Nearly Ready To Go

This time next week I will be walking along Ninety Mile Beach, hopefully in glorious sunshine and not in a howling gale and having free skin abrasion treatment.

The last couple of weeks has been busy with preparing my house for tenants, final gear preparation and saying my good-byes to friends and family. I have even managed to get in a couple of tramps with the local club. My Whiteboard is nearly cleared off.

I have been to the Chiropractor, Physio, GP, hairdresser and I have even had a Colonic Irrigation. So hopefully my body is ready to go and I am not as full of sh*t as I usually am. The Physio (nice young fella) has given me some excersices to help keep my hips in line and my legs working so I am carrying a tennis ball to assist with these. I will try and instigate Excercise Hour each evening as there won’t be Happy Hours on the Trail. No-one has developed dehydrated alcohol yet.

My Back Country dehydrated meals have been repackaged to save weight. and I have the first couple of weeks food organisied. After that we will stock up as we coem to shops.

• 

• 

• 

• 

During my cleaning up I found some scribblings ( see below) of mine from 2009 – 10 years ago. I was reading “Te Aroroa – New Zealand’s Trail” by Greg Chapple in my tent. I noted his comment “Look at the last 10 years of your life and the next will be the same unless you do something different” . Since I wrote that I have spent 8 years in Taranaki, where I learnt a lot about the oil and gas industry, made new friends, did a lot of tramping, and received a nomination for New Zealander of the Year. Two years ago I moved back to my family base Palmerston North, and made the decision that I would do the Te Araroa this summer. So, Greg, I am on my way.

I have been out helping clear 300 metres (0.01%) of the Te Araroa track not far from Palmerston North. We chopped gorse,blackberries and flax back and I hope that it is still clear in about 3 months time when I go through that area. It was very satisfying to be doing my bit. There was a group of men in the 70’s and 80’s building a sleeping platform in a shelter that they had built for us. I am humbles to know how many people volunteer their time and skill to make this trail work for us.

• 

• 

• 

Thanks to all the people who gave me vouchers for my last big birthday. They have been used to make sure I have good gear to take with me.

Also thanks to all of you who have signed up to my website. I know there will be times when I will need your feedback and encouragement to keep on ticking off the 4.5 million steps.