The Hillary Trail

Running in the Footsteps of Sir Ed


The Hillary Trail is a 75km route through the Waitakere Ranges, beginning at Muriwai Beach in the north to Arataki Visitor Centre in the south. The trail opened in January 2010 to honour our national kiwi hero, Sir Edmund Hillary. The trail has been special for me since, I ran the Arataki-Piha half on January 8th with a group to arrive at the opening ceremony held on the 2nd year anniversary of his passing to mountaineering glory. A year later, I ran with seven others the full trail for the first time in 14 hours. The trail is just too good to make it an annual bash – a further six months down the track I decided to team up with Kristian Day of Napier to take on the trail again for real.

Peter Hillary, Timothy Burrell, Me, Sarah Hillary – Jan 2010

But we didn’t want to make it too easy.

North – South: evil hills saved for the finish.

Unsupported: no cars following us with watermelons, we’d have to carry our own soggy crumpets.

Winter: mud. Enough said.

With no fanfare to blast us on our way, we climbed from Muriwai Beach through backstreets to the beginning of the Te Henga trail – a jewel of Auckland’s west coast. Myself and Kristian were joined by Gene Beveridge and Matt Ogden for this first 10km stretch, they were keen for an early morning bash. At least after some thorough persuasion. They set us off at a solid pace that we dreamed was sustainable for the whole run, but when they left us at Bethells Beach we slipped into our own rhythm. Initial nerves shaken off, and Ruahines damage report coming up clean, we moved through the iconic sand dunes and around Lake Wainamu smoothly.

Te Henga trail

Our first major climb up the Houghton track broke a decent sweat, now 8am I topped up my breakfast of oats with some syrup-marinated crumpets while slipping up the gulley. We almost had a close encounter with the infamous Houghton Boar – rollicking, crunching and snarling in the mud, hidden from sight – we didn’t stick around! I collected a tag at Wainamu junction, one of last remaining from the Bethells 12-Hour Rogaine held in July, good to see the event organisers are cleaning up after the festivities.

Piha Appears!

Kuataika was a fun downhill blitz en route to Anawhata farm and once a large group of Japanese hikers filed passed us on White track, Lion Rock burst into view – Piha in only 3 hours 40 mins! We were stoked at the split. Striding along Piha Beach felt great, too great, we pushed the pace to Glen Esk to enjoy our 8 minute lunch break, lying on the grass, in the sun… Bliss.



Kristian feeling spritual at Kitekite

And off again – a swim at KiteKite falls was tempting, very tempting, but if we were to beat Nick Harris’ 11 hour record, some sacrifices had to be made! We crested to Piha Rd for the road bash towards Karekare, but not before making a costly mistake following the trail markers… Note to self: always bring map! Kristian was psyched to see the marker after an extra half hour of unnecessary knee-crunching along the road.

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We’d taken a blow to our morales, it felt like playing catchup now on lost time, so we barely stopped for a photo of the map at Karekare beach before the next climb to Mt Zion. This is listed on PeakBagging.co.nz, coming in at 272m it gave us just enough height to take in the wild coastal strip. Whatipu beach is an enormous land of swamps of sand dunes, with a roaring surf. The winter rains had taken their toll making the cliff tracks to Whatipu were muddy and energy-draining: our blistering pace from the morning was slowing!


Kristian pelted by rain up to Whatipu trig

It was a different experience along the windy ridges of the Omanawanui track today: a ten hour fatigue meant I was stumbling up the hills and my vision was a mad blur on the downhills. I finished my last food supplies at Karamatura forks – dangerous – there were still 3 hours to go. Fortunately, this was no average food – my energy rich Al’s PowerBars gave birth to a second wind that blew through just in time to destroy the 400m descent into Huia, and we enjoyed telling other trampers what we were up to along the way.

The ever sensational Omanawanui Track

Gritting his teeth along Puriri Ridge Track

But at Huia reality dawned (or rather dusked), and the truth came out. We were absolutely smashed and still had 2 hours of muddy climbing to the finish. The transition from walking to running was slower than a freight train pumping its pistons and rolling into a start – it was becoming an increasingly mental challenge just to get going. And worse, our chances of beating Nick Harris’ record were sinking into the creamy Nihotupu mud…



One ofthe many ‘final’ climbs to Arataki

Twilight darkened under the canopy of bush, straining our night-vision until we finally gave in to sense. Every effort was magnified, even getting out the headlamp. Luckily I’d thrown one in at the last minute – we weren’t expecting to go into the night. It was a bonding experience for me and Kristian as together we pushed through extreme fatigue into the never-ending darkness, rain and mud…but eventually we heard a noise, a light – a Ruby Muir! Our faithful support crew had been traipsing around the trails for 3 hours never knowing when we might arrive. Thanks Ruby. Once we hit Slip track it was one final surge for an emotional finish in 11 hours 56 minutes.

Although we didn’t beat Nick’s time, we were still stoked with our effort. We’d completed the 2nd ever unsupported traverse of the four-day trail in half a day, through some tough winter conditions. I love the Hillary Trail, but for now I don’t want to see the trail again for some time!

