You see, we all write our own stories.

When I first read about Te Araroa, I knew I had to walk it. I cannot explain it, but something deep inside my soul was yearning for it, a quiet cry to escape everything I knew until then. To leave my world behind and go look myself in the face and ask “Who are you? And who do you really want to be?”.
Because there’s no better way to solve a quarter-life crisis than to take a good long hike.

And thus it all began.

I’ve moved to New Zealand for a one year long working holiday and worked and worked and worked. I traveled a bit too, a week here, a week there, but mostly I saved up money and gathered all the gear I could possibly ever need. “Am I really doing this?” ran through my mind all the while.

I was really doing it.

Duke’s nose track

You can only plan for things not to go as planned.

Walking northbound was determined by both time and money and I had this notion of how poetic it must be to walk from a small town in the southernmost part of the country and finish after trekking 3000 kilometers at the quaint marvelous lighthouse that belongs on postcards more than into the real world.

But plans change as it goes and decisions have to be made because we can’t have everything we want in one’s lifetime. We are constantly at the tug of war with time, even on trails, and not being rich doesn’t help the issue as well.

Being able to afford to walk the lengths of both islands demands more time AND more money. So I made the decision to experience North Island a bit differently, the classic trashy van life where you keep losing socks on a few square meters every day.

All this means that a shorter journey awaits me, the wilderness of the south island only, an adventure of a lifetime nonetheless.

After all, 1300 kilometers could be enough for a start.

Purism? Not this time.

You can’t talk about Te Araroa without adding:

“Hike your own hike”.

And so my trail starts at 34th kilometer at a picturesque Southern comfort backpackers in Invercargill with no yellow signpost in sight to take a picture with. I am exchanging one day of road walking from one town to another for one day to walk off the path* and see something bigger than what we humans can make… mountains, lakes, waterfalls and trees.

New Year’s hike at Cook cove walkway

Truth be told, I always thought I would be a purist. Walking every step of the way seemed like a wonderful achievement, because only if you do it “perfectly” you can pat yourself on the back, job well done. And what a load of bull that is.

Take a deep breath. Find the most joy you can out there in the big wide world.  Leave a space for change. It’s going to be alright. Even if it’s not as you imagined or planned.

I am carving out my own path.

(*Disclaimer: I will not be going off tracks, New Zealand terrain is not  suitable nor safe for me to do that, but I will be adding other tramping trails and connecting them to my Te Araroa.)