It’s been a year since I returned from New Zealand so I figured I would have a quick catch-up with everyone following my blog.  First of all I would like to direct you to  my About page that I’ve updated with a more complete Bio and hiking history.  To be honest, other than a few short day-hikes I’ve done very little hiking in the past year.  A failing that I will remedy over the coming months.

I’ve recently moved to Hornsby, so now I’m located at the southern end of the all of the great trails in the Hornsby-Berowra-Brooklyn region.  I will definitely be getting out and hiking more now that the trails are in my back yard.  Also, later this year I hope to get down to the Snowy Mountains for a few days of hiking there.

New Zealand has been calling to me since I returned to Australia.  I left the task of walking the Te Araroa incomplete.  I’ve decided to return at the end of the year and walk additional sections of the trail.

So far I’ve put together a rough idea of what sections I would like to complete on this trip.  First and foremost I want to return to the Dome Track where my shins gave out in December 2014, and walk from there down to Auckland, to complete the first significant section of the TA.  From there I plan to skip ahead to the Tongariro crossing and continue hiking from there to walk  the remaining uncompleted sections down to Wellington.    After Wellington the plan is to jump ahead to Morrison Footbridge near Arthur’s Pass, where I left the trail in February 2015.  And then see how much more of the South Island I can hike depending on how much time I can set aside for the trip.  Ideally I would hike from there to Arrowtown.

I know that after I returned last year I mentioned that I didn’t plan any more thru-hikes, but now the idea appeals to me again.  I’m really starting to get excited about the possibility of returning to the Te Araroa trail to walk another large section of it.

The image below shows the Te Araroa Trail.  The dark blue sections are the ones I hiked in 2014-15.  The Orange trail is the Able Tasman track, which I hiked as a side trip in 2015.  The light blue are the sections I hope to hike at the end of this year and early next year.  The red sections show the remaining trail sections that I hope to hike at a later time (maybe 2019).

Te Araroa Sections