Smashed, Ravaged, but Finished

Now that the we’ve conquered the Hillary Trail in both directions (North-South is definitely harder by the way), there’s only one thing left to dream of…

Double Hillary…?

The Hillary Trail





Bethells 12-hour Rogaine

7pm, 19th February 2010: I set off in a team from Muriwai Beach one late summer evening, taking part in a very unofficial 12 hour Rogaine which would send us through the night searching for make-shift checkpoints hidden along streams, under viewing platforms, around coastal cliffs… I loved it. This exciting and adventurous idea lay as a seed, dormant in the fertile plains of my mind until [ironically] the winter of this year. Noticing that Auckland was lacking any long distance Rogaine events, I decided to take the initiative and launch my own. A challenge for runners, trampers and orienteers alike; the Bethells 12-Hour Rogaine was born.

The event was advertised through tramping clubs, sports forums and word of mouth, with one team even traveling from Hamilton to take part. While the threatening weather forecast saw many last minute pull-outs, we had almost thirty keen participants lining up at the Surf Club gate rearing to go. This extraordinary challenge was set in the unique surroundings of Te Henga, Bethells Beach – a great location for the event; with access to the extensive Cascades track network, Te Henga trail, rugged beaches, sand dunes, and Lake Wainamu. Thirty controls were spread out across the map, with several interesting route choices to consider. Tide times and darkness hours were also thrown into the churning strategy pot, leaving teams some serious thinking to do in the thirty minutes before midnight.

Walkers would become trampers, trampers would become navigators, and navigators would become endurance athletes, as they were thrown into the dark, and the ugly, for a full twelve hours of glorious adventure. As Charles Dickens famously said, “The men who learn endurance, are they who call the whole world, brother”.

Held in the guts of winter, the wild West Coast lived up to its name. Teams who chose to start along the Te Henga Walkway, a dramatic 9 kilometre section of coastal track, were belted with sou’westerlies in the silhouette-shadow landscape of the early morning. Andrew Turnbull from team “The Camel & the Straw” said, “It was a really awesome event, the Te Henga trail in the wind and the rain was epic.”

At each checkpoint, a short clue narrowed down the likely whereabouts of the treasure, in the form of red & white plastic tape. Each location had a unique two-letter code that teams would write down to prove their conquest. Each code was an acronym describing something about the surroundings, e.g. a tape-wrapped rock hidden in a crevasse around the coast of Erangi point that was only accessible at low tide had the code ‘LT’. The further out they ventured from the base, the more points they could earn. If teams managed to trek out as far as Ongaruanuku Hut, they would be stoked to find some red & white tape hanging in the woodshed. One team decided to treat themselves to a power nap at the hut before the homeward journey, via a waterfall traverse at Pig Wallow, some tree climbing on Chateau-Mosquito, a stream bash down the Wainamu, and finishing with a rock climb and some cave exploring on Bethells Beach, before collapsing at the finish. Elated, and alive.

Substantial calories were replaced at the finish with hearty servings of pumpkin soup, warmed to perfection with the trusty club primus. Matt Lillis, notable gourmet outdoor chef de cuisine found the generously frosted chocolate cake to be “succulent and moist”.

Helen Liley and myself spent two days tramping through the Waitakeres setting up the course the week prior, finding interesting locations and writing clues on the go. We slept at O’nuku Hut and in a spectacular bivvy against the cliffs of Bethells Beach the following night. Luckily it wasn’t tested for water-proofness.

The Bethells 12-Hour Rogaine was a huge success in its first running; all the teams seemed to arrive back at base looking shattered, but exhilarated by the experience of going hard all through the night, and walking into the new day. 


The overall winner was elite women’s adventure racing team, Team Macpac Girls on Top, who managed to cover a 53km loop (with an impressive 2187m vertical gain) around all three sections of bush, picking up all but two checkpoints!

Following this success, we plan to organise more of these longer Rogaines in the future, and also hope that this will inspire others to organise similar events. We have our sights set on running a Hunua 12-Hour Rogaine for November 2011, and a Karekare 12-Hour Rogaine for February 2012. Planning will start soon, so watch this space for more details to come!

Final Results (Maximum score 1840)

1.  Macpac Girls On Top – 1600
	a.  Anne Lowerson, Debbie Chambers, Cath Heppelthwaite
2.  Dash Hounds – 1150
	a.  Mike Judd, Rupert Dash, Steve Pyatt
3. : Hamilton Devilled Eggs – 930
	a.  Elliot O’Brien, Isaac Dempsey, Nick Vignati, Craig Smith
4.  Team Type 1 – 820
	a.  Claire Dobson, Alan Dobson
5.  Tim & Tony – 760
	a.  Timothy Burrell, Tony Hastie
6.  Cool Katz – 550
	a.  Hannah Lockie, Tane Moore, Matt Martin
7.  Matt’s Crew – 380
	a.  Matt Lillis, Laurien Heijs, Georgia Yarrow, Rosanna Walton
8.  Peter & David – Disq
	a.  Peter Guillburt, David Keall
9.  Camel & the Straw – Disq
	a.  Andrew Turnbull, Hannah Lowe
10.  Otago University Tramping Club – Disq
	a.  Edward Colenbrander, James West, Ian Grimson, Malcolm Durling