I bought this book and the Westland book together. Both books are well written with a wide variety of tramps and day walks for all levels. It includes some innovative off trail routes that create convenient loops and some beautiful photographs. I would recommend them for this reason.

However, the maps are absolutely terrible and look like they were made as an afterthought in a rush. The maps are made using the 1:50,000 topographic maps as a base and are annotated to help explain the routes. But the author (or I suspect the publisher) has overlooked some simple things. For example: most of the maps are pixelated because they haven't been scaled properly so are virtually impossible to read; the routes described have been marked on the map using the same dashed line symbol that is used on the topomaps so it is very difficult to work out what tracks are real and which are routes that have been made up by the author; there are annotations in the wrong places, misaligned or just left out.

Along with the cheap maps is the cheap printing. I had to take both my books back to the book shop three weeks after buying them because all of a sudden they just fell apart, both around the same time. I took them back to the bookshop and got new ones and have been extra careful with them, but they too are falling apart, which is why I suspect the publishers are also responsible for the crap maps.

In the end this is a well written book, but with very low quality maps and printing, and as such belongs in the $5 bargain bin. Hopefully there will be a second edition that is a lot more polished.