Romina Streifinger could be sitting at home in Munich soaking up the last rays of the northern summer and enjoying a dark wheat beer at the Oktoberfest.

Instead, she's here in New Zealand and stepping out for a walk with her boyfriend, Australian Lars Roberts. A seven-month long, 3000km walk with one complimentary beer, probably a Speights, near Bluff at the end of it all.

Romina Streifingerand Lars Roberts are making the 3000km walk from Cape Reinga to Bluff. Photo: Tracy Hardy.

They could cut it out in six months, but they want to enjoy it.

Has anyone told Romina she is mad? 'No! – not directly. You are the first.”

This fresh faced and terminally chipper former insurance clerk, turned barista, turned hospitality worker and now incurable traveller, has been holed up in Katikati for six months. With Lars that is, the landscape gardener she met in Austria. This is a truly global story.

'I have had an unsettled lifestyle, without a real home for longer than six months for about four years now.”

And now, after meeting while meandering through South-East Asia at the suggestion of a Kiwi, they are going to do Te Araroa – the 3000km walking track from Cape Reinga to Bluff.

'At first we didn't give it too much thought – way too ambitious.”

But then a few weeks later, Lars admitted he had been thinking about the walk.

'I said, ‘Me too. Shall we give it a try?'”

The blurb says the ‘corridor showcases a wide variety of experiences, the natural, the historic and the cultural.'

'We just want to know New Zealand better,” says Romina. 'We want to get off the beaten track and experience the real New Zealand and real New Zealanders. We just love being all over the place.”

That means no planes, boats or trains. And it doesn't mean traipsing down State Highway One – 'Thankfully, no.”

Lars makes the trek sound like a spiritual experience. He can't wait to throw open the door of his tent and see the sunrise over the Richmond Ranges. And he can't wait to meet real New Zealanders.

'It seems to me Kiwis are generally nicer and more interesting people than Australians.”

Most walks simply require thinking about it, deciding and then doing. But this trek has been a year in the making.

'I have a lot of outdoor equipment at home or wherever I left it in the world last. I have a good sleeping bag, but I need a better one and I have a pack, but I need a better one.” One afternoon they invested nearly $3500 in equipping themselves for a walk to discover New Zealand.

The 26-year-old tries to normalise their plans. 'Some 63 people did the walk last year.” But that means another 4.5 million New Zealanders didn't.

However this is a young couple with an energy – a love of the outdoors and people and an overriding social conscience. Are they greenies? 'Which means…?” asks Romina. Ich verstehe nicht [I don't understand].

'If you mean environmentalists, then we definitely try to be. Every day we try not to leave a footprint, not produce much rubbish.”

That starts when they go shopping. They go to the bulk food bins with snap lock bags that have been used three or four times.

Te Araroa, the New Zealand trail, will be well served by these walkers, these human vacuum cleaners.

Because Lars is very good at picking up rubbish. 'He is very patient,” says Romina. 'He will pick up the most disgusting grubbiest bits of rubbish that other people have discarded and carry it until he finds a bin.”

Are they seasoned trampers? Are they up for this trek through ‘Godzone'? They practised with a three-day wander through the Grampians in Victoria – 40km. This is definitely a step up.

But they figure with good Austrian shoes, a kilo or two of buckwheat and a positive attitude they'll make it, at 18km a day. 'That's a lot of kilometres each day, but it's doable.”

Yes, they eat healthy. 'But if we are due to stop walking in a couple of kilometres any one day and we pass a good shop I will buy a bottle of wine. I won't say no to my wine.”

She won't say no to the pub owner near Bluff either, who welcomes Te Araroa trekkers with a free beer when they arrive at the end of their walk.

There's a romantic postscript – no life-changing questions have been asked and no dates and places set. While they're not over travelling yet, Romina and Lars have discussed settling down – somewhere in the world.