If you blink, you may just miss him. He’s speedy, he’s infamous, he’s had a song written about him, and he’s just become the oldest person to hike Te Araroa in the 2025 season. 

At 82 years old, Ernst Schweizer didn’t plan on breaking any records. He’s just a fella who loves a big hike.

Schweizer “knocked the bastard off” and touched the Stirling Point signpost on March 20. He had set out from Cape Rēinga on November 2.

“I surprised myself,” he said. “I can still walk those young ones into the ground, especially on the flat.”

During the hike he met Elliot Williams, at six years old the youngest person on Te Araroa this year. Elliot was hiking with his parents and three siblings.

Elliot’s mother, Courtney, said they had all looked forward to meeting Schweizer. Their paths crossed at St Arnaud, and he was “such a great inspiration”.

Pavel Paul, another TA tramper, was sitting around a campfire playing his guitar when the TA’s unofficial 2025 poet Wayne Jones piped up: “I’ve  written a poem about Ernie – would you like to put it to music?”

“Ernie really inspires us,” Paul said, adding that the song’s chorus was born “almost instantly”. 

Swiss-born Schweizer emigrated to New Zealand 42 years ago and only started hiking after retirement. His first tramp was no small feat: 2100km from Geneva, across France to the Atlantic.

“That was very enjoyable, so I thought, what’s next?” He walked from Perth to Albany in Australia and has completed several 500km trips in Tibet, Nepal and Bhutan.

He set his sights on the TA as his penultimate hike; Australia’s National Trail (5330km) will be his last. 

Schweizer likes to pack light and tramps with the “bare minimum” of clothes: thermal underwear, flannel shirt, fleece jacket, rain jacket, shorts and a pair of long pants. “The only thing I have two of is socks,” he said.

Schweizer would walk for 10–15 days at a time, then take a day or two off to pick up supplies. He ate simply for the entire journey.

“I had one-and-a-half Weet-Bix for breakfast, a muesli bar at lunchtime, a 90g dehy for dinner and one Berroca tablet,” he said. “I also took chocolate along, but that doesn’t go very far: it was usually gone by evening.”

He enjoyed the solitude of daytime, reflecting on his life and letting his mind bumble along while wandering down the tracks.

“I have a positive outlook and a great sense of humour. I do not worry about things which I cannot change. I just accept and go on with it,” he said.

“I think that’s my happy secret. It’s really the attitude that helps with a big mission like this, because 90 per cent of how your body feels is in your brain.”