Te Araroa walkers enjoying a freshly mown track earlier this walking season. Photo: Te Araroa
The vital role of walkers’ registrations and donations
Leading the nationwide group of keen people, mostly volunteers, who keep Te Araroa walkable, fun, and sustainable is a big challenge for our trail manager, Dan Radford. We sat down with Dan to chat about how walkers’ registration funds are being put to excellent, and regenerative, use.
A movement on the move
Right now, Te Araroa walkers’ registration fees and donations are powering spades, rock-breakers, diggers, and helicopters, making sections of the trail drier, firmer, safer, easier to follow and more fun to walk.
But perhaps it’s a simpler, older form of track care that best sums up why trail registration payments are so vital, says Te Araroa Trail Manager Dan Radford.
Dan says the funds that walkers contribute through their trail registrations are absolutely crucial.
“The people who pay to walk the trail are literally the difference between it existing, and not existing,” Dan says.
“There’s no other way to put it. Registrations and donations matter because we are not the Appalachian Trail, we are not the Pacific Crest Trail, in terms of the country’s resources, the trail’s resources, and how long we’ve existed.
“Apart from registrations and donations, we have no other money for operations. We have a small amount of government funding for three full-time salaries, and a few part-time roles. And that’s it.
“But all the work that’s done on the actual trail to maintain and mark it, to make sure our app is telling you the right way to go – that’s all funded by registrations and donations.
“We are so grateful for everyone who has contributed, and our message to those to come is this: if you want to preserve and enhance this world-class through-hiking treasure into the future, registering and paying is the number one way.”
Registrations for the 2026/27 Te Araroa hiking season open on June 1. The 2026/27 Trail Pass, which you get with your registration, is even better value than last year’s. With partner deals and the Queen Charlotte Track Permit included, all exclusive to registered walkers – more details to come. From June 1, register here: Register to walk
Contractors Jason and Kieran Chandler carrying in a plank to repair the swing bridge in the Mangokewa Gorge, 2025-2026 walking season. With them is Dael Downs from Maniapoto iwi group Te Nehenehenui, which is responsible for the gorge.
Photo: Te Araroa
Dan feels that the fact Te Araroa is fuelled largely by volunteering, good-will and funds raised from users is not a bug, but a feature.
“Instead of it being seen as annoying that we need you to register, it can be an opportunity: you can be an essential part of a movement, an international community that treasures, protects and invests in a unique trail, a living link between people and the land, a special heritage that you are protecting and enhancing.”
What have your funds paid for?
In this current walking season, 2025-2026, the total national operating budget is $326,000 – entirely funded by trail registrations and donations.
The biggest single achievement it has paid for, from Dan’s perspective, has been track marking and clearing in the North Island’s Waikato region.
“Our work in Waikato has grown exponentially over the last three years.
“This year, we put $133,000 into trail maintenance in Waikato, as well as employing our new northern operations manager Stu Bennett in November to lead that. We’ve supported more volunteers there, got contractors, and partnered with tangata whenua, allowing us to get significantly more done than ever before.”
One volunteer especially stands out to Dan.
“Pete Chandler is our star volunteer in the region and has been essential to the growth we’ve seen in it. Te Araroa Trust now directly supports Pete to coordinate volunteer work around Te Kūiti, and his local knowledge, connections, and reputation across Waikato have been key.”
Te Araroa’s Te Kūiti volunteer coordinator, Pete Chandler, and his mower. Photo: Te Araroa
While Stu Bennett’s work often involves heavy machinery and expert contractors, it’s the simple act of cutting grass that can be the most effective and efficient, Dan says.
“Stu’s average week involves long hours on-trail using scrub-cutters and mowers, alongside volunteers and contractors, clearing the track in places it has potentially never been cleared. Then we mark it.
“Before, there’s often no visible ground trail, essentially no physical trail, and people have to find their own way.
“After, we cut a route and often improve the surface too, but the key thing is all the feet following the same line, so you get this ground trail that builds up. The more people that walk it, the more established it gets.”
