Think you need to be super fit before you start hiking? Think again. The truth is that hiking fitness isn't built in a gym or achieved overnight. It's built one walk, one hill and one adventure at a time.

Whether you're returning to the trails after a break or taking your first steps into the outdoors, there are simple ways to build strength, endurance and confidence without turning your life upside down.

In this article, I share the lessons I've learned from thousands of kilometres of hiking across New Zealand and beyond, along with practical tips to help you prepare for the trail.

You'll discover how to train for hiking in a way that fits real life, so you can spend less time worrying about whether you're fit enough and more time enjoying the journey. 🌿🥾

Every walk teaches you something. This one taught me that gold miners were tougher than any of us, that a broken gas bottle is character building, and that sometimes the best thing you can do after six hours in the bush is lower yourself into a hot pool and stay there.

The June Reset and Recharge Walk took us into the Waiorongomai Valley near Te Aroha, a place most people have driven past without ever stopping.

What they don't know is what the valley reveals only to those who walk into it — gold mine tunnels, hidden waterfalls, a swingbridge into the dark, and history scattered through the bush like it was left there yesterday.

This is the story of that day.

Every idea has a beginning. This one had four women, a Coromandel valley, and a very cold river.

Sharon, Lietta, Karen and Irene gathered from across the North Island for the very first Freewheeling Kiwi Reset and Recharge Walk.

They walked without hurry through ancient native forest, stood beneath a 900 year old Kauri tree, and finished with a freezing swim in the Kauaeranga River and hot tea on the bank.

They arrived as strangers. They left as friends. This is the story of that day.