Dear Friends,
The journey is over and reached a perfect ending in the snowshine in the happiest valley I have ever known with seven friends in a warm comfortable yert, enjoying a hot meal and cups of tea and a bottle of wine, well appreciated with the knowledge it was carried in on someone's back, just like everything else that made us warm and comfortable in such a wet, muddy place.
Since then myself and Matt hitched back to Motueka, watching the distance I had covered over the last couple of weeks flash past in merely a couple of hours. I currently sit in a comfy internet cafe in Motueka. Sorry it's taken a few days for me to get myself onto the internet but here I am.
Since we left the laughing horse, we pushed through what seemed like the longest 9 days of the entire journey. It's always the last 2 k in the day that takes the longest, the last 5 minutes in the working day last an eternity...you know how it is. The first day past the laughing horse we camped up at Kawatere junction in a rest area only about 10 k on, having waited till lunch time to see if Micky might just turn up before we left. He didn't, so we set off with the prams again, which were somewhat dangerous to be pushing once we got back on the main road. We had a few angry, shocked beeps and honks. Those prams were a real eyecatcher!
I put up the banner I made out of the tarp I had been using to cover my stuff in the pram, drawn on with a permanent black marker "Climate Camp" decorated with foliage and other hippy stuff, a bit of an artpeace that looked interesting enough from afar to take a closer look at. Micky ended up showing up after we had both gone to bed and were nearly asleep. As soon as he arrived I recognised the chip wagon noise strait away and we both leapt up and stuffed our faces, enjoying the creature comforts provided by our indespensable support vehicle.
The next night we camped in a tiny little round patch of grass next to a stream called "Coal Creek" and were met in the morning by Happy Valley supporters Brian and Lynley, who donated a bag of food and some cash. Much appreciated guys, and great to finally meet you too!
From there it was a days walk to Murchison, where we camped at the war memorial. The next day was somewhat frustrating with me spending hours writing a press release that got deleted when I was just about finished because I was running out of internet time and went to get some more coins from the cafe but they were all out of gold so it cut me off before I could feed the slot and I lost all my work. It had already been extremely difficult to condense the entire journey into such a short peice of writing and decide what stories to tell.
Meanwhile Micky had been back at camp being accosted by an angry man with a big white bird on his shoulder about disrespecting the war memorial. Micky told him that he had much respect for the memorial and prayed for the dead before he went to sleep that night.
Still, it had to be done, so we walked on about another 11 K to the turnoff (Westport/Christchurch) and camped beside the bridge, not far into the beginning of the Upper Buller Gorge. I spent hours and hours the next day writing it all out again by hand, then gave it to Mick to take back to town and type up.
While we were at that campsite we had two very interesting meetings. The first was just between me and a Morepork (Ruru). I had never actually seen one before, only heard the familiar call. I just saw the sillhouette of it standing right above the W on the Westport sign, right out in the open by the road. I was pretty sure from about 100 metres away of what I was looking at, so I slowly walked over until I was only about half a metre away and started talking to it: "Hello little one, you've got big beautiful eyes" I stood there for quite some time, I can't say how long looking into those big round eyes until Em came along and he swooped off into the trees beside the river. Just one of my many close personal encounters with bird life in the South Island. They are surprisingly friendly.
The next was with a guy called Steven from the Newton Livery about 9k up the road, who Harvey from the Laughing horse had mentioned we should visit on the way through. When he pulled over we weren't sure what to expect, as there had been a mixture of angry and supportive beeps and shouts from passing cars on the busy intersection, but we were pleased to find a friend. He said we could pop in and help ourselves to his orchard, but we said we probably wouldn't come to stay because it was a bit too close, we had wanted to get further the next day.
Of course we didn't get further that day because that was the day I spent all morning writing out the same thing I had written the day before by hand, but we ended up being very comfortably lodged for a night in a cozy little house on a hill overlooking the river all to ourselves, with a wood burning range to cook dinner and heat the water for a shower in the morning. Steven is another travelling horseman and owns several horse carriages, which he takes out for long journeys around the country, coming back to the Livery, which has provided a base and stop off point for him and other travelling horse people "and others" for many years.
