To me, map BJ29 shows such a clear, visual story it speaks volumes. I see the perfectly symmetrical cone of Taranaki Maunga, and that stark green circle, drawn perhaps by some government clerk with a compass to delineate a national park boundary that takes no account of the gullies and foothills the line intercepts. Nor of the kainga and rohe of the mana whenua, who settled by the rivers and on the hilltops for good reason and not because there was a line that now bluntly defines where protected forest meets farmland. An unjust demarcation finally addressed in 2023 by the Taranaki Iwi Deed of Settlement. 

And if you can read maps, even vaguely, like me, and you love exploring terrain where subalpine shrublands and streams and wetlands merge with rocky crags and bluffs, and roads and tracks lend easy access to these places without the need for advanced navigation skills, then a glance at BJ29 will have you fizzing. 

Yes, there are challenging routes here: the summit climb (remembering not to step on the actual summit, the revered ancestor’s head), and the multi-day Round the Maunga trip. And there’s the horrendously popular and much Instagrammed Pouakai Hut and tarn.

But here’s my pick for BJ29. Last December, when the celmisias and ourisias were decorating the mid-slopes of the maunga, and the bulbinellas were blazing yellow in the Ahukawakawa Swamp, a friend and I walked what is officially named the Taranaki Crossing. This can be an overnight trip, a day trip for speedy folk or a series of day walks, using any of several access roads around the maunga. Encouraging more day visitors to the park was the reasoning behind the $13.4 million redevelopment of this track.

We went overnight, starting at the northern Mangorei Road park entrance, just off the edge of BJ29. (Regular users of backcountry maps will know how every walk they plan will always have just that little bit on the next map.) We climbed through goblin montane forest, moved quickly past the people around Pouakai Hut, paused among the bulbinellas for lunch, and stopped overnight at Holly Hut. Even with a school group in situ there was plenty of room, a sunny clearing in front, a backdrop of the maunga to enjoy, a worthy side trip to Bells Falls before dinner, and solar lighting for card games after dark. 

Day two traverses the mid-slopes of the maunga. Black lava bluffs loom above, green forest and the red ochres of Kokowai Steam are below. There’s a slip to cross, many new wooden steps to negotiate, and Taranaki Alpine Club’s Tahurangi Lodge to pass about an hour’s walk from the North Egmont road end. A gentle subalpine sidle continues to the Stratford Plateau, where a ski field and car park intrude on the landscape (and a spectacular footbridge across Manganui Gorge is being built). For the final 3km, the track descends into mountain tōtara and cedar forest and passes gorgeous Wilkie Pools not far from trail’s end, at Dawson Falls/Te Rere o Kapuni.