The Lord of the Rings actor Bruce Hopkins is walking the Te Araroa trail for Grandparents Raising Grandchildren.

Walkers and landowners along our fastest-growing international tourist attraction, the 3000km Te Araroa Trail, fear New Zealand is jeopardising its reputation by relying on locals' goodwill to keep it running.

Jack and Jayne Broome of Reotahi Bay in Northland have taken in a handful of stranded Te Araroa trampers over the past few years and they're not the only ones who do this. Their last rescue was a young Frenchman met at the Mt Manaia club – the trio got chatting, took a shine to one another, and the Broomes invited him home for a shower and comfy bed.

"You should have seen his blisters! His heels were a mess," says Jayne, who enjoys "fixing people up".

CLARE PROSSER A photo of a sign a local had put up on the Te Araroa trail saying "track closed" at Russell Forest near Helena Bay.

Her husband thinks foreigners walking the length of the country are "crazy, the lot of them", but says he admires their pluck and appreciates the life they bring to his isolated community.

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Hundreds of thousands of people walk and run parts of the trail every year. This summer, the number walking the full length will top 1000 for the first time – almost double what it was two years ago.

The Broomes' Frenchman – like the vast majority of those doing the northern part of Te Araroa Trail – wanted to get across the Whangārei Harbour to Marsden Point, over a few kilometres of sea. As there's no ferry these days, trampers have to rely on the goodwill of local boaties, many of whom commute by runabout or kayak to Marsden Point oil refinery each morning.

Te Araroa's website has a 'trail status' section, listing hindrances such as the lack of official transport across the harbour. It recommends hitch-hiking the perimeter of Whangārei Harbour or "trying to flag down a boat to get a ride across" to navigate this oceanic obstacle in the trail.

"We understand and appreciate this is far from ideal - but hope to have it sorted ASAP," the website reads.

The Broomes hooked their guest up with a boat-owning friend, who gave the tramper the bonus of a morning's fishing before dropping him at the point to continue his journey on foot.

They like to think their hospitality "is typical of people throughout New Zealand", says Jayne. "When you're that way inclined and you bump into somebody, of course you're going to help them out – we really enjoy it!"

Claire Prosser, a Brit currently walking the trail with her partner, had a similar experience crossing the harbour. She "met a man named Pete" through a helpful stranger, paid him $10 for her and her partner's passage, and marvelled at the ad hoc nature of much of Te Araroa Trail.

Though Pete didn't give the women life-jackets – an omission Maritime NZ frowns upon – he did give the impression he was used to ferrying marooned trampers, says Prosser.

CLARE PROSSER British tourists Claire Prosser and her partner Liz walking the Te Araroa trail.

​Prosser noted other irregularities in the trail, including the occasional closed section of track across farmland or through forest. Some of these had signs offering an explanation – a rāhui to stop the spread of kauri dieback, for instance – but others were nothing more than the words "track closed" scrawled on paper and taped to an official sign.

Prosser thought these might be because farmers, whose private land makes up about 40 per cent of the trail, were getting fed up with increasing numbers of walkers passing through.

Federated Farmers vice-president Andrew Hoggard agrees: tourists unfamiliar with good farming practice could leave gates open, or toilet paper strewn across paddocks. But the closures could just as likely be due to lambing or slips, he said. Another reason might be to prevent the spread of Mycoplasma bovis, which more than a dozen Northland farms are being monitored for.

ARTHUR GAY / SUPPLIED Te Araroa Trail trampers walk through farmland in the Far North.

Hoggard said some farmers let people access their land to "be good neighbours and to bridge that rural-urban divide", so long as visitors are courteous and don't get in the way of day-to-day farming operations.

"I think it's good having these visitors to the country, tramping and camping around, if we have our infrastructure right," he says.

"It's a good opportunity for them to see how our farms are working. You're walking across these great open paddocks and seeing the reality - it's not industrial, as it is in some countries, it's not how certain interest groups portray it."

CLARE PROSSER Clare Prosser and her partner Liz: "It does seem amazing that such a huge tourist attraction is essentially run on a shoestring and the goodwill of many."

Prosser understands why tracks get closed temporarily, but also says she felt unsafe with the alternative routes: hiking along often busy highways, something she hadn't expected to do. She and her partner have hitch-hiked to avoid traffic and "sadly think it's only time before someone gets injured" on the road, she says.

She does reiterate, however, how the kindness of strangers has impressed them along the trail. Invites into homes for a cuppa, spontaneous lifts down particularly pedestrian-unfriendly stretches of road, and offers to camp on people's private land have been the norm for the couple.

But Prosser worries the novelty will wear off: "When you have 20 people march through a day, it's different to two," she says. She urges Te Araroa Trust to look into further infrastructural developments to keep the trail sustainable as its popularity grows.

"It does seem amazing that such a huge tourist attraction is essentially run on a shoestring and the goodwill of many," she says.