Each year thousands of NZers and tourists explore our outdoors on bike. The average mountain bike tourist spends 3 or 4 days on their holiday. And many of them explore our plantation forests. I talked to independent economist Benje Patterson. Patterson has published a report showing that tourists who biked through New Zealand’s production forests i…

Te Reo Irirangi o te Upoko i te Ika was at the launch of our new name Herenga ā Nuku Aotearoa on 28 July 2022. Their news story tells a little about what the new name means and why it is important for the Commission. Te Reo Irirangi o te Upoko i te Ika kindly allowed us to reproduce and share this story. Ngā mihi nui ki a ratou.…

Ric Balfour from Landcare Trust and Felicity Brough from Walking Access Commission have formed a partnership where they work with farmers and catchment groups to help them develop public access routes when they are doing riparian planting. Felicity and Ric’s work is important because there is a strong link between good public access to land and hea…

Celia Wade-Brown is best known to many people as the former mayor of Wellington. But since that political adventure, she has become a different type of adventurer, first walking Te Araroa, then cycling then Tour Aotearoa and more recently kayaking around significant parts of the motu. She’s also a member of the Walking Access Commission Board and T…

Walking is not just a slow way of getting from A to Z. It is about experiencing all the other letters in between. ——— Source of dawn chorus with blackbirds in the foreground: Department of Conservation

Ric Cullinane, our Tumuaki/Chief Executive shares the story behind creating easements for some stunning tracks located in central Otago. This 10 year long project spans back to the dawn of the commission. The story includes behind the scenes information on easements, international celebrities and what can only be described as eye-watering views.…

After four years at the Walking Access Commission Asher Wilson-Goldman is leaving us. He takes time out in his last week to talk about some of the changes to public access during his time as strategic communications and partnerships manager. And he talks about some of the challenges and issues for public access in the future.…

Professor Mick Abbott teaches landscape architecture and sustainable land use at Lincoln University. He has a passion for New Zealand's many special outdoor places. He is working on a project to develop a network of tracks and trails that will connect the people of Franklin-North Waikato to each other and to the awa. He talks to us about his view t…

The 38km Link Pathway Te Ara Tuhono between Picton and Havelock is nearly complete. After 15 years work on it, one of its instigators, Rick Edmonds, is looking forward to finishing.Edmonds says the idea for the path came when locals noted there was nowhere people could go for walks and enjoy the Marlborough Sounds environment, other than on the edg…

Geoff Ricketts set up and now chairs the Ipipiri Nature Conservancy Trust, which this week bought Elliot Bay Farm in the Bay of Islands. You can see a map of the area on the Walking Access Commission website. The trust is going to preserve public access to the beach and also hopes to build a Great Walk standard multi-day walk on the bush-covered la…

Don Cameron is the new chair of the Walking Access Commission board. He''s also mayor of the Ruapehu District Council and a keen advocate for enjoying the outdoors. In this episode, he talks about the link between good multi-modal tracks and trails and protecting our biodiversity with traps.By New Zealand Walking Access Commission Ara Hikoi Aotearoa

Nestled between Auckland and Hamilton, the towns of Pukekohe, Pokeno and Tuakau along the Waikato river are growing rapidly. Tens of thousands of people are moving in as farmland is subdivided into new suburbs. Our Connecting Franklin-North Waikato Project wants to makes sure, before the houses go in, that local people can get around by foot and by…

Don Sinclair belongs to a group that is building a walkway to the Sir Truby King Bridge in Tahakopa. The Walking Access Commission recently granted $8,000 toward information panels on the new walkway that tell the history and stories of Sir Truby King.Sinclair is an aficionado of local icon, Sir Truby King. So he and other locals are building a wal…

John Forbes has been with the Walking Access Commission since before its inception. Last week we marked his retirement and celebrated his contribution to outdoor public access in New Zealand. Many of the speakers, including John, took the opportunity to talk about the history (and the future) of the Commission and of public access.…

