Stu Bennett on Stag Saddle – Te Araroa’s highest point
Te Araroa’s Northern Trail Coordinator, Stu Bennett, grew up near Whakahoro on the Whanganui River – close to where Te Araroa now meanders. While he always thought the valley was a special place he was surprised that the trail ended up winding its way past his old neck of the woods.
But Stu needn’t really have been surprised because the more you know about him, the more it seems that he’s connected to Te Araroa in a way that almost seems predetermined.
Stu walked Te Araroa in the 2022/23 season but he’d been hooked on the idea for over twenty years by then. Two decades is quite a long lead-in time – especially when you think that Te Araroa didn’t open for business until 2011.
His fascination with the trail started when he met Geoff Chapple in 2002. Stu was a roving hut warden for the Department of Conservation in the Nelson Lakes area “getting paid for six hours a day doing ten day shifts.”
“I ran into a little ginger haired fulla at the office one day and he told me what he was up to. I thought it was amazing and told him that I hoped to run into him again later.”
Stu was living in Saint Arnaud in the off-season of his university studies. When it’s suggested to him that it was pretty coincidental that he had found himself living beside the not-yet-built Te Araroa for the second time he laughs.
“I’m not finished yet. There’s a lot of serendipity on Te Araroa.”
Stu had told his boss about Geoff and his plans, but was warned off walking with him. The warning didn’t work.
“I made sure I met up with Geoff again at the Upper Travers and we ended up spending a bit of time together. In the morning when I was doing my radio calls back to base from the hut I told the boss that I was taking Geoff over Waiau Pass. When he said ‘no’ again I just went – ‘crackle crackle. You’re breaking up’. So yeah…I ended up taking him over. It all ended up in his book, One Man Walks His Dream. It was cool meeting him. He had an amazing vision. He’s a true social entrepreneur. He was super intriguing to me.
“By the time I [finished working in] the area I’d probably walked the entire upper South Island section of the trail.”
Stu ran his own backcountry contracting business for years. The work involved heaps of track maintenance and predator control all over Aotearoa. The predator control was for all the usual suspects – stoats, rats and possums. If it ate native flora and fauna it was on Stu’s hit list.
When asked how many animals he thinks he’s killed over the years, his answer gives some idea of the scale of New Zealand’s invasive species problem.
“I wouldn’t really like to think about it. But, here’s a good example – on the last contract I had before I started work [for Te Araroa], I ordered 370,000 cyanide pellets for a piece of land that was 47-and-a-half thousand hectares in the northern Waikato. It was a big project with over 900 landowners involved.”
It’s a safe bet that most of those pellets resulted in a dead critter.
Stu’s business also had contracts to weed several of the regional parks in Auckland, many of which are on Te Araroa.
All of this work in the hills and forests of New Zealand takes a lot of walking and Stu did the hard yards with his staff.
“I pretty much set up my company so that I could go walking in the bush. The funny thing is that everyone gave me the big ups when I did Te Araroa, you know. ‘It’s so amazing that you did Te Araroa!’ but I reckon I walked at least that far every year at work.”
Stu has been employed by Te Araroa because the organisation’s registration system has brought it more financial security. Track work that would have once been done by volunteers with shovels is now being done by contractors with excavators.
“A lot of people think volunteers should do all this stuff. A good team of professionals with the right gear can really get the job done [fast],” Stu reckons.
But the sheer size of the trail means that volunteers will always be part of the trail maintenance equation, but managing them requires a bit of thought.
“There’s real value in getting locals involved in this stuff. Once they start getting the knowledge onboard they will become really valuable.” Stu sees Te Araroa as a great way to inspire and educate people on how to make an impact after their walk and he’s working on a plan to make this happen in the part of Te Araroa that he’s responsible for.
“The only way people will get the value of nature is through experience.”
Stu’s job is pretty hands-on, but workers, whether they’re paid or volunteers, need oversight. Up until Stu became an employee of the Trust, Trail Manager Dan Radford oversaw most of the work that happens on the 3000 kilometre trail – no easy task because Dan is based all the way down south in Twizel.
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Stu first worked for Te Araroa as a contractor in 2013, when parts of the Puhoi section of the trail needed shifting, but he became an employee of the trust when he saw the job ad for a North Island Trail Operations manager in 2025.
“At first when I saw the ad I thought ‘jeez…the top part. That’s the worst part!’”
As with much of this story, Stu’s path toward becoming an employee almost seems inevitable. He’d met Dan a couple of times before the northern operations role came up. After a fair bit of humming and ha-ing Stu applied for the job armed with a good understanding of the scale of the trail’s issues – but also its potential.
“I got an interview…and…ah…here I am,” a completely unfazed Stu says.
“My typical work week involves a lot of looking at the weather.” He has to be adaptable, but is happy that there’s time to sit back, have a think and make plans.
“I’m doing a lot of triaging at the moment. When you break it down there are a lot of areas that are managed by other people, so it’s taken a bit to come to an understanding of what it is I’m responsible for. I’m slowly but surely mapping it all. Getting what needs to be done on the GIS system for future reference.
“I’m also doing a lot of weedeating and mowing. This season [has been] a bit unique. Heavy rains mean the growth has been unreal. I’m usually by myself, which I don’t mind. This week I’ve cut from Mercer to Lawrence Road. I’ve got some good callouses.
“I’ve been down in Waikato helping Pete Chandler, build a bridge. Lugging timber round. Pete’s a local legend and I’m not sure what Te Araroa would do without him.
“We’ve contracted a couple of his boys and their digger to sort out the Mangaokewa Track [near Te Kuiti]. I’m sort of a hands-off manager and they know what they’re doing. I trust the boys. I’ve worked with them before. They have their “Working From Heights Certificate” which came in handy when we had to replace a board on a bridge in there. They’re great guys…they don’t want me hovering around telling them what to do.”
When asked if he thinks hikers understand how monumental the task of keeping the trail open is, Stu’s in no doubt.
“Most of them would have no idea. I think many of them think it all [looks after] itself. New Zealand has over 16,000 kilometres of managed walkways and about 900 publicly managed huts. We have a huge system and Te Araroa is just a tiny part of that.”
“The weather we’re getting these days isn’t helping either. Massive heavy rains. Just managing the water that runs off the trail is impossible these days.”
Stu reckons that back in the day kiwis used to maintain their trails while they walked – releasing blocked water channels on the sides of tracks with their boots and moving or cutting windfall. Many trampers walked with a handsaw.
While there are still plenty of walkers who do lend a hand, Stu reckons there’s been an attitude change.
“I’ll often see branches lying across tracks that two and a half thousand people have ignored. You can see how people just walk around them. Just move them! Throw em off the track!”
Not all tracks are in bad shape though.
“The tracks around Angelus Hut and the Travers are pretty good even though they’ve had thousands of people over them. They’re well designed and the geology is forgiving, and they get a little bit of management. The hut wardens in the area really care and they’ve done a good job over the years.”
Stu is a real team player, so getting used to his new role has been hard at times. The sheer scale of the trail means that he doesn’t quite have enough contact with others in Te Araroa’s crew.
“It can be quite a lonely job at times. I don’t see the guys enough. It might seem frivolous to some, but it’s invaluable when we can all meet up. Get on the same page. It’s quite difficult. But I feel like things are really starting to change. Good things are really beginning to happen.”
“[Te Araroa] is really complex. The politics are complex. But I think I’m starting to find my feet.”
Not a bad thing for someone whose job it is to look after several hundred kilometres of walking trail.
