Photo: Tsewang Nuru Sherpa
You’ve booked your Great Walk and now the questions start to pile up. What type of shoes should you wear? What food and treats to pack? And on which tracks should you allow time for side trips?
Our expert Great Walkers answer questions across seven categories to give you advice on how to make your Great Walk, well, great.
Missed yesterday’s feature? Spend a night in a majestic mountain amphitheatre.
Quiz
‘FKT’ stands for:
A - First known traverse
B - First known trauma
C - Follow known track
D - Fastest known time
Scroll to the bottom of this email for the answer…
Current Issue - September 2026 Great Walks special issue
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Featured Book
Look Out
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Recipe: Risoni
Served with strips of fish, pork or chicken laid artfully over a plate of risoni salad, you have a good looking and tasty complete meal.
Profile
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 7-8 min
Serves: 2-3
Ingredients
1 cup Risoni, cook and drain
6 sun-dried tomatoes cut into slivers
1 can whole kernel corn drained
1 Tbsp lemon juice
1 Tbsp olive or avocado oil
Salt and pepper
Fresh herbs or salad leaves.
Method
Put the cooked Risoni into a big bowl, toss in the corn, tomato and mix together.
Season and stir in the lemon juice and oil dressing. You may prefer to use more oil.
Immediately before serving, mix in the fresh leaves, cut or torn into small pieces.
Provided the salad is kept covered and cool, it is perfectly edible for a week.
Poll results
On Monday we asked Wilderness Daily readers if you have climbed any of Aotearoa’s seven Mt Alexanders.
The results are in: Just 11% of you have climbed one, while 89% of you have not.
Here is a selection of comments from our readers:
“An awesome climb done in winter - from road end to top and back is a big day. Great view of Arthur’s Pass and Lake Brunner ”
“The mighty Mt Alexander on the West Coast, Te Wai Pounamu”
Have a question you want to ask your fellow Wilderness Daily readers? Send us an email at [email protected]
Quiz answer
Answer D - Fastest known time
A ‘FKT’ is the speed record for someone completing a section of trail.
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