After a good nights sleep we were able to cover a good distance the next day, about 26 to 27 k. We walked on past the Lyell campground and over another bridge across the Buller River, walking until just before dark trying to find a decent place to camp, but never coming across anything but small, rocky and rough patches of ground with big pylons that felt rather precarious between the road and the river. So when micky arrived in the chip wagon after leaving us waiting in the dark until about 7.30 because he'd gone back to town again to do more interwobbling, we drove back to the Lyell campground for the night, me sitting on Emilie's knee because the car was so full of stuff and things.
It rained all night and most of the next day and intermittently for the next few days until we reached Westport.
From Lyell we drove back to the spot we had stopped at the night before, which we had marked. We stopped for a long lunch in Inangahua as a respite from the rain before ploughing out into the unknown wetness for another 12 or so K's to another inhospitable place, again having to jump back into the chip wagon as dark closed in and head back to a barn we had stopped in for a short break earlier. Mick and Em went down to the farmhouse and asked the farmer if we could stay in the barn, a large, open ended, empty building next to the road where we could park the chip wagon and put up our tents out of the rain. The farmer was only to happy and we appreciated the dry night, being able to cook a hot meal out of the rain with the hobo stove and even dry our wet socks! The next day we went past the Berlin's Cafe and on to a small rest area only about 2 K from the end of the gorgey bit of the road. Only a short, 15 K walk to Westport.
Despite the constant wetness, which should be expected on the West Coast, the Buller Gorge road was definitely one of the most beautiful parts of the country we have had the pleasure to appreciate at walking pace. Every single corner we turned, we found ourselves gazing at yet another towering, bush clad mountain, ragged cliff, rushing waterfall, turmultuous turn in the river, dissapearing into the mist. Emily gave up putting her camera back in her pocket and just kept it out. If you ever want to photograph the Buller Gorge yourself, make sure you bring a water proof camera like hers!
On the morning of the last day of walking to Westport, we left at about 8.30 and got in at about 12. As soon as we arrived we waltzed up to the Solid Energy office, erecting a tent on their lawn and holding up banners for the Westport News. Within a couple of hours the photo showed up on the front page of the evening paper, holding two short sweet Messages: "Communities Not Corporations" and "People and Planet B4 Profit".
We had no hassles from Solid Energy but we didn't see the need to camp there when we could have a nice hot shower and a comfy bed at Jonah's barn in Waimangaroa so we went there for the evening before walking on (officially) to Waimangaroa again the next night.
Matt from Mot met us here aswell and Emily and I left at 9.30 the next morning, up the bridal path to the top of the incline and along the four wheel drive track to a little old miners hut at the beginning of the track in to the valley. There we waited for Jonah, Micky and Matt in the chip wagon from 1.15 until about 3.15. We were on the way into the valley from about 3.45 and had to hurry ourselves to get through the roughest and most dangerous bits of the walk before dark.
Luckily the walk in was dry and sunny, then it snowed the next day and melted before we had to walk out, by which time the sun had come out again to melt away the snow from the day before.
All in all Walking the Walk has been an amazingly positive experience for everybody involved and has spread positivity, hope, inspiration and awareness throughout the country. We had a surprisingly welcoming reception in Westport, which we had had dire warnings about, as we all know the general population there support the mine. We had a quiet stall and a few very reasonable conversations with miners. We listened to them and they listened to us and we didn't necessarily agree but we all understood each other a bit better. At the end of the day, we have no more say in these matters than they do. We just want to make sure there is a future for the next generation, from Westport to Auckland and all around the world.
There is so much more to write that you would never read in an email, but my next job in Auckland is to write the Novel, so you can all look forward to a true story entitled "Just around the Corner," with much more details, stories, descriptions, revelations, conversations, trials and tribulations, fart jokes and songs.
Ah, yes, what would the journey have been without the fart jokes and the songs.
So much love goes out to all our friends who have been following this journey and walked beside us in spirit all the way, and all the people who fed us, sheltered us and helped us along the way. Without you, we would have been nothing but broke, stranded tourists.
Keep on walking the walk everybody, you know what you have to do.
Peace out,
Heather, Micky and all the Walkers.
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