Basics about tramping in NZ

Tramping means hiking. Kiwis never hike. They tramp!

General Information

New Zealanders like their nature very much, they can even be called a "tramping folk", even before Sir Edmund Hillary was the first to climb up to the summit of Mt. Everest. Due to that, there are a lot of tramping tracks and huts in every beautiful area. Since the end of the nineteenth century, the government has proclaimed more and more national parks, forest parks and scenic reserves. These are administered by the Department of Conservation (DoC), the environmental authority. They offer further information about many tracks. Forestry is not allowed in national parks and forest parks. Scenic reserves are more open for private business. The DoC has developped an Environmental Care Code for everybody to observe!!

Classification of the tracks

To give the trampers the opportunity for better preparation, the DoC has classified the tracks:

Path:: This is rather a small stroll around a car park, often suitable for wheelchairs.
Walks, Walkways or Walking Tracks:: These are very well prepared tracks that you can walk with normal shoes and in almost any physical condition. Walking times range between some minutes up to several days. The most famous walks are the 9 Great Walks. They take you into especially remarkable areas, are easy to walk, and there are huts in distances of about 4 hours walk. They are very popular and sometimes quite crowded, above all in summertime. A booking system for the huts and camping sites has been established on some Great Walks.
Tracks or Tramping Tracks:: Tracks are more difficult than walks. Tramping boots are required as well as an adequate level of fitness. The DoC cares for the tracks regularly. The way is marked (usually very well) by red triangles on the trees, but be prepared to climb over fallen trees and ford rivers. The huts are smaller than those on the Great Walks, but always have a place to sleep and drinking water.
Route:: These are quite lonely tracks through remote mountains or forest areas. You have to be quite fit and experienced and know how to use a map and compass.

Possibilities to stay overnight

Huts

You cannot buy food there. Apart from some huts on Great Walks, they don't have gas for cooking. You have to have an own camping cooker. All huts have a water tank which is filled by the rain, or there is a stream somewhere around. Sometimes there's even a tube with water tap from a river to the hut. There is a table, benches and beds. Some remote huts don't have mattresses. There is an oven for wood in most huts, a saw or an axe can be found somewhere, so that you can refill the wood storage with dry, dead wood. Never damage living trees! A dry toilet is somewhere near. There are NO WASTE-BINS on the tracks/walks. All rubbish has to be carried out again!

Please leave the huts at least as clean and with as much fire wood as you found them. Except on the Great Walks in summer time, there are no hut wardens, i.e. there's nobody to care for the huts ecxcept you.

Camping

Camping is allowed almost everywhere in the the nature in New Zealand. The exception are the Great Walks, where the environment is stressed by the masses of tourists. There, you may only camp on designated camp sites. On some Great Walks, you may camp at a distance of at least 500 metres from any track.

Fees

All huts have been classified according to their condition and place. However, the classification is not very consequent along the country. We sometimes wondered why a category 2 hut hasn't been classified as a category 3 hut and vice versa.
The categories are:

all huts on Great Walks and one hut on the Coromandel peninsula
well equipped huts, water tap in the hut (instead of outside), mattresses, almost always an oven
simpler huts
shelters and ramshackle huts

	Hut fee	Camping fee
Category 1	depends on the track, between 8 and 40 $	between 4 and 12 $
Category 2	10 $	5 $
Category 3	5 $	free
Category 4	free	free

The table displays the fees for DoC huts and camping next to the huts with the possibilities to use the hut facilities. Children always pay half the price of an adult. Most category 1 huts are category 2 huts during the winter season (May 1st till October 31st), i.e. the annual hut pass (see below) is valid. Exceptions are the Abel Tasman Park (Kayak), the Abel Tasman Coast Track and the Lake Waikaremoana Track.

The few huts that are administered by local tramping clubs (not by the DoC) usually charge the same fees.

Instead of paying each night, you can buy an annual hut pass. It costs 65 NZ$ and is valid for one year from the day of purchase. It is not valid for category 1 huts, the huts in the Mt.Cook/Westland Pational Park and on Great Barrier Island. It is only valid for DoC huts, i.e. not on the privately owned tracks like the Queen Charlotte Walkway. The annual hut pass is also valid for camping next to the huts, but not for the pure DoC camping sites that are normally next to a road. However, the pass is valid for the remaining thousand back country huts. It will be worth the cost if you tramp a lot.

The hut fees are payd with hut tickets that you have to buy from a DoC Visitor Centre prior to the start of the track. For the Great Walks, you have to buy separate tickets that are dated in advance, you have to know exactly how long you will tramp on the Great Walk. There's a booking system for some Great Walks because they have become so popular. For the thousand back country huts, there exist hut tickets for 5 $. Before you go to bed, you have to put the date on them and put half of it into the ticket box, the other half well visibly on your backpack or tent. Take two tickets for a 10 $ fee.

Drinking water

Water quality is generally high, especially in small streams. However there is a pest called Giardia. It causes severe diarrhea and belly-ache and has to be treated medically. The pest is spread by urine and excrements, i.e. it can occur in streams that have passed tramping tracks or cattle fields. That's why you never may make a toilet close to a stream. Don't wash your hands afterwards directly in the water, instead carry some water away from the stream. That way, the soil can filter away the bacteria.

Boiling the water for 3 minutes, treatment with chlorine or filtering the water with an adequate filtering system makes the water drinkable.

If you want to learn more about Giardia, we recommend you to have a look at giardiaclub.com.

There's water at all huts. The rainwater is collected in a tank. It is drinkable. It can happen that a mouse or rat runs into the tank and drowns. You will taste that very soon. No worry, yet nobody died of that.

Just before you start

ask the DoC whether all huts are okay or whether one has burnt down
get a map and/or a description of the track (from the DoC)
The DoC leaflets ususually only give you rough overview of the track. That's enough for the popular tracks. You better buy a map (topographical if possible) for lonely areas.
check for a suitable car park and transportation (it happens more and more often that people break into parked cars at the end of tracks or that they damage them)
Write your planned tour and the duration into the intentions book which can be found at the DoC or at the end of the track. If you don't sign out 24 hours after your planned return date, the DoC will send a search party to look for you! Don't choose your return date too early, plan with bad weather and interesting side trips that might delay your plan. It is extremely important that you sign out again!
There's a visitor book in each hut where you should note your arrival date and further plans. This information is dedicated for the search party. This information is inevitable, above all if you plan to tramp through lonely wilderness far from tracks.

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last changed on 06/09/2006