Te Araroa with A DAYPACK

FIRST, IT WAS the incredulous stares, then came the same question, repeated over and again by almost everyone Ieva Laucina met on the Te Araroa Trail: “Is this all you have?”

You might have asked it too had you met Laucina, who hails from Latvia and carried on her back a 700g 35-litre pack more commonly used by trail runners or day-trippers. Inside, she had crammed all she would need for her three-month length-of-New Zealand hike.

Laucina, a self-described trail runner, had barely done any hiking before she started out on the Te Araroa Trail