Hi,

Lets continue from where I stopped in my previous post. By the way if you didn’t read the first part of this article, you can find it here. Getting wet while trekking. If you are mentally prepared for it, it is much better. Most chances are that you will be able to dry yourself, at least partially, when you arrive to your next hut (provided that you are tramping from hut to hut and don’t use a tent).

Next factor I would like to talk about is the terrain. Terrain can differ greatly on the same tramp, and it has to be taken into a consideration when planning your route. If, for example, you see in the tramp description that you will have to climb up the hill for 500 meters, then you should know that this section will take you much more time than it would have if you walked on the flat surface. One more example for difficult terrain is heavy bush – if your trek goes through heavy bush, all your day’s distance may sum up to only 8 kilometers! Before starting any multi day trek you should go to the DOC visitor center of the area and talk to rangers there. Ask them about the track current condition and the estimated walking times. To be totally fair I should say that from my experience with DOC rangers they tend to exaggerate the difficulty of the trek. But this is also understandable because many different people with various levels of fitness come to ask for advice and DOC rangers have to be on the safe side. Only from your own experience from other treks (in New Zealand), together with DOC advice you will be able to estimate correctly the real difficulty of the trek. This is why if you just beginning your tramping in New Zealand, even if you are an experienced trekker from other parts of the world, you should start with short and easy tramps so that you will gather the necessary experience for more difficult and more interesting tramps.

Related posts:

1. Tramping Revealed