The Life of a Walker

Dear Friends,

This is not so much an update as a portrayal of the realities of the lifestyle we are living as Walkers of the Walk.

This journey is like no other I have ever been on. It's not just the walking that sets it apart, nor is walking the most challenging aspect. As I have said in previous updates, when we arrive in each town, (usually between 5 and 7pm) we set up our camp in the most central, grassy location we can find. First we set up our banners, as this legitimises and explains our camp site. Then, up go the tents. As soon as our tents are pitched, people become immediately curious. Some of them walk past and ask us what we are doing, and others will just mumble under their breath, speculating and questioning, without speaking out. We barely ever have to approach people, the combination of the tents, the banners, and our colourful chip car is enough to bring a steady stream of bewildered locals for us to talk to. Invariably these people are positive and supportive of the cause, sign our "Dear Helen Clarke" book, and often bring up their own local environmental concerns for discussion too. The people who don't support us don't stop. They usually drive past very quickly and shout at us from moving vehicles, things like "Get a job!" and "I love Coal". They are never brave enough to enter a discussion.

So after we set up our tents, we spark up our hobo stove and begin to cook, all the while engaging whomever happens to be around at the time. After dinner the people usually keep us talking until at least midnight, usually more like 1 or 2AM, before we can finally stretch out and try to get some sleep. As we are in the centre of town, on state highway one, and more often than not next to the railway line as well, our camp is not a very restful place. In some places we will be on a corner, where trucks will come closer and closer until they sound like they are just about to plough straight into our tents and we are saying our last goodbyes before they zoom around the corner and we breathe a sigh of relief, until the next truck comes. With each one we wonder whether it might just be the one that misses the corner. Then the train will roar past a few metres away and the whole ground will shake like an earthquake, waking us all up again.

In the larger towns, the central parks often have sprinklers. The sprinklers are usually quite high powered, rotating hoses. It can be hard to spot where they are if we are setting up after dark, so we just accept that we are likely to be woken up at three in the morning by a jet of water tearing across all our tents, threatening the very foundations of our skinny pegs, quite often with more pressure than our flies can handle, so we end up with a thin mist making it's way through every time the jet passes by on it's rotation. We have discovered we can put our heavy, collapsable camp table on it's side, directly in front of a jet to protect our tents from the closest threat, but the noise it makes at close range is too loud to sleep with and lasts for at least an hour.

Then there are the street hoons in their souped up boy racer cars, doing burnouts and yahooing at all ours of the night, sometimes driving up into the park we are in and doing wheelspins and doughnuts around the trees.

At about 8.30 or 9 in the morning on week days, when the council worker is on his or her way to work, he or she will approach us and tell us that we can't camp there, and they don't want anybody else getting the idea that it might be acceptable. They also tell us our car and our banners are affecting the visual amenity of their town. We reply that we just did camp there, but it's a terrible place to camp and we don't think anybody else would even consider it! As far as the banners, saving our environment from large scale attacks like the one planned in Happy Valley and the subsiquent carbon emissions is far more important than bylaws to protect the visual amenity of your town! But regardless, don't worry, we will be out of here as soon as we can get the local newspaper down here to take a photograph, we have to walk all the way to ......... today.

The walking is quite a welcome relief after the hectic camp life, and most of the time we just get into a groove and keep plodding along in a sleep deprived, delerious stupor. That's not to say that we aren't wide awake and constantly aware of the dangers involved in walking New Zealand's highways. The proper side of the road to walk on is the right side, so that you can see the traffic on your side of the road and they can see you. This is not, however, always the safest option. On some blind corners, they couldn't see you and you couldn't see them until they were literally on top of you, and if they cut the corner (which they usually do) and the car coming the other way cuts the corner over the center line (which they also usually do) the vehicle has nowhere to swerve to. So we cross over on the blind corners and back again when visibility improves. We are also constantly looking with our ears for traffic coming behind and in front, judging whether it's a car, or a truck or a motorbike and how far away it might be.

When we cross bridges we sometimes just wait until we can hear nothing coming for miles before we make a mad dash for safety, and in some cases have been known to scoot down the bank and cross the river or stream instead. A great many variables come into account when deciding the best way to negotiate tricky roads, including space, terrain, vegetation, steepness, traffic speed and size, visibility, road conditions and weather.

We are not always speaking to each other in rosy, philosophical and peaceful tones as we continue on our journey. We have had many enthralling political debates, found ourselves in stitches of laughter or deep in a meaningful discussion about the nature of the universe, or ripping each other to threads trying to ascertain who ate all our lunch the night before, but no matter what our mood or current conversation we always manage to slap on a beaming smile for the traffic and try to wave heartily at every car that goes past, especially the trucks because they pass us time and time again on their back and forth trips, picking up and dropping off loads of what can only be termed as "stuff and things".

We speak to the police almost on a daily basis. They pull us over when we are walking, just to see what we're up to (although surely they must know that by now) and I say "Sorry officer, was I speeding?" they are generally very friendly to us and warn us to stay safe. "Of course" we reply "we've walked all the way from Auckland and we wouldn't have got this far if we weren't careful!". Then they approach us at the camp, with various excuses or reasons for their enquiries asking us all our names, dates of birth and where we have been and are going, and why. We tell them over and over again, and either they just don't communicate with each other, or they just want to make their presence known and keep tabs on us, because they all act like they have no idea what we're doing. As long as the relations are as reasonable as they have been though, we have no reason to complain and we must admit that there have been points where we have been glad to see police around in the middle of the night, keeping an eye on the midnight marauders.

I will never be able to tell all the stories of this epic journey on our website or through these updates and will probably have enough to keep my friends and family entertained for a lifetime and still keep some special experiences secret just for me, but for the rest of our supporters, this might give you a glimpse into the maniachal life of a Walk the Walker, and the trials we go through to bring awareness to the pillaging of the most important legacy we have to give to our future generations-- Planet Earth.

Heather Simpson
Walk the Walk Organiser