Woohooo! It's a fantastic track and usually pretty quiet, at least so far. Not many hikers – I only met one other long distance hiker in 700km of walking, a man from TN – I think we were both a bit surprised!
Here's some of the folks I enjoyed following during the 2010-11 season:
Nicky and Cookie did an awesome blog. Cookie also created a complete map set for the trail and provided it as a free download from his web site (made-in-england.com? – thanks Cookie!). It was the only abbreviated set available at the time (Sept, 2010) other than buying all the requisite Topo50 maps. The TA Trust has since come out with their own full-color version that can be obtained from their site.
Tasty Trek, three young men fundraising for development projects, kept a pretty detailed log – see tastytrek.com.
Shalane Hopkins and Alex Ward – two women on a fundraising effort – for an education project in the Solomon Islands – see see shalanehopkins.blogspot.com and missionlivelife.com.
Another guy (his name escapes me at the moment – Stuart?) walked all but 700km – see myadventureplus.com.
Jesse Peeters walked the North Island – see walk2welly.blogspot.com.
Tengu and perhaps Canadoug have already been mentioned. Their accounts can both be found on trailjournals.com. Clod walked with Tengu for quite a while, but not sure if she kept her own online account.
Rob and Deb were also hiking long distance this year – see robanddebsbigadventure.blogspot.com.
The TA Facebook and Google groups are also good resources if you're looking for more info.
So far the trail's been alot of fun and hugely challenging. I'm looking forward to getting back out when the weather warms up a bit.
