New Zealand - walking paradise this is why we went there. Sure, you can do loads of other things when being there. Crazy stuff in Queenstown, whale watching at the coast, getting sun baked at the beach. But we spend most of the time for walking, only in two spots: Tongariro nationl park in the north and the south west corner of the south island, adding up to some four weeks in october/november 2004:

• Flight Europe-NZ, a bit of travelling on the north island: 6 days
• Taupo/Tongariro area: 4 days
• Transfer to Fjordland NP by car: 3 days
• Hump Ridge Track: 3 days
• Kepler Track: 4 days
• Milford Track: 4 days
• Greenstone & Caples Track: 3 days
• Rest days in te Anau between tracks: 4 single days
• Transfer to Christchirch and flight NZ-Europe: 3 days

Tongariro, Hump Ridge, Kepler, Greenstone and Caples Tracks or

the famous Milford Track.

• Accomodation: we mostly used B&B or hostels and found the following ones useful: Freeman's B&B (65 Wellington Street, Auckland. Takes 15min to walk to the centre), A tour place (14 Marsden Road, Paihia, Bay of Islands. Nice view, not really cheap), Berkenhoff Lodge (75 Scandell St, Taupo. Helpful staff, nice Spa, good BBQ burgers), Wellington City YHA (Cambridge terrace/Wakefield St, Wellington. Central, nice, clean, laudry facilities, shuttle to ferry), Te Anau Backpackers (48 Lake Front Drive, Te Anau. Helpful staff, quiet but close to the pub).
• Getting around: we picked a rental car, mostly to be flexible. In the end, we would not have needed it that badly. If you choose to rent one, take a close look at milage, airport tariffs and how they deal with the car when you change islands (some change it, others force you to bring it on the ferry). It is also easy to get fooled by distances between towns. There are tables around showing distance and time needed for car travel - quite useful.
• Maps: even if DOC gives you drawings or sketches of the walk, it is good to have a real map for navigational purposes. To know distances and elevations properly, to know directions and names of reivers or mountains.

• Jim DuFresne: Tramping in New Zealand. Lonely Planet Publications. 5th edition, November 2002.
  Covers all important tracks and provides information necessary around them.
• Paul Harding, Carolyn Bain, Neal Bedford: New Zealand. Lonely Planet Publications. 11th edition, September 2002.
  Adds some useful "civil" information to the above named guide.
• Charles Dickens: Oliver Twist. Penguin Books, London, 1994.
  Has nothing to do with NZ, but this is the book I read on this trip. Maybe it would have been better to pick "Great Expectations" instead to get a verbal link to "Great Walks", but I didn't :-)
• Jonathan Dorn, Dennis Lewon: Cover Story-New Zealand. Backpacker, pp64-74. April 2005.
  Finally, Backpacker tells us something about non-US places to hike. I add this reference since I met the authors in Upper Caples Hut when researching their article. Nice work, guys...
• Department of Conservation: New Zealand: Great Walks. Overview of all the great walks and a lot of useful information.
• Great Walks Track Availability. Online booking and availability of great walks. Especially needed for the very popular ones in peak season.
• Fiordland - Home The national park that hosts Kepler, Milford and all the other walks
• NZ Tracks @ wolfgangstaiger.de: private page with some nice tour desriptions and pictures.

Maori boat...

...and its captain?

Watching the door.

Collects water,

collects sun,

looks interesting,

does not serve anybody anymore!