Walk this way and see the country
New Zealand is home to some of the world’s most spectacular scenery and our Great Walks allow us to see it all, plus meet some of the wildlife.
Golden sands, hidden inlets, native forest and secluded beaches, our Great Walks are certainly picturesque. Here’s a quick guide to each one.
1. Abel Tasman Coast Track
Routinely touted as New Zealand’s most beautiful Great Walk, it is also the country’s most popular, located in its smallest national park. Great weather, granite cliffs, golden sands and a bushy backdrop are just part of its allure, so packed is this track with delightful surprises.
Spot seals and birds, explore fascinating estuaries, hidden inlets and freshwater pools, study strange rock formations and significant trees… but it’s equally acceptable to just laze around on your beach towel. Water taxis and kayak trips offer endless options for maximising enjoyment.
2. Tongariro Northern Circuit
The dynamic, dramatic features of Tongariro National Park are celebrated in its status as a Unesco World Heritage Area. The park also proved a fitting backdrop for The Lord of the Rings, with its volcanoes taking a starring role.
You, too, can get in on the action on this circuit, which sports non-stop views, not only of crazy craters, steaming vents, glacial valleys, native forest, alpine meadows and surreal lakes, but also of Mt Taranaki, standing solitarily in the west.
3. Lake Waikaremoana Great Walk
Remote, immense and shrouded in mist, Te Urewera National Park encompasses the largest tract of virgin forest on the North Island. The park’s highlight is Lake Waikaremoana (Sea of Rippling Waters), a deep, 55 square kilometre crucible of water encircled by the Lake Waikaremoana Track.
Along the way it passes through ancient rainforest and reedy inlets, and traverses gnarly ridges, including the famous Panekire Bluff, from where there are stupendous views of the lake and endless forested peaks and valleys.
4. Whanganui Journey
The Great Walk that’s actually a canoe or kayak trip takes paddlers along a 145km stretch of the Whanganui River, New Zealand’s longest navigable river. It is one of the country’s great wilderness adventures, a magical journey from highlands to lowlands through sheer gorges and over quick, bouncy rapids, amid dense native forest aquiver with bird life, including New Zealand’s national icon, the kiwi.
Along the way it passes the abandoned Bridge to Nowhere, numerous bush campsites and a marae that is now a Great Walk Hut.
5. Heaphy Track
A historic crossing from Golden Bay to the wild West Coast, this Great Walk dishes up the most diverse scenery of any New Zealand tramp – from dense forest, tussock-covered downs, caves, secluded river valleys, and beaches dusted in salt-spray, fringed by nikau palms.
A mighty wilderness this may well be, but you will not be alone. Among the many critters calling this place home are up to 60 native bird species (including great spotted kiwi), creepy cave weta, weird beetles, leggy spiders and giant, ancient snails.
6. Kepler Track
One of three Great Walks within Fiordland, the Kepler was built to take pressure off the Milford and Routeburn. Many trampers say it rivals them both. This alpine crossing takes you from the peaceful, beech-forested shores of lakes Te Anau and Manapouri to high tussock lands and over Mt Luxmore. Among the eye-popping sights you’ll encounter are towering limestone bluffs, razoredged ridges, panoramas galore and crazy caves. The Kepler is a truly spectacular way to appreciate the grandeur of New Zealand’s finest and most vast wilderness.
7. Rakiura Track
Following the Foveaux Strait coast and shore of Paterson Inlet on tranquil Stewart Island, this leisurely loop offers a rewarding combination of waterside scenery, notable native trees and ferns, and historic relics of bygone days. Bird-watchers in particular will love it here, with a diverse range of species to be seen and heard.
These include big-winged coastal birds such as sooty shearwaters and mollymawks, as well as little blue penguins; beaky waders in the inlet such as dotterels, herons and godwits; and forest birds such as kiwi, bellbirds, parakeets, kereru, kaka and tomtits.
8. Routeburn Track
New Zealand’s second-most popular Great Walk traverses the mighty Southern Alps, linking Mt Aspiring and Fiordland National Parks. It passes through ice-carved valleys and beech forests on its way, and although there is plenty of decent climbing to be done, a well-benched and graded track enables trampers of average fitness to achieve significant summits.
Harris Saddle, Conical Hill and Key Summit offer unforgettable vistas, although close-range sights such as thundering waterfalls, weird rock formations, alpine tarns and peculiar plant life will likely stir your spirits just as much.
9. Milford Track
A fitting flag-bearer for New Zealand’s wilderness tramps, the Milford is every bit as special as you ever heard it was.
It delivers everything you want in a mountain-region tramp: a boat trip across a glacier-gouged lake, riverside ambles, a wetland boardwalk and an achievable climb to an unforgettable pass that opens not only a door to sheer peaks and a whole new valley, but a window on the era of the pioneer explorers.
Then there’s the Sutherland Falls, and Milford Sound itself.
The Milford Track equals pure magic.