Day walks guidebooks for New Zealand

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Day walks guidebooks for New Zealand

Postby pete0762 » Mon 02 Jan, 2012 2:56 pm

I am heading across the ditch in a few months time for a few weekds and plan some multi-day walks, which are more ore less sorted. But wanted to fill the days inbetween with some good day walks and will probably spend most of time in Fjordland, Otago areas. Any recommendations of guidebooks for daywalks in NZ with empahsis on southern parts of South Island would be appreciated.

regards
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Re: Day walks guidebooks for New Zealand

Postby DaveNoble » Tue 03 Jan, 2012 9:11 am

Moirs Guide (South) edited by Robin McNeil is very informative and useful - but it gives descriptions of areas rather than actual walks - and to use it, it is good to have a bit of local knowledge to work out where things are and how they link up. Most standard tramping guides such as 101 Great Tramps in NZ (Pickering and Smith), Tramping in NZ (Barnett) and South Island Weekend Tramps (Groves) tend to only cover multi-day trips. I think he best thing to do would be to search out the DOC offices in places such as Wanaka, Queenstown etc. They have very good tramping notes on their websites - many are daywalks. And there are some tramping websites in NZ that describe walks such as http://tramper.co.nz/?

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Re: Day walks guidebooks for New Zealand

Postby wayno » Sun 08 Jan, 2012 11:37 am

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Re: Day walks guidebooks for New Zealand

Postby kymboy » Fri 13 Jan, 2012 6:01 pm

cheers wayno. some good suggestions there :-)
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Re: Day walks guidebooks for New Zealand

Postby wayno » Fri 13 Jan, 2012 6:21 pm

one of the best day walks in the world , i've never found documented anywhere,
it's the Tutoko valley walk at milford sound. the track is rough, discouraging most people the 2 to 2 and a half hour walk each way to the open valley, where you look straight up at massive vertical rock walls and peaks towering up to two an a half kilometres above you. i got a sore neck from trying to look up.
gilespie saddle is another one, doable in dry conditions overlooking milford sound and the surrounding area
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Re: Day walks guidebooks for New Zealand

Postby flatfoot » Fri 13 Jan, 2012 7:08 pm

I'm heading to Queenstown next Friday before doing the Milford guided walk from the following Monday.

I've got three extra full days in Queenstown. I've got a number of daywalks in mind:
- Ben Lomond summit
- Mt Crichton Loop
- Queenstown Hill

Weather is looking iffy next weekend so may not get a chance to go up Ben Lomond. Any good alternatives close to Queenstown?

I won't have transport so they'll need to be close enough that I could get a taxi.
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Re: Day walks guidebooks for New Zealand

Postby Rob A » Sat 14 Jan, 2012 12:04 am

Obviously theres a fair bit of info at DOCS over the bike shop (Shotover Street?), but a lot of people employed in the tramping supply stores get out themsleves and are pretty switched on and have a good idea what is accessable and fits the bill.
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Re: Day walks guidebooks for New Zealand

Postby wayno » Sat 14 Jan, 2012 6:08 am

from the land of the long white clouds...
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Re: Day walks guidebooks for New Zealand

Postby flatfoot » Sat 14 Jan, 2012 8:30 pm

Rob A wrote:Obviously theres a fair bit of info at DOCS over the bike shop (Shotover Street?), but a lot of people employed in the tramping supply stores get out themsleves and are pretty switched on and have a good idea what is accessable and fits the bill.


Thanks for the tip. I will give that a try.
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Re: Day walks guidebooks for New Zealand

Postby flatfoot » Sat 14 Jan, 2012 8:32 pm

wayno wrote:http://www.doc.govt.nz/parks-and-recreation/tracks-and-walks/otago/queenstown-wakatipu/?tracktype=walkingtrack

http://www.topomap.co.nz/NZTopoMap/nz17 ... town/Otago


Wayno. Thanks for finding that link. I'll have a closer look at these and see if any would suit me logistics wise.

For the Mt Crichton Loop I'm planning to use a taxi. I also saw mention of a private bus operator that does drop-offs for that walk.
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Re: Day walks guidebooks for New Zealand

Postby wayno » Sun 15 Jan, 2012 6:56 am

take some of those times witha pinch of salt. the shorter the walk the more conservative they get about the time to do them since the less fit do them...
the mt crichton loop would take no time at all to do. 2 - 4 hours is the time people take when they are out for a gentle stroll..... look at the distance on the map, you could literally walk from qtown do the loop and walk back in that time....
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Re: Day walks guidebooks for New Zealand

Postby wayno » Sun 15 Jan, 2012 7:16 am

there are guided trips that get you up to the top of the remarkables, if the weathers good, its a fantastic view.
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