In this video I’ll share with you what I’m taking to walk Te Araroa, New Zealand’s Long Trail, 3000 km from Cape Reinga to Bluff. This walk will take 110 to 130 days and I’ll be carrying everything I need in my backpack aside from restocking food along the way.

This gear list applies the same if it’s a multi day hike or a thru hike like New Zealand’s 3000 kilometre Te Araroa trail which I’ll be hiking 2023/2024.

Have you ever joined a new group and wondered if they were speaking a different language, some of it sounds sort of familiar but there seems to be acronyms and words used in context that are nothing like you’ve heard before?

As a group, hiker’s are no different and in this video, I’m going to explain what SOBO, NOBO and even HOBO stand for when used in a hiking context along with a whole lot of other hiker lingo.

I’ve chosen one of my favourite bush hikes as this video’s backdrop, this is the Mangamate Circuit in the Whirinaki Forest which I solo hiked over three challenging days in late winter. A highlight of this trip was hearing kiwi calling across the valley where I was camped deep in the forest, it was the first time I’d ever heard Kiwi in the wild and it was a magical moment.

How to keep electronics charged while hiking the Te Araroa end to end thru hike. In this video I’ll share with you what I’ve learnt about keeping my electronics and phone charged while hiking and as preparation to hike Te Araroa, New Zealand’s Long Trail. These principles apply the same if it’s an overnight hike, a multi day hike or a thru hike like New Zealand’s 3,000 kilometre Te Araroa trail which I’ll be hiking this coming season. The main electronics I typically take and which need charging are my phone, headlamp and camera.

I’ve chosen one of my favourite desert hikes as the video backdrop, this is the Tongariro Northern Circuit which I hiked over four particularly hot and windy days.

I’m going on a walk soon, it’s a long walk, actually, it’s a very long walk, about three thousand kilometres and is known as a thru hike and this will be my very first thru hike.

Te Araroa is considered by some as one of the toughest thru hikes in the world due to it’s varied terrain and the weather that you’re likely to encounter along the way. Added to that are several hundred river crossings, lots of mud, days between resupply points - the longest being eight or nine days, numerous mountain passes, sandflies, wasps, miles of road walking, poorly maintained tracks and, yes I could go on.

So why? Why would I leave a perfectly comfortable lifestyle to endure all of that? Why when there’s easier thru hikes in other countries? What has motivated me to seek out the unknown, when the known is available, to challenge myself in this way?