring New Zealand’s Great Walks
Around five years ago, traveled to New Zealand’s South Island and embarked on several day hikes throughout the span of a week. It was during this excursion that I was introduced to the New Zealand’s Great Walks, a collection of trails meticulously developed and cared for by the Department of Conservation (DOC). Since that time, I’ve harbored a keen interest in attempting to explore a couple of these great walks. This report encapsulates the planning and experiential details of my December 2023 journey, during which I hiked the Kepler Track and Routeburn Track, both of which provided an exceptional and unforgettable experience.
New Zealand’s Great Walks are popular due to their stunning scenery, diverse environments, well-maintained trails, essential infrastructure like huts, cultural and historical significance, limited access for conservation, a focus on environmental preservation, and their accessibility, making them appealing to a broad audience. The combination of adventure tourism allure, positive global recognition, and New Zealand’s commitment to conservation contributes to the widespread popularity of these iconic hikes.
My Travel Outline
What worked out well?
1. Starting 2 weeks before New Zealand hikes, with 30 pound backpack, done about 8 practice hikes ranging 6–9 miles at a time: kind of helped body get used to.. before having to deal with 35–40 pound backpack all day for a week!
2. Left luggage in two different hotels stayed: no one had issues with keeping luggage for 3 & 7 days!
3. With rain in forecast even in summer, glad I packed separate clothes and shoes just for flight travel segment.
4. New Zealand, Department of Conservation (NZ DOC rangers/wardens at mountain huts were excellent in terms of expertise, care, answering questions, ensuring everyone happy! Thank you!
5. On NZ Great Walks tracks, Emergency shelters were in right locations where you really need a break from wind, rain! Thank you NZ DOC team!
6. Mountain huts are generally placed within 2–4 hours of hike from start or end locations. In middle of mountains, huts are placed in a way it takes 5–6 hours to reach next one. On second day of both tracks, I skipped to stay in hut in middle which means hike time was minimum 12 hours. Rangers communicated between themselves about my late arrival and worked out well in terms of support on arrival!
7. Over last decade of hiking, learnt how to not to get stomach upset, eat longer lasting foods on hikes, sleeping well to wake up with full energy, keeping hydrated/nourished well enough for optimal body performance, pain management to get through daily goal, tried everything at home before putting body to test outside country (such as 20 miles in a day with 30 pound backpack & 3000+ ft elevation gain, walking in rain.. etc) seeking help from strangers without any hesitation helped to manage time effectively.
8. Sydney contactless payments in train, boat, bus made life so easier: you can count by fingers in how many cities you can do this (in all forms of transportation) in world right now, even though all cities will get there someday!
What did not go well?
Sharing this for benefit of readers who might try multi day hikes far away from home. In the end, all worked out well and only thing I care about when outdoors is avoid getting injured, stranded, lost while disoriented, fall.. etc. Rest of time, focus is always to keep going, going and going!!
1. 24 hours before flight time, woke up to check in, airline says ETA (Electronic Travel Authorization) required to enter Australia and New Zealand! Had to use iPhone app to apply for visa. iPhone app could not read biometric data on passport .. resolution was to remove phone cover so that it’s close enough for passport.. & then says 72 hours required for response.. but flight in 15 hours.. all worked out in the end, got response just before the flight.. issue was caused by assumptions & not checking timely on entry requirements.. both collected fees to issue ETA (electronic travel authorization)!
2. For all 7 days of hikes in wilderness, packed food to minimize amount of shopping up on arrival. Australia and New Zealand customs checks on food lot more through. Up on arrival in New Zealand, customs took away all freeze dried backpacking food with chicken involved. Landed at 9 PM and took shuttle 7 AM shuttle for hike. Managed with whatever available for first 3 days hike (Kepler Track) and then shopped locally for food before going on next hike (Routeburn Track)
3. After New Zealand customs took away freeze dried chicken pasta, was left with freeze dried instant lemon rice & vegetable rice type food.. did not try them at home before taking on trip.. was disaster in the way they came out.. however was so hungry, did not matter how product looked, closed eyes and consumed lemon rice and veggie rice by closing eyes just for nourishment..
4. Mountain huts do not have electricity to recharge gadgets. Fully charged portable power bank with 25000 mAh capacity came for 48–60 hours at maximum. After finishing Kepler track, by the time I reached Queenstown, there was no charge left in power bank nor iPhone. With address on trip summary print out, asked people on street to help navigate and walked to hotel for evening!
