FMC Youth Expedition Scholarship: The Summer I Became Slightly Feral

My route - 1400km long

The summer I became slightly feral

In the summer of 2018-2019, I spent 77 days walking the length of the South Island (1400km), with my journey mainly based around walking the South Island section of the Te Araroa trail northbound. About half of these days were spent on the TA and the other half were spent doing tramps and climbs along the way (essentially used the TA as a pathway to all these places in different national parks which I had wanted to explore). People keep asking me how my trip changed me - who did I become? The answer to that is hiker trash. I became hiker trash.

Hiker Trash is a term used to affectionately describe hikers who have sunk to a lower standard of living. Nowhere is it more apparent than in a group of thru-hikers who have been living on the trails for months. However becoming a piece of hiker trash is not an exclusive process. Here is your one stop guide to essentially becoming homeless and not giving a damn:

There are three necessary preparation steps to becoming hiker trash:

Step One:
Pack the bare minimum you think you need to tramp for three months. Then get rid of a further 5kg. Crocs are compulsory. Only 2 pairs of socks and 2 pairs of underwear permitted. No shampoo, soap, deodorant, detergent or scrubbing brush allowed - you won’t be washing your hair for the next month and you’ll discover all you need to wash a pot is your fingers and water (you will get used to breakfast that tastes vaguely like pesto). No bowl, cup or plate required either - you can eat/drink out of the pot.

Step Two:
Buy half the food you think you’ll need - because she’ll be right.

Step Three:
Start walking. Keep walking. Walk until there is a fine layer of white salt on all your clothing from sweating so much or your socks stand up by themselves (see exhibit A). Then walk some more - only emerge into civilisation after a minimum of a week in the hills.

Exhibit A (Verena Franzen)

Now that you are hungry, tired and stink - the real hiker trash magic will begin to happen.

Signs you are hiker trash:

1. You will sleep anywhere or everywhere. Random patches or ground or tables are prime sleeping real estate (see exhibit B). Extra kudos if you have your afternoon nap on the expensive outdoor furniture of a random fancy trail side resort which you are not staying in (see exhibit C).

Exhibit B (Jackie Hazelhurst)

Exhibit C (Hannah Matheson)

2. Everything you wear needs a wash. Therefore you end up wearing long johns and a raincoat when you are in town while everything else you own is being washed. You never ever use the dryer. Why would you pay for that when the world is your oyster when it comes to washing lines. Random bushes and children’s playgrounds never disappoint (see exhibit D and E). You also find it acceptable to wash your clothing and socks in a toilet hand basin.

Exhibit D (Cody Jackson)

Exhibit E (Verena Franzen)

3. You will swim and wash in almost anything no matter who is watching (and consider swimming and washing the same thing). Sometimes this happens while fully clothed (see exhibit F) or while wearing nothing at all. Lakes, rivers and waterfalls are your mainstream option, but extra kudos goes to those who wash in fountains or in the sprinklers on people’s front lawns (see exhibit G).

Exhibit F (Maddy Whittaker)

Exhibit G (Hannah Matheson)

4. You are a vacuum cleaner when it comes to food. After eating less than half your calorific needs for the past 7 days, you come into town and beeline it for the nearest four square (supermarket if you are lucky enough to be in a big town). You buy enough food to feed a family of four for a few days and then proceed to eat it all outside the store in one sitting (see myself in full vacuum cleaner mode in exhibit H). You then feel incredibly full and like you will never need to eat again. Therefore when you go 5 minutes later and do your re-stock for the next week you buy half the food you will actually need, meaning you will be ravenous when you next come into town and the cycle will repeat itself. Truly trashy hikers will walk massive days or camp multiple days for the once weekly BBQ buffet at the backpacker’s in St. Arnaud. I can confirm it is worth the wait….

Exhibit H (Cody Jackson)

5. You have walked through multiple pairs of shoes. You have glued, stitched, tied and duct taped them together to try and get them to survive to the nearest town with shoes. Sometimes they haven’t made it and so you have walked multiple days through bogs and through snow in crocs (see exhibit I, J and K).

Exhibit I (Verena Franzen)

Exhibit J (Maddy Whittaker)

Exhibit K (Maddy Whittaker)

Reaching km number 1000 wearing crocs (Jackie Hazelhurst)

6. You know all the tricks when it comes to making your gear last far longer than it is designed. Do you even thru-hike if you haven’t used two tent pegs and duct tape to splint a walking pole for 600km? (see exhibit L)

Exhibit L

7. You wonder why you ever needed a fridge as you eat cheese which hasn’t been refrigerated for 7 days (5 of which were a heat-wave). She’ll be right.

8. You become a hitch hiking queen. Hitch hike in the back of a ute (see exhibit M), in a kayak, in a water taxi, in a post boat etc etc. You will not be fazed by the prospect of fitting 7 people and 6 packs into a car with only the driver and passenger seat (see exhibit N). You will find a free way to get where you want to go.

Exhibit M (Maddy Whittaker)

Exhibit N (Torea Scott Fyfe)

9. When you come into towns, you choose a café purely for its electrical outlets so you can recharge your phone.

10. You restock your salt supply for the next section from shakers on the outside tables of cafes.

11. You can smell clean clothes on day hikers before you see them.

12. You choose a bed in the hut next to the window so you can drain your pasta water outside without having to move off your bed.

The list could go on and on forever. Anything you do while tramping which would thoroughly disgust your grandmother probably falls into the hiker trash category. If you can’t identify with any of the above then it’s time for you to get out there and get dirty, tired, hangry and cheap. That’s when the real adventures happen…

Oh yeah, I went to some beautiful places and met some beautiful people during this process:

A huge thanks to the Federated Mountain Clubs of New Zealand for a Youth Expedition Scholarship to make this journey possible. I learned a huge amount and gained a massive amount of confidence in the backcountry during this formative trip.