Now in Westport

The walkers have arrived in Westport, having negotiated some pretty bad weather and they are finding it much colder now too. They have a real roof over their heads for a day or two (courtesy of a kind supporter) to ride out the rest of the storm in comfort. This is the first proper shelter they have had for some weeks now. Westport is still two more days walking away from their final destination which is of course Happy Valley. They plan to reach Waimangaroa on Wednesday and Happy Valley Thursday.

From the Buller Gorge...

The South Island leg presented different challenges and adventures. There is is a much greater awareness of the "Save Happy Valley" campaign in the South Island. Unlike the North Island where most people had never heard about it and were shocked and dismayed that it is being allowed to happen, South Islanders are aware of the issue and have already formed opinions for or against. The challenge is to inspire the ones who already oppose the mine into taking action to prevent it and taking action to make their own lives and communities more sustainable and self sufficient.

The main reason some people support the mine is because coal mining is one of the main industries providing jobs to the West Coast towns like Westport. It's very difficult to convince these people the detriment to their community of environmental degradation and climate change. I say, “ We dont have any ill feelings towards coal miners or workers in other environmentally damaging industries like commercial fishing or steel production. Its their CEOs and profiteers that we disapprove of. The workers are doing what they feel they have to, to pay the rent and feed their families. “

If a corporation can find a way to save money by laying off a hundred workers they won't bother to think about the well being of families and communities. Even though these people see “greenies” as a threat to their jobs, in reality we care a lot more about their survival than the companies who pay their wages. I am concerned for any community that relies too heavily on one major source of employment. The coal industry has had its day. I would ask these people if for any reason solid energy stopped providing these jobs and wages what will you fall back on? At present all the eggs are in one basket. That basket is lined with poisonous coal dust and its contents will turn to ash in their mouths.

As an environmental activist I devote my life to campaigning to ensure we will have healthy fertile land, clean water, fresh air and means for sustainable food production to pass on to future generations. If we continue to destroy our environment and pump CO2 into the air, our very survival is at stake. Humanity will literally sink or swim in the next hundred years depending on what action we take now.

We believe the best way to ensure a future for our children is to work towards small scale sustainable self sufficient communities. We have the intelligence and technology as well as the imagination and ingenuity to achieve this. All we have to change is the course of our efforts from accumulating wealth and profit to simple survival.

The physicality of the journey was different in the South Island too. It was April so the weather was getting colder and that added even more dificulty in getting a good night's sleep. In Havelock the local policeman targeted the walkers doing everything he could to sabotage their efforts. He approached a walker Joshua asking to move the car because it had been in a 60min parking zone far too long. Then as soon as he moved the car he pulled him over to check his license. Although Josh had had a learners license it turns out his learners license had been disqualified in 2003 and he had never renewed it. This allowed the officer to impound the vehicle for 28 days regardless of the fact that it didn't belong to Josh and contained all the walkers possessions and campaign equipment for the trip. We had 5 minutes to get whatever we needed before it was towed.

The officer took great pleasure in asserting his authority and openly denounced the cause, saying “Nobody in my town cares about climate change”. Mick hitched to Blenheim 40km away, to where the car was towed and by explaining the situation and paying the $260 towage fee, retrieved the vehicle. At Pelorous Bridge the walkers were told to “get their walking shoes back on and hit the road” by the management of the camp ground at one of NZ's most beautiful nature reserves. We had approached them thinking they would be supportive nature lovers but discovered they were climate sceptics who believed in every South Isander's right to destroy land for profit and took great offence to Heather's use of Te Reo Maori slipped into conversation. “We don't talk like that around here, we're New Zealanders. We speak English”.

Not feeling any great need to go to any trouble to hang around with small minded racists the walkers continued another 8 km down the road to Rai Valley where the campsite was by koha , a much easier and more beautiful way to say donation.

Nelson was sunny as usual and the walkers came across a great deal of support and very little negativity. While they were there they also showed support for a Free Tibet demonstration taking place on the day the controversial new free trade deal was signed.

Chip-wagon Problems Require Ingenuity of all of us
When we got to Motueka the chip wagon broke down, a problem which ended up keeping us there for a whole week, while Mick exercised all his ingenuity to fix it. It was a good place for it to happen though because there are a lot of supporters there.

The walkers were made very welcome and supported local activists by setting up our climate camp on the proposed site of the new Macdonald's franchise in town. Walk the walk oppose this because of the unsustainable large scale, cruel factory farming methods of production used by the massive corporation and the difficulty it places on small local businesses to compete. Motueka and the surrounding areas have everything they need to be self supporting, they simply don't need huge fast food franchises that come at such a cost to our health and the environment.

Saved by a re-cycled Pram!
After a week when the car was still being fixed, the walkers went on ahead pushing everything we needed and nothing we didn't in a couple of prams scoured from a reycling/refuse centre down the road. We walked without the support car for 6 days pushing the prams along. Two of those days were on gravel roads. It was empowering to realise we could do it without the car but we were glad when Mick finally showed up because we were missing some things.

