Thanks very much if you took the time to respond to our Whaka Trails Survey!
We received a lot of opinions, with some great comments to back them up.
What really surprised us was not so much the result - the most popular trails we could have guessed - but the clear lead those trails had.
The most popular pick in all three sections (favourite, next most favourite, third choice) was Eagle vs Shark, by a decent margin. In the absolute favourite column EvsS got an amazing 20% of the vote.
Second by a decent margin was Split Enz, in every selection category.
Third place was taken by Billy T, very tight competition between Billy and Hot X Buns. Hot X actually added out Billy by 2 votes in absolute fave section, but won in second and third choice by far enough we gave Billy the nod.
We could argue all day about whether Split Enz would have won if a bus dropped people off at the Trig, or whether Hot X would have beaten Billy for the same reason. And to be fair, we have. But these are abstractions, like any election, we count the votes and announce a winner.
Eagle vs Shark could govern alone.
The other big finding was that almost every trail had somebody voting for it. People picked some very obscure lines as their personal nirvana, and we applaud them for that.
Some time, maybe next time it rains all day, we will tally up the complete top 40.