FKT: George Henderson - Te Araroa (NZ) - 2020-01-20

Athletes
Route
Route variation
Standard route
Gender category
Male
Style
Supported
Start date
Finish date
Total time
49d 14h 27m 0s
GPS track(s)
Photos
Report

Te Araroa trail is often 'evolving'. For the 2019/20 season the route is 3006 kilometers from Cape Reinga (top of New Zealands North Island) to Bluff (bottom of the South Island).

Trip report:  https://www.runteararoa.com/blog

George had an InReach tracker during the run:  https://aus-share.inreach.garmin.com/EW7M4

Two blank spots on the garmin mapshare page. (update 'pings' set to send at five minute intervals)

The first through Mt Pirongia. I have attached a screenshot off my earthmate app for verfication (light blue line.) I think perhaps I was 'tracking' but not 'sharing' information by mistake as I changed GPS units (this is why the track goes from green to blue.) Also there is a blank spot mid South Island around the Taramakau river. Unsure what happened here. Perhaps I went to 'lock screen' on the GPS and mistakenly selected 'turn off'. It was a pretty rough day weather and terrain wise and the GPS was on the outside pocket of my backpack, maybe it got too wet or I knocked the unit and it temporarily went out of action.

In Southland particularly the GPS route seems slightly different to the marked route. I elected to follow the clearly marked route as strictly advised in the Te Araroa trail notes (due to this being over private land) and track status/warnings from the Te Araroa App.
 

Admin Note:  This is not strictly comparable to Jez Bragg's time, since Jez did the entire N-S distance self-powered, including paddling across the Cook Straight between the N and S Islands.  George shuttled around the several "hazard zones", including the wide, dangerous rivers on the South Island, etc.  George's FKT qualifies as the supported FKT for Te Araroa proper.