Kiwiscout Walks Aotearoa : Beginnings.

Pat Beath has been a colleague and a mate for many years and I am most happy to support his latest endeavour, a charity walk along the Te Araroa Trail from Cape Reinga at the top of New Zealand’s North Island all the way down to the township of Bluff (where the best oysters come from) at the bottom of the South Island.

It’s an easy 3000 kilometres (well, easy to write anyway) and Pat’s given himself 5 months to complete the walk – for those that are numerically-disadvantaged, that’s an average 20 kilometres a day, every day, for five months…and while it may not sound like a lot, and yes, most of it will be through New Zealand’s unbeatable scenic beauty, it is a serious distance to walk…in case, you didn’t notice, New Zealand has the occasional hill, and then there’s that always inconvenient stretch of water separating the Islands – really, a defining point of islands when you think about it…

A little about the charity that Pat is walking to support…Shine is a national organisation that counters all natures of domestic abuse…providing a range of integrated services to do what works to stop domestic abuse – from answering that first call for help to a free national Helpline to securing victims’ homes; their other services include KIDshine, Safety First (crisis support), Safe House, No Excuses men’s stopping violence programme, training programmes, and more.  I don’t think it really needs any explanation beyond that – definitely a cause worth supporting and you can do that right here at Givealittle.

I’ll be following Pat’s odyssey and hope to walk a ways with him as he comes though this part of the country…

…this part of the country…

Pretty much turn left at Owhango and follow the Traverse to the Ed Hillary Centre…as a point of reference, Mt Ruapehu is the big white thing at the bottom of the image, with Mt Doom just to its north, and Owhango is where the track makes a 90 degree turn into the bush……it looks like the track abruptly just ends there under the shadow of Mt Doom but it’s really only a provincial boundary change…

…some more of this part of the country…

…the trail hooks back past Ruapehu to the headwaters of the Whanganui River for a longish paddle down to the town of Wanganui (no ‘h’!) to follow along the west coast into the Manawatu…

Pat’s ambition is to raise $10,000 for Shine but as of Day One (today) he already has almost a grand on the clock and I am sure that will rocket higher as more and more of the green beret-ed community get in behind him…