The hardest part of walking the length of NZ? Maybe the loneliness

1News

28-06-2025

Walking the full length of New Zealand on the Te Araroa trail was physically gruelling, but there was an unexpected emotional toll too, writes Naomi Arnold.
Every time I've spoken about my Te Araroa trail memoir Northbound in the last three months, the interviewer will invariably ask about my loneliness on trail. It was relentless and profound; the book's subtitle is 'Four Seasons of Solitude on Te Araroa', after all.
I spent eight and a half months away from home, walking. I ducked off trail for stretches to do freelance work, but I hiked alone nearly every day, often from dawn into the night. In the book, and lately to interviewers, I talk about how I often felt so overwhelmed with loneliness that I would stop on trail and cringe, wrapping my arms around my middle, sometimes hit with a bout of tears. Sometimes I just kept walking like that, too. When I was recounting this at the Auckland Writers Festival in May, the session chair Liv Sisson observed: 'You're doing it right now.' I realised I had hunched over in my seat and was hugging my torso again, reliving the whole sorry mess in front of an audience.
Me and my shadow near lake Tekapo. (Source: Supplied)
Loneliness, an emotional state, feels physical like that. I felt it in my heart and in my gut. When I did meet people, my loneliness made it difficult to connect with them; I felt out of place and time, awkward and unwanted, and this made me isolate myself further. When I turned up at the Old Convent at Jerusalem, on the Whanganui River, a rongoā Māori wānanga was in session. I was drowned by winter rains and they invited me in to dry off, stay overnight, and join the lessons. But I couldn't go into the room. I heard laughter and yearned to, but panicked at the thought. I could still talk one-on-one. But I could no longer be with people.
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When I returned from trail and came home, I found crowds made me panic and eye contact was disturbing and embarrassing. It took me some time to come right, but I haven't forgotten how it made me feel.
People alert: Reaching the outskirts of Auckland. (Source: Supplied)
This was all new for me. I had never felt lonely before; I liked being by myself and there were always plenty of people around, or at least the dog, if I wanted a change.
I came across the organisation Loneliness New Zealand recently, and discovered there are several different related definitions including being physically or socially isolated as I was; and being emotionally isolated, or lonely. The second one is the one most people associate with loneliness: the sadness, heartache, and distress which essentially means you don't have enough meaningful connection with others. It's not about how many friends or relationships you have nor whether you actually are physically alone. You can feel loneliness from being neglected emotionally, from being misunderstood, and if people close to you aren't emotionally satisfying or fulfilling you.
But in my case, those feelings were brought on by being simply alone, with no-one to help me process what I was going through. Te Araroa was a psychic shock. It's not just a thru-hike; it's one of the toughest in the world. There was no-one to laugh or cry with after a 10-hour day spent in mud to the thighs, climbing and descending thousands of metres, or rolling ankles over soggy clumps of tussock. Texts from friends were breezy – 'Are you buff yet?'. I couldn't put the breadth and depth of the suffering into a text back. You had to experience it to understand it yourself, and there was no-one aroud to do that.
Walking with a knee brace after a ligament tear. (Source: Supplied)
We usually associate loneliness with seniors, but research shows only two out of 15 lonely New Zealand adults are aged 65 or over. According to this research, seniors are doing well; this group is actually the least lonely. When the General Social Survey 2018 asked people if they were lonely most or all of the time in the last four weeks, it found that loneliness was in fact highest among people with sexual identities it characterised as 'other' (12 percent). The loneliness Top 10 then included people who were disabled, who were unemployed, who were solo parenting, who had a household income of $30,000 or less, who were Māori, aged between 15 and 24, or 'not in a family nucleus'. Northland was the loneliest region, but it's also a global issue. Drivers across the OECD are migration, urbanisation, individualism, a decrease in the birth rate, people living longer, a rise in digital technology, fragmentation of family, and much more.
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There's likely to be sorrow behind the words 'I'm feeling lonely', the organisation says on its website. I found that quite a gentle and lyrical way of putting it. Sorrow, in its quiet and compounding ways, drives withdrawal and disconnection. Grief, shame, disappointment, trauma, heartbreak too big to recognise, let alone put into words – it all makes you want to shield yourself from the further pain of being misunderstood. You feel it if no-one close to you is strong or aware enough to listen to you without defensiveness and judgement, to validate and respond to what you are feeling and trying to say. You then cannot give back to people emotionally either, creating a self-perpetuating loop of shallow relationships and disconnection that only calcifies with time or continual disappointment, and potentially leads to depression. People with depression or other mental illness are then told they must reach out. What happens when they do, but no-one is able to reach in and meet them there?
The empty beauty of Canterbury. (Source: Supplied)
What to do about this? My own loneliness was solved by getting out of my extraordinary, self-imposed isolation and gradually returning to the social bonds I already had, an awkward and disjointed process though it was. Connecting with relationships old and new might seem like the most obvious and important solution, but I hadn't realised that connection with our own selves through embracing solitude was just as important.
And I did have that too on my long walk. When I am on stage and asked about the good moments of Te Araroa, I remember that solitude felt like a gift at times, not a burden. An unexpected burst of happiness would interrupt at the strangest moments, and when they came I leaned into them, appreciating a break from the physical and mental pain. A long encounter with a South Island robin. A laugh with a woman at a bus stop. The perfect song at the perfect moment. Rain on my tent. A kind text from a friend. A sunrise. I cried a lot of tears of sadness during the year I was lonely. But countering them were many tears of joy, too. It was those that helped me get through.