It’s an ancient way to build and improve trails – maybe, even, the oldest of all.
And this classic, democratic, communal method is also a symbol of a key aspect of Te Araroa’s enduring charm.
“It’s literally the people who make trail.”
Transforming tracks
Sometimes, though, making the trail walkable requires more targeted force than the “everyone walking the same way” method.
In the Mangaokewa Gorge near Te Kūiti, Stu Bennett, Pete Chandler, and a team of contractors have been cutting a new bench.
Benching is a technique to counter natural trail degradation from, for example, weather and foot traffic. It involves cutting the tread of the trail into the hillside, making it smooth and evening out the gradient.
Among other benefits, this reduces pooling of rainwater on the track, which causes erosion, mud and slows down hikers.
“Having those guys in there with the digger, hand tools and rock-breakers has, I’d say, transformed that track.”
Another win has been a new partnership with the Maniapoto iwi entity with responsibility for the Mangaokewa area, Te Nehenehenui.
“They’re really passionate about looking after their tracks and whenua. We’re supporting them to look after the swing bridge in their reserve. It’s another example of presence on the ground being so vital – building those relationships and getting things done. Before, our volunteers, without any funding – they could only do so much.
“That’s another thing walker registrations fund: volunteers’ costs. They do so much and don’t want them to be out of pocket for tools, PPE, or transport.
“Then there’s a lot of work that just can’t be done by volunteers – earthworks, diggers, bridges. It requires contractors, and we only have one way to pay them, and that’s through walker registrations.”
While Waikato and other sections of Te Araroa are still far from perfect, Dan says Te Araroa Trust remains positive.
“Working to improve Te Araroa can quickly become overwhelming. With the small size of this country’s population, and of our Trust, and of our resources, versus the huge size of the trail, it’s really easy to get overwhelmed and to lose focus. We just have to keep moving forward.”
One section getting a makeover has a mixed place in Dan’s heart.
“Mercer to Rangiriri on the Waikato River, that was my most difficult day on the trail when I hiked it 10 years ago, and it’s still difficult. But now we’ve partnered with a group out of Meremere to do maintenance on that section, which for years had none. And we’re working with a track design company and waiting for consent on really brilliant plans.
“I do feel really good about the progress we’re making.”
Contractors Kieran and Jason Chandler replacing a broken plank on a swing bridge in the Mangaokewa Gorge near Te Kūiti. Photo: Te Araroa
Registration: costs and benefits
Dan acknowledges the fee, especially for international walkers, is no small amount.
But the value they get in return and the value they create for the trail are massive.
Domestic through-walkers currently pay $250 for the Trail Pass, which offers discounted accommodation at more than 100 huts, campsites and other DOC facilities, as well as other benefits, plus $60 for the registration pack, with the invitation to donate more — $850 is regarded as an appropriate contribution for walking the entire 3008 km.
Meanwhile, international through-walkers are now asked to pay $1,350, which includes the operational contribution. It works out to about $10 per day on the trail.
That contribution goes entirely toward the Trail’s upkeep and services such as the Trail App, ensuring future generations can walk it.
Even so, possibly because this season was the first time this structure was used, international registrations fell by nearly 30% — a large dent in the Trust’s ability to keep the trail open.
“We know a lot of walkers were on the trail without registering or contributing. The question we’d ask them is, is that fair?”
Registration funds also pay for the Trail App.
“Over the last three years, it’s incredible the work that has been done on it. It’s gone from being very static information, updated once a year, to what is now a very beautiful user experience with lots of cool tools, gorgeous base maps across all of New Zealand that are available offline, alerts synced for your device within an hour of us creating them, and the same for any changes to our trail notes and maps.”
Another thing registered walkers receive is the knowledge that they are pioneering co-creators of one of the most special long-distance trails in the world.
“We are doing something cool here, with Te Araroa. People walking it at this stage are, in a way, pioneers. It is a very young trail. If walkers support it, it will continue to flourish.”
From June 1, register here: Register to walk