Barbara Stuart and her husband Ian own Cable Bay Station near Nelson. They have shared the spectacular scenery and beach access on their land with locals and tourists for decades. She tells us some of the reasons farmers might want to consider for allowing public access on their land.By New Zealand Walking Access Commission Ara Hikoi Aotearoa

Sarah Cruickshank is the Walking Access Commission's GIS and IT Manager. GIS (Geographical Information System) enables our Access Maps to display all the information that people use when looking for tracks of public access. Sarah tells us how and why the Commission is updating its GIS, what it will mean for people using our maps and when you can lo…

WorkSafe has recently confirmed that people carrying out outdoor recreation are responsible for their own risk rather than landowners or businesses. This matches the advice the Walking Access Commission has given since the Health and Safety at Work law came into effect. In this podcast Sam Newton describes the work that Recreation Aotearoa and John…

Sam Newton, Advocacy Manager for Recreation Aotearoa, talks about the government's new Wellbeing Budget. Traditional budgets focus on money and growing the economy. But the new Wellbeing Budget also focuses on people, the environment and our natural resources. It creates some exciting opportunities for outdoor recreation enthusiasts because it give…

The Ministry for Primary Industries is reviewing the Walking Access Act 2008. Asher Wilson-Goldman, the Walking Access Commission's Strategic Communications and Partnerships Manager talks about what the Act is, how it promotes public access to the outdoors and what people might want from it in the future. MPI wants to hear from people interested in…

Julian Hitchman is one of the Walking Access Commission's Geospatial Information Systems (GIS) Analysts. He talks about how the Commission uses geospatial data to create the maps we use. These maps show tracks, trails and other public access to land. Crucially, they help us negotiate and develop new public tracks and trails. You can view the Walkin…

Gillian Wratt is the chair of the Nelson Tasman Trails Trust. The Trust creates cycling opportunities in the Nelson region for cycle tourists and local cyclists. She tells us about the work the trust does on its two big trails. The Great Taste Trail is a New Zealand Great Ride, 174km long, with two thirds being off-road trails. It circles from Nels…

In this podcast, Lesley Soper tells the story of the Omaui Track in Southland. Councillor Soper sits on the Invercargill City Council and is also a trustee on the Omaui Tracks Trust.Since 2011 the Omaui Tracks Trust has worked to form a new walking track from the Omaui Scenic Reserve in Southland. The trail opened officially last year. It provides …

Grant Hunter has been organising rogaines on Canterbury farms for for twenty years. It's a different type of public access because rogainers need to roam over the land for a set event, rather than follow a formed path in their own time. He discusses biosecurity, health and safety, respecting farmers and other issues he deals with when organising ev…

Last month Sport NZ's Activity Survey revealed that walking is the most popular sport or recreation for adult New Zealanders. We talked to the Walking Access Commission Chief Executive Ric Cullinane about what the commission can do to support our hundreds of thousands of walkers across the country. Photo by Thomas Schweighofer on Unsplash…

Longstanding Walking Access Commission staff member Ric Cullinane has been appointed as the Commission's new Chief Executive this month. Following his appointment, he took time to talk about what good public access looks like and the role the Commission plays helping private land owners with access issues.…

Island Bay's Manawa Karioi ecological restoration project has won a $5000 grant to erect signs and put in track markers that will help people walk local bush trails.The money comes from the Walking Access Commission's Enhanced Access Fund, which supports local groups to build and preserve outdoor access - especially tracks and trails.We went to Man…

The Walking Access Commission's kaumātua, Korotau Tamiana, describes his early work training men to create trails into the previously inaccessible Te Urewera. Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence (external site) (CC BY 4.0) *The dawn chorus of birds in the background of the audio is from the Department of Conservation (https://www…

Peho Tamiana talks about whakatūpato - safety and caution in the bush. Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence (external site) (CC BY 4.0) *The dawn chorus of birds in the background of the audio is from the Department of Conservation (https://www.doc.govt.nz/nature/native-animals/birds/bird-songs-and-calls).…