WalkNZ

Below is an interesting article from Dave http://wudhi.com/mrwalker/fathmandu trail/index.htm which I thought was worth another forum. Personally I think the Hillary Trail is great – and furthermore I would like to see it link with Te Araroa to the North and South to give Auckland a truely circular 130 odd km (largely) off road walking trail. I take Daves points though – so the Hillary Trail – a revelation or a backward step?

From Daves Blog (address above)….

Constructing the Fathmandu Trail was a challenge I put to myself after a week or so grizzling and grumping about the Hillary Trail and it’s utter disregard of the needs of the elderly and/or stout.

As it is at present laid out, the Hillary Trail is not a viable option for the elderly and stout in the same way that, for example, the Heaphy or the St James Walkway, or even the Milford, can be seen as realistic multi-day tramping goals for a wide range of people.

One of the features of our Great Walks in New Zealand, (with the notable exception of Day One of the Waikaremoana Walk) is that they provide a safe and manageable corridor for a wide range of age groups through some challenging and dramatic countryside. Looking outwards from the tracks you can place yourself in the shoes of our earliest explorers. On the tracks you’re safer than you are on a trip to the corner dairy. And at the end of the day, there’s a hut and a mattress and a drinkable water supply.

Who in hell would want to walk day 4 on the Hillary Trail: 27km on a muggy Auckland summer day traipsing up the coastline with no shelter and no drinkable water en route, exposed to the sun, and with the major point of interest the horizon between here and Australia. Even chopping the last day in two with an extra campground scarcely does a lot to attract anybody outside the fit 18-25 year old bracket. Imagine taking a couple of kids on it, or your parents…

And there’s so much to do and see in the Waitaks besides paying close attention to where your next foot will be placed. (Hillary Trail booklet advice on negotiating Muir Track, at the end of another long day.) I have been so much looking forward to the idea that a multiday tramping experience was going to be available in the Waitaks that my disappointment with the Hillary Trail as it has emerged is profound.

Enter the concept of the Fathmandu Trail.

You’re in Auckland, and you’d like to spend a day or several days tramping.  Instead of a tent and sleeping gear and four days’ clothes and food, we’ll take a daypack with a decent lunch, and the normal emergency gear we’d have with us anyway. We’ll sleep in our own beds at night, or in a handy motel or backpackers if we’re from out of town, with showers and a decent evening meal and a bottle of wine.

What we will need for most walks is somebody to drop us off and pick us up at pre-arranged times, or two cars that we can arrange to leave at either end of the day’s walk.  The Waitaks are not, on the whole, geared for loop walking.  And through most of the Waitaks cellphone coverage is zero.

The Fathmandu Trail is a series of day walks over tracks that I have personally traversed in the last year or three. You can have a wander round my site for a photo record of most of these trips. There are no signs on the ground that you can follow: the trail is a concept. It will pay to visit the Arataki Visitors Centre and purchase an ARC map of the Waitakeres which sets out clearly all of the available tramping tracks, and is a good deal more up-to-date tham the Topographic series.

With a couple of exceptions, each day is about 10-12 km in length, and around 5-7 hours of fairly comfortable walking. While some of them take you through steep territory, all tracks are securely fenced where there’s a dropoff: you won’t fall off them.

In some cases, portions of track appear in more than one walk.  I do have my favourite tracks.

At this stage, all you’ll get is a track summary. Later, as I revisit all these old friends, I’ll update the photo record accordingly. Each day ends near the beginning of the next, but with your own transport you can do them in any order you want and as many as you want at any one time:

http://wudhi.com/mrwalker/fathmandu trail/index.htm