Beware The Power of Prayer
In Tapawera we had been complaining about having nothing to read. We were going to bed at 7 oclock because it was too cold to stay up but there was nothing else to do in the evenings in the wilds. The very next day some Jehovah's Witnesses stopped and gave us some literature. Not exactly what we had in mind but we had been asking the universe for something to read !!

LOTR Parallels Continue as More Hunger Looms
We had been without cellphones for days unable to charge them and with very weak reception anyway, we had no way of knowing when and if Mick would show up. When we ran out of Tahini and couldn't buy more we really started to worry how long it would take because the meals were getting very plain and would soon run out completely. On the second to last day with the prams we went through the Sherrywine Valley and were given accomodation in a teepee at a place called ”the Laughing Horse” which was a farm set up as a trust for travelling horse people and others, I guess we were the “others.

We had planned to meet Mick here and when he didn't show up it reminded me very much of the Lord of the Rings when they cross the Brandywine Bridge and stay at an inn called “the Prancing Pony” where they were supposed to meet Gandalf but he doesn't show up. The next day Mick finally arrived and I was very pleased to have my pillow back and plenty of fresh food.

A few days later while packing camp outside the Murchison War Memorial, one very irate local with a white beard and white bird on his shoulder, who thought he owned the place told us we were very dispespectful and to “f-off” several times. But like all abusers never stayed. This shows when you have fixed ideas about people you aren't interested in their point of view or open to learning from them. In fact at every War Memeorial we stayed at we paid respects and Mick who follows a Japanese Buddhism always includes a prayer for the dead in his chanting.

Heather Simpson
Walk the Walk Organiser

Merry Motueka

Walk the Walk is Currently in Merry Motueka.

We will now be here for a few extra days because we now have as yet undefined technical problems with our chip wagon. We will certainly keep ourselves busy while we are here and our arrival seems timely.... Malcolm, (AKA Gandalf) is currently elbow deep in grease trying to figure out the problem and solve it, but it is quite possible we may need to spend some money on the car. After the ferry and the impoundment in Havelock and now having to take walk funds for food because we're all pretty cash strapped ourselves at this point of the journey, funds are looking really lean again.

So, if you were just about to give us a donation before I let you all know you could hold off for a while because I thought we had enough then, now would be a really good time! I am doing my best busking too, but anything you can afford would be greatly appreciated. Please spread the word widely!

This will be our last appeal as we only have another 2 weeks to go once we get back on the road, but at this point we can't leave Mot without a bit more cash.

Arohanui, Keep sending those messages of support too! --

Heather Simpson
Walk the Walk Organiser

Chip Wagon Issues in Havelock

We got this email from Heather today, saying -

Our chip wagon has been impounded, Joshua told us he had a restricted license but it turns out he is a disqualified driver. He was kicked off the walk today anyway. We had put conditions on him staying, all of which he broke in one day and got our car taken off us to boot.... Malc let him move the car closer to the camp and that was it. Cop seemed racist and unhelpful.

They were in Havelock, the car had been taken to Blenheim. A lot of their gear was still in the car, including cell phone chargers and all their food.

Then we heard that Gandalf (Mick) was charging to the rescue. While the hobbit (Heather) was stuck up the burning tree, with wolves and goblins all around her, and her pony had run off and left her, Gandalf was far away concocting spells to send the Eagles to her rescue, which means Mick managed to hitch to Blenheim and retrieve the Chipwagon. Only one day lost and a few sanity points.

Update from The Capital

Dear Friends,

Walk the Walk is currently chilling in Wellington, enjoying the hospitality of the community centre at 128 Abel Smith St. We arrived on Thursday evening and had a delicious dinner prepared for us there and a meeting with Happy Valley supporters in Welly. We had a discussion about the best areas to put efforts into at this stage of the campaign and for our part, encouraged people to try to get to Westport when we arrive in late April, as we will need as much support as we can muster there. So please tell anybody you know who might be able to get there, that the last week of April is an excellent time to visit the West Coast and Happy Valley!

Yesterday (Friday) we arrived at Parliament at 12pm with a small group of supporters (quality, not quantity!) and presented our "Dear Helen Clark" book to a representative from Trevor Mallard's office to pass on to the woman her self, along with our banner signed by Massey Uni students from Palmy and our letter to Trevor Mallard, signed by people in Petone when we visited his office on Wednesday. We spoke to whomever was listening about our journey and our campaign, stressing the hypocrisy of the government, talking about carbon neutrality while destroying pristine native habitat for coal to export over seas. Our climate camp was not received well by Parliament security, who were on top of us before we even managed to get one tent erected. There is apparently a rule to say no "structures" shall be erected on the grounds. We argued that we were staging a legitimate, peaceful protest and were simply doing what we have done in every town we have visited along our 8 1/2 week journey, but they called in the police, who trespassed one of our supporters from parliament grounds for two years. He left the grounds peacefully to avoid arrest and we set up our camp just outside the gates on council property beside two giant Pou Whenua, or Maori tribal boundary marking posts.

