Crisscrossifposs

  In 1963, aged 86, Alfred Reed walked from one side of North Island to the other, accepting lifts, calling in on old army mates and handing out biblical tracts to school children. He travelled down the East Coast before heading west near Napier. He was 100 when he died, so it did him no harm. Today, I got a ride back to Stratford with Dave Digby. In 2000, he and a dozen others walked from the beach at Waitara to the beach at Napier, up and over the Ruahines. He's still hard at work driving tour buses and shuttling cyclists and long distance walking fools all over the country, so it did him no harm either. My own journey of 734km was made up as I went along. I'd hoped to minimize road walking by taking tracks from Opotiki to Matawai and around Lake Waikaremoana. However, Ngati Porou closed 3 campgrounds, a weather bomb closed the East Coast road anyway, and the Tuhoi nation threatened visitors to Waikaremoana.  Discretion being the better part of valour, I made it to Whakatane...

  Using a plantain stem on my AA roadmap I was able to estimate the remaining distance to Cape Egmont as 24km. So at 0545hrs I set off to do 6 hours of walking, downhill all the way. Puniho Road goes like this for miles. This country hall hosted a dance party for dairy farmers in May, when the cows have "dried off". A solitary pohutukawa and its best friend the power pole were upstanding in their field, and I knew I was approaching Parihaka when I saw the pennants flying. Not to be disrespectful, but why does the upper flag have Spades Hearts Clubs and Diamonds and two crossed keys? No way is this the Vatican bridge club. No way could I find out. One of NZs taonga, a monument to peaceful protest, was closed. As usual, keep walking. Still downhill, day warming up. Another puzzle on the corner of Cape Road. It's a Memorial to war dead from the district with an empty lot behind it. Probably a Domain, and a great candidate for a camping area. Just saying. Cape Road led me, fi...

  It was New Year's Day when I left Holly Hut (no rats, nobody awake after 8pm!). Not very far from there I ran into kiwi prints. The probe hole is only my walking pole print, but a good-sized brown kiwi had been there overnight.  A short side track led me to Bells Falls. Filled both water bottles and got cracking again. Totally horrible track to Stony River but I did find a Hebe in flower. Ladders keep walkers from killing themselves, on average. And some of the deep and freezing streams I crossed were pretty. Stony River is a bit of a monster, and once I saw it I settled on the forest track. Finally, a sweet sane walk rather than a life and death struggle against geology. I camped at the end of the track on the inside of the Park boundary fence.  A bit later a man training for the Coast to Coast came running in. Then he came over from his parked car with fruitcake and fresh cherries for me!  As ever, other people's kindness puts me to shame