Aussies Tom Bartlett and Maddie Wait have set a blistering new fastest known time (FKT) on Te Araroa — New Zealand’s backbone of trails at 3,000km north-to-south.
The old unsupported FKT was 69 days, 20 hours, by Tim Wright in December 2022. According to Bartlett and Wait they walked the trail in 54 days, 14 hours.
If the record stands on verification, the hikers will have hacked well over two weeks off the record. But to hear it from them, they never expected such a decisive performance.
“We didn’t have a specific goal in mind before we started. We had an idea of how much sleep we needed and tried to spend every other waking moment moving!" they told ExplorersWeb.
"We thought the record was achievable, but at any moment something could happen and end your trip. The TA is a very complicated trail with kayak sections, low tide routes and many shuttles. We spent a lot of time planning and we felt it paid off.”
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