We remained at the camp until 12pm this afternoon when we packed up to go and sort out some issues with our passage across cook strait and have a bit of chill time for ourselves, busking time and such things.

Unfortunately the skipper of the sailing ship which we were to travel across cook st. on has had work commitments come up at the last minute and has had to cancel. He could not manage to do the passage for another two weeks. As we have certain time constraints and it seems Solid Energy has began making movements and marking out areas in the valley for work to begin in preparation for the mine, we have decided to catch the ferry across with the chip wagon tomorrow. The walk must go on! The skipper Jimmy clearly felt terrible to have to cancel at the last minute but it was out of his hands, and he very kindly donated us enough money for the two of us who would have been sailing to cross on the ferry. Thanks Jimmy! We may be able to organise to sail back with him on the return journey, Micky and I are both really keen to experience the sounds in a yacht.

Jimmy also dropped us off the "climate relay" baton to bring over Cook St with us. We are really happy to be a part of this climate journey too, and will drop it off in Picton for the next person to bring it to the next town using a mode of transport as carbon friendly as possible. It is a shame we couldn't sail it over using the power of the wind, but public transport is the next best thing.

For more information about the climate relay, check out http://www.climaterelay.co.nz/

Keep sending those messages of support,

Catch you all in the South Island leg!

Peace out,


--
Heather Simpson
Walk the Walk Organiser

Rimutaka Valley Road

Dear Friends!

The Walkers have crossed the perilous Rimutaka Valley Road, the last great barrier before our arrival at Parliament. We are currently waiting in the wings, in upper Hutt, for our descent into the capital on Friday.

Since I last updated you in Pahiatua, we have been travelling through the wide, wonderful Wairarapa! We spent a night in Kiwi Country (Eketahuna) where we met some very supportive locals, outraged at the governments hypocracy when it comes to endangered species protection. The town of Eketahuna thrives on the tourism it enjoys because of the Mt Bruce Kiwi sanctuary down the road and is adorned with images, sculptures, neon lights and souvenirs depicting Kiwi birds.

The next night, of course, we spent at the Mt Bruce sanctuary. It was one of the most peaceful nights sleep we have had for weeks, apart from the raucus kiwi calls. We were awoken by a dawn chorus of epic proportions. In the sanctuary we were lucky enough to see a kokako in the wild. We are told this is the only place in the world you can. We also saw Kakariki, Kaka, Stitchbird and more Kereru (native wood pigeons) than we had ever seen in one place, as well as two chilled out tuatara. When we visited the kiwi house they were in their burrow, but we were able to see them through the burrow cam preening each other, oblivious to our presence. I felt like a peeping tom!

The next night we hit Masterton, which was nowhere near as peaceful during the evening. To be fair, I had an excellent couple of busking sessions at the local supermarket. The people were very welcoming, encouraging and generous. When the lights went out the streets were the realm of the boy racers and the hoodlems. We were camped on the approach to town beside a big grass roundabout which seemed to be a favorite place for hoons to skid around and around in circles yahooing and showing off their loud, carbon intensive cars while yelling things like "peace to the world" and "save the planet" in sarcastic tones. Ignorance is bliss.

Carterton was our next stop and is a transition town, so we enjoyed hospitality from a lady called Sonia who promotes sustainable living in her community. We also visited another couple who have an extensive garden where they provide most of their own food and save organic seeds, use rainwater and are also involved in the transition towns movement. We had a delicious home grown lunch and had a tour of her property, while Josh and Dan got stuck in and helped with some gardening work.

Greytown was surprisingly busy, and I was amazed to see how many of their heritage buildings are lovingly preserved for public display! We were a hit with the locals and even had one woman sing us some of her political rap music which was really entertaining to say the least. We were given donations without having to ask, always a good sign, and the council didn't even move us on!

Featherston was a completely different kettle of fish. This was one of the worst nights sleep we ever had, mainly because of a group of very young boys hanging around at our camp, making themselves at home by helping themselves to our firewood, building a blazing inferno uncomfortably close to our tents and feeding it with an aerosole can! They went home but came back at about 5 am saying they had "left home forever" to join our walk. They made themselves a charming little bivvy using some roadcones and a tarpauline and finally went to sleep when they had finished freaking us out. During the day we had great support from the community of course, busking went well and Malcolm visited a supporter of ours by the name of Clare who lives nearby, who is an anti GE activist and gave us some organic food for the journey!

From there it was up over the Rimutaka hills, after having been told you CAN'T walk over them, which was a little nerve racking to say the least. We stayed alert