The huts and campsites along Te Araroa
There are plenty of huts on the South Island section of Te Araroa. All the same, you obviously need to take a tent. In the north, huts are way more common than found in the North Island section.
From Ships Cove in the north, there are a few days camping before you reach the first hut, Captain Creek in the Pelorus, a standard New Zealand Forest Service-built hut of which there are many similar as you travel south.
The huts, at least until Hamilton Hut, south of Arthurs Pass, are well spaced, often four or five hours apart, often you can skip one during the long summer days. The longest gap here is between Blue Lake Hut in Nelson Lakes National Park and Anne Hut on the St James Walkway, with the new six-bunk Waiau Hut along the way. Caroline Creek Bivvy which may be shown on maps has been removed.
South of Hamilton Hut the huts become vastly more sporadic and they change in character. They are often old musterer’s huts, built when sheep were more common along the route, for the most part they had been removed from the higher country due to the damage done to the vegetation, that’s the sheep not the huts. But you won’t be having tent-free accommodation every night.
South of the Takitimu Range in Southland, well, there’s just the one hut in the last 180 km and camping is required.