Warm clothes, safety gear and sturdy footwear should be on your gear list, but if you’re heading out on an overnight New Zealand hike – in the back country or one of the famous Great Walks – then consider these FIVE essentials I always squeeze in my pack.
Tramping in New Zealand by Shaun Barnett
This is like the bible for back country New Zealand hikes. It highlights 40 of the best New Zealand Great Walks and back country tramps . The publishers, Potton & Burton , have recently updated the book so make sure you grab the latest edition. I am on a mission to complete as many of these hikes as I can – the count stands at around 17 – so quite a few to still knock off.
Each New Zealand hike in the book contains a pretty good description of what you are about to embark on with notes on where to park cars, what the huts are like, if there are good camping spots and how hard it might be. It also gives an indication of walk times – which help you plan your multi-day New Zealand hike. If you are keen on doing a few multi-day New Zealand hikes then its worth buying a copy. While I don’t take it on the hike – it’s for inspiration, planning and preparation – I make sure to print off a copy of the appropriate pages and take them with me, alongside a typography map, as a guide.
Anker power bank
This might seem a little extravagant and irrelevant since you are hiking in the New Zealand technology free wilderness. However it’s a fantastic go-to for charging devices and camera batteries. A cameraman I worked with put me on to the Schneider iPro Lens system, it’s an amazing and fairly inexpensive lightweight kit for iPhone which takes great shots. It saves space and weight from dragging along a large camera. It fits into my backpack hip pockets, so easily accessed and I don’t have to take off my pack to use it. Problem is, it saps the battery in my phone and as there isn’t any power outlets in DOC huts, so you need another source.
This Anker power bank (dual USB ports) is awesome for four to five day hikes. It charges my iPhone 6 Plus a couple of times. It’s also good for making friends in huts where people are desperate for power and may have a block of chocolate to bargain with. Of course if you are heading out for longer than five days, you might want to pair it up for a solar charger.
Sea to Summit X-Cup
These light weight silicone cups are perfect as they squash down flat, so great for stashing in your shorts pocket or somewhere easily accessible on your pack when you are tramping near rivers and need a quick drink. It saves you carrying a full water bladder in your pack or heavy drink bottles if you are confident the water source on the trek is safe to drink. We’ve used this on many back country New Zealand hikes and haven’t contracted giardia so far.
Sea to Summit has a great range of products for camping and hiking. There are the bowl versions of these cups too which are easy to pack and when you turn them over you can use them like a chopping board by cutting food on their base.
Dry Sacks
I use Kathmandu dry sacks – there are a range of sizes and all of them are great from small versions for phones, wallets and other valuables through to the larger 25LT versions for sleeping bags. I put my clothes in one, sleeping kit in the other and that way you don’t have to haul out everything individually – they are compartmentalized and can double as pillows too. 
If your pack gets wet and you aren’t using a liner or a pack cover, these dry sacks mean you keep everything in your pack dry, even in the worst downpour.
The Jetboil Flash cooking system
For years I have used the traditional camp stove where you screw it onto a gas canister and pop your pot of water on top and wait. It’s a pretty good system which still works well. We used to take a lot of different ingredients to cook like rice, pasta or fry up some things but I’m now sold on taking lightweight easy and pretty tasty Back Country Cuisine. Freeze dried food isn’t too bad and these meals for a 2 person portion run at around $12NZD or $8US.
A few years ago I saw a guy boil some water in a hut on the Jetboil and I was fascinated – it took a couple of minutes for him to get a hot cup of coffee. 
We only use the water system, but it does have attachments for using pans, however, it just means all we have to do is boil water and this system does it super quick and then packs away into itself. You can fly with it but obviously not carrying the gas canister. It has been worth the investment (around $150NZD or $100US)as you are not sitting around waiting for water to boil – it takes around 2 minutes – and the helpful colour changing heat indicator on the side of the unit tells you when it’s done.
