Lois Bishop is well past retirement age, and slowing down is not on the agenda. The New Zealand walker is one of the participants in Walk1200km, a challenge that asks people to cover 1,200 kilometres on foot — and for her, it has become a way of re-evaluating what she is actually capable of.
The premise is simple: walk the distance over the course of a year, wherever and however you like. There's no single route or race. Some participants rack up kilometres on city footpaths and beach walks, others save their legs for the country's famous tramping tracks. The 1,200km figure works out to roughly 3.3km a day, which sounds modest until life gets busy — which is exactly where the grit comes in. Bishop balances the challenge with physically demanding work and a running list of tramps she still wants to tick off, and walking-fit is non-negotiable in her plan.
What makes stories like Bishop's compelling is the mindset shift. Walk1200km isn't framed as a race against anyone else; it's a framework for building a durable habit. Participants talk about self-belief as much as stamina. For travellers, that's a useful reframe: New Zealand's best-known walks — the Great Walks like the Milford, Routeburn and Kepler Tracks — reward people who arrive with a base level of walking fitness, and a year-round challenge like this is one way ordinary people build it.
The broader takeaway for anyone planning a walking holiday in Aotearoa is that the barrier is less about age or athleticism and more about consistency. Bishop's approach — keep moving, keep a target, keep a list of trails you want to conquer — is a playbook any visitor could borrow. Start training months before a trip, log your kilometres, and by the time you land in Queenstown or Te Anau, a multi-day trek stops being intimidating and starts being the highlight.
For travellers considering a walking-focused trip to New Zealand, this is the kind of story that matters. The country's track network is world-class but genuinely demanding: river crossings, steep climbs, changeable weather. Arriving walk-fit opens up options that casual visitors write off. And if a retiree can chip away at 1,200km a year while holding down physical work, the 'I'm not fit enough' excuse starts looking thin.
Whether you join the challenge formally or simply adopt the daily-kilometres habit before your trip, the message from Walk1200km participants is clear: walking fitness is built, not born — and it's never too late to start.
Story via Wilderness Magazine NZ.
