Who knew there was a working farm called Ambury Regional Park on the outskirts of the Auckland suburb of Māngere, complete with water that has to be treated, plus sheep, chickens, ducks, and a horse named Cameron. 

My walking companion and I didn’t – and we grew up in South Auckland. 

“That’s what I loved about today,” said my friend, who had joined me on the 16km Coast to Coast Walkway from Auckland’s Viaduct Basin to Manukau Harbour and over to the suburb of Māngere Bridge. “There are so many twists and turns from one street to the next. I’ve seen a different side of Auckland. It’s been fascinating.” 

An adventure is what it was. 

Volcanoes, Victorian architecture, cafes, car fumes, dodging suits and tourists, pavement pounding, an Auckland we didn’t know existed – all crammed into a tidy 16km. It wasn’t a huge walk – heck, it wasn’t even the New Zealand backcountry – but we were wearing hiking shoes and day packs and had set out to discover, for us, a new part of Auckland. 

We may not have been weathered with bulging calves encased in gaiters, and we may have chosen cake and coffee over scoffing scroggin. And we were certainly wearing clean underpants, fresh that morning. But we were adventurers and hikers all the same. 

In our world of Instagramable mountain views, social influencers, celebrity adventurers and the quest to find our worth, it’s easy to get sucked in by the idea that a hiking adventure means a multi-day tramp, climbing mountains in the New Zealand backcountry or taking on the 3000km Te Araroa Trail. Aren’t those ‘proper’ adventures, and only by ticking them off will we be ‘proper adventurers or trampers’.     

Says who, though? 

According to the Cambridge English Dictionary, adventure is: ‘An unusual, exciting, and possibly dangerous activity, such as a trip or experience, or the excitement produced by such an activity’. 

Nowhere does this definition specify time, distance, mountain height or degree of difficulty. As long as it’s unusual, exciting and ‘possibly’ dangerous, it counts. 

That means day walks and small outings can count. Take the Coast to Coast Walkway. Unusual to walk from coast to coast in Auckland? Tick. Exciting to see volcanoes and other random pockets of Auckland, not to mention the challenge of it? Tick. Possibly dangerous when you take into account Auckland drivers? Big tick.      

Adventures don’t have to be huge. You can still be a tramper even if you don’t carry three days’ of food or complete a thru-hike. You’re still a hiker if you only venture out once a month for a ramble or only if the sun is shining. 

Limiting our options to what may be classed as an adventure means we may neglect the little adventures right on our doorsteps. You know the ones: the native forest down the road, rock-hopping or beach-walking around the coast, the high points nearby.

Limiting options also exposes us to inertia, getting caught in the doom loop, thinking we don’t have the right tramping kit, the right experience, we’re not fit enough, we have no one to go walking with, we can’t read a map, we’re not hard-core like Bear Grylls; all sorts of excuses – and so we don’t even try. 

Not only do we miss out on numerous experiences from those smaller adventures, we also miss out on opportunities to ‘learn to walk’. We all have to start somewhere. A toddler doesn’t walk without first crawling or shuffling. We can’t take on Aoraki without first taking on smaller mountains. We wouldn’t take on smaller mountains without first stepping outside our front door and just going for a tramp, even a small one.       

‘Learning to walk’ in this way sets us on a trajectory to bigger things. By starting small, we gain fitness, skills and experience. Often without realising it, our tramps naturally get bigger and bigger. 

At the end of the day, an adventure is whatever you want it to be – if you think it’s an adventure, then it is. And if you tramp or hike, no matter the location, the terrain, the distance or degree of difficulty, then you’re a tramper or hiker. It’s as simple as that.   

The park bench and an ice cream called as my walking companion and I hiked the last kilometre towards Ambury Regional Park, where we were camping. Between licks we joked about how our armpits stewed and our feet throbbed, and we embraced the deliciously pleasant drained feeling that permeated our bodies. It wasn’t a big adventure, but we still felt like we had been on a tramp.