Te Araroa is both a small coastal town on the East Coast of the North Island, and the name of New Zealand’s famous long-distance walking trail that runs the length of the country.

Te Araroa the town

  • Te Araroa town is in the Gisborne Region on the northeast of the North Island.
  • It sits on State Highway 35, about 175 km north of Gisborne city, near the eastern end of Kawakawa Bay.
  • The settlement is on the coast, around 100 metres from its local beach, and is closely associated with the Ngāti Porou iwi.

Te Araroa the trail

  • “Te Araroa” also refers to the long-distance tramping trail that spans roughly 3,000 km from Cape Reinga in the far north to Bluff at the bottom of the South Island.
  • The route stitches together existing tracks, new paths and road links, officially opened in 2011, and typically takes several months to walk end to end.

So if you are asking “where is Te Araroa in NZ?”, it can mean:

  1. The East Coast town in the Gisborne Region (North Island coastline), or
  2. The nationwide Te Araroa Trail running the full length of New Zealand from north to south.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.