5. Day-2 of both great walks were very long 13–15 hour day hikes! That translated to getting up at crack of dawn to pack up and go! Hostels do not have electricity so sole dependence on natural light and culturally behavior is not to wake up anyone! All this translated to forgetting to take one or two things and facing consequences in rest of trip!
6. Used quiet ear plugs for noise reduction and sleep better at night. On second day, Lost one of ear plugs in early morning rush in poor light! Fully charged noise cancellation AirPods runs out of battery by 3 AM! Tough part of this trip included dealing with night long snoring from 1–3 folks in room with 20 bunk beds! Getting back to sleep tough after dealing with freezing cold in bathroom visits at 2–3 AM window!
7. Day-2 of both tracks, planned to hike 20 mile/30 kms.. Long days translated to: chasing last two hours to avoid having to hike after darkness, having to cut nice conversations short to reach destination before it gets dark, having to think if this is my last hour while crossing mountain passes & deal with wind gusts of 50–100 kms (when one side is hard rock & other side is deep glacial lake)!
8. By last day, misplaced only one fork taken on trip.. imagine scene of eating long noodles with spoon in front of others! After dealing with rain in 7 out of 13 hour hike that day, all that mattered was eat well and sleep well!
9. Kepler track.. on shuttle, water pouch broke.. whole backpack got wet.. had everything in Ziploc type bags which saved the day
10. With summer season, familiarity of New Zealand from previous trip, this year experience of multi-day hikes and overall current endurance levels: Planned pretty packed schedule of daily distances to hike! Did not expect 10 hours passing rain on two different days in summer and got in the way of overall pleasure!
Conversations & People met on hike!
1. First day of hike, location shuttle dropped me, I was only hiker and wondered where did I come! Within first 10 minutes, met Australian hikers who were on two months break and hiked with them for first 3 hours before going in separate direction! Interestingly ran into them in Queenstown after hike and had dinner together!
2. Met many Germans on hike days who were going around New Zealand over 6–8 weeks period in camper van!
3. Met multiple New Zealand based groups who were friends, annually hikes at least one multi-day hike together in New Zealand. They helped provide so many ideas for future hikes!
4. Met solo US hikers from California, Colorado, Florida, New York!
5. Two consequtive days had bad weather. Day with 100+ kms winds was my break day in between two tracks. On my break day, met unhappy hikers who were turned back due to bad weather, had to go back to airport without finishing hikes.. etc!
6. Ran into many Lord of the Rings fans who came on Routeburn track hike!
7.Met multiple Dutch couples who hiked variety of mountains across the world and got many ideas for further exploration!
8. Met multiple exchange students, on hike, who were studying in Australia or New Zealand for a year!
9. Met New Zealander family who works in San Francisco for four months in a year and rest from New Zealand!
10. On break day, visited Cathedral and Casual conversation with volunteer ended up two hours conversation on religion history, varieties of churches, Jerusalem.. tons of Q&A ..
Kepler Track
Routeburn Track
Practice, Practice, & Practice for Successful Trips!
1. Endurance with carrying 30–40 pound backpack & hiking for 8–10–12 hours in a day!
2. Dealing with strong winds & weather changes during day between 35F — 75F!
3. Ability to endure rain for multiple hours in a day!
4. Ability to walk with poor sleep!
5. Nutrition choices for constant level of energy during long hike days!
6. Practice with putting heavy backpack on and off 10–15 times a day!
7. Practice of changing clothing layers without much downtime
8. Practice to endure multiple days of 20 miles, 30 kms with 3000–5000 ft elevation change!
9. Abiltity to handle multiple days of no-shower facilities
10.Packing light, organized inside backpack, & Finding things quickly to reduce downtime!
11. With loaded backpack, imagine & practice picking up fallen hiking poles, beanie, water bottle, food..etc
12. With loaded backpack, imagine & practice getting things from sides or behind
13. For multi-day hikes, Imagine & practice unpacking and repacking within minutes!
14. Having stuff handy (without having to put down backpack on ground) while not breaking/dropping them such as mobile, goggles, reading glasses, medicine, munchies, water, beanie, gloves, ..etc!
Like flying airplane or playing golf, felt like what matters is self performance and all in individual hands, this solo multi day hike across mountains in unknown territory in different country was more about enduring long distance day after day, dealing with strangers all day, tuning self environment (body energy, clothing, mental strength) to deal with changing weather elements with only goal of cherish natural beauty while being safe enough for yet another trip!
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