The trail less travelled: 5 lesser-known hikes for adventure-seekers

Whether you’re taking your first hiking steps or ready to take on a challenge, shun the crowds by stepping out onto one of these under-the-radar trails.

By Andrew Bain

There are so many reasons why heading off on a long walk is a good idea. For a start, hiking has been found to be one of the best forms of exercise, building endurance, stability, strength and balance.

Then there’s all the time spent in nature, adding health benefits like improved sleep, lower depression and decreased anxiety. Plus, of course, magnificent scenery which makes the steep hill climbs worthwhile.

Even better if you can hike away from the madding crowds. While popular trails like Tassie’s Cape to Cape Track or New Zealand’s Milford Track can get busy, there are lesser-known, equally stunning tracks to suit every kind of walker. From Tasmania's remote Penguin Cradle Trail to the untamed beauty of New Zealand's North West Circuit, these trails promise a unique and exhilarating experience.

So, lace up your boots and get ready to explore the trail less travelled.

Penguin Cradle Trail, Tasmania

Tasmania’s alpine beauty is on display on the Penguin Cradle Trail.

Does the Overland Track by itself feel just a little too conformist? Tasmania’s most famous mountain walk weaves between some of the state’s highest peaks, including emblematic Cradle Mountain, and is so popular that hiker numbers are controlled by permit. But you can also get to Cradle Mountain without restriction by walking the Penguin Cradle Trail.

Conceived in the 1970s as part of a plan – an incomplete one – to create a north-south track across Tasmania, the Penguin Cradle Trail waddles south from the Bass Strait town of Penguin, wriggling through dramatic Leven Canyon and across the tops of the exposed Black Bluff Range. Just beyond Black Bluff, the 80 kilometre walk ends at the start of the Overland Track, in sight of Cradle Mountain.

Just warming up? You can always continue (should you have a permit) for an extra week along the Overland Track to Lake St Clair, completing a walk half the length of the state.

More info: Penguin Cradle Trail

Great South West Walk, Victoria

Great South West walk is a lesser known hike through Victoria.

As Australia’s most densely populated state, Victoria has some surprisingly anonymous long-distance walking tracks.

Who knows much about the 220 km McMillans Track, the 280 km Great Dividing Trail and, most appealing of all, this other great ocean walk: the Great South West Walk (GSWW)?

The long-established, 250 km GSWW loops out from the south-west town of Portland, crossing overland to the limestone Glenelg River Gorge and following the river downstream to its mouth near Nelson. From here, it’s a long beach haul of a few days along Discovery Bay before most walkers tire of the sand and deviate inland over the extinct volcano of Mt Richmond.

The hike takes you through the Enchanted Forest.

Either way, the walk has a feature-packed finish as it rounds Cape Bridgewater and Cape Nelson, passing a petrified forest, a lighthouse and seal colony, rising over Victoria’s highest sea cliffs and wandering through the so-called Enchanted Forest of tall, skeletal black tea-tree – all beneath the beat of wind turbines.

Expect to be in your boots for about a fortnight.

More info: Great South West Walk

North West Circuit, New Zealand

Port William on the North West Circuit.

Stewart Island is New Zealand’s true south island. Among walkers, this far-southern island is best known for the Rakiura Track, one of NZ’s 10 listed Great Walks but, at 32 km in length, it’s a stroll compared to the wider, longer North West Circuit.

This 125 kmwalk loops around Stewart Island’s northern end, almost entirely inside national park land. It takes around 10 days to walk, but what elevates the North West Circuit into a class of its own is the mud and the isolation.

The island is notorious for its sinking mud moments, but as you walk along its west coast, all is forgiven, with spectacular East Ruggedy Beach eventually leading to 14 km long Mason Bay, backed by one of the Southern Hemisphere’s most extensive dune systems.

It’s here also that you might find the ultimate Kiwi treat – the kiwis themselves. The national bird outnumbers humans by around 50 to 1 on Stewart Island, and nowhere are sightings more likely than around Mason Bay.  

More info: North West Circuit

Check out some of Australia’s best bird-watching spots.

Paparoa Track, New Zealand

Paparoa national park is as wild as it is beautiful.

In the days before the onset of the COVID pandemic, New Zealand launched its first new Great Walk in 25 years. The Paparoa Track joined the club alongside the famed likes of the Milford Track, Routeburn Track and Tongariro Northern Circuit, and yet it remains little known.

Running across the Paparoa Range along the South Island’s wild west coast, it mixes rainforest with alpine ridges, while stirring in some tragic human history. The 3-day, 55 km walk will eventually include an offshoot – the Pike29 Memorial Track – that detours to the site of the Pike River Mine, where 29 men were killed in a mining accident in 2010.

Huts dot the Paparoa Track, which is also open to mountain bikers, and the bare ridgetops provide great views out to the Tasman Sea.

More info: Paparoa Track

Grande Randonnée 1, New Caledonia

You don’t have to go to Europe to hike the Grande Randonnée - New Caledonia has its own version.

The French Grande Randonnée (GR) system is one of the most enticing walking networks on the planet, but you needn’t fly all the way to Europe to experience it. Replicating the system is New Caledonia’s GR1 NC1, a 114 km trail that skirts – but never enters – the capital city, Noumea.

The trail begins in Prony, at the southern end of the main island, Grande-Terre, and its best moments are arguably through its middle. First above the Blue River Provincial Park and then down into it, where you follow the river’s headwaters through a wonderful section of untouched forest.

In the finest of French traditions, refuges provide accommodation each night, and there’s enough variety that you’ll find alpine sections and tropical ocean views before the trail’s conclusion in Dumbéa.

More info: New Caledonia Travel

Maybe take a cruise to New Caledonia?