Passing through

A very Kiwi pastime is evolving as changing needs and international demand drive up costs. But the new ways have some benefits.

-  BY ROSS HANAN

Trekking, backpacking, hiking, tramping. It's all just walking in the outdoors, innit? Yeah. Nah.

So what's the nah? Trekking tends to be global - long-distance, high-endurance journeys through challenging environments.

Backpacking straddles budget travel and deep wilderness, often with a North American flavour. Hiking, meanwhile, emerged as a genteel pastime of the European aristocracy in the 18th and 19th centuries — short excursions, light gear, fresh air.

Here in Aotearoa, something quite different took root. Tramping, as it became known, was developing its own culture - rugged, egalitarian and deeply tied to the land.

In 1919, in the teeth of a post-war recession, the Tararua Tramping Club, New Zealand's first, was formed. By 1931, more than a dozen clubs had joined together to create the Federated Mountain Clubs (FMC).

“In the decade that followed, outdoor pursuits such as mountaineering, tramping, hunting and skiing enjoyed growing popularity, despite (or perhaps because of) the Depression,” Shaun Barnett wrote in the book he co-authored, Tramping: A New Zealand History. “Many of our modern tramping tracks and climbing routes were first pioneered during this so-called ‘Golden Era’ of the 1930s.”

Of course, the word “tramp” carries very different meanings elsewhere. For much of the English-speaking world, it conjures up a hobo, a vagabond, or someone of dubious repute. But in New Zealand we kept the word's older sense of walking heavily and with purpose and turned it into a beloved national pastime. The timing is telling: tramping emerged as a recreation during times of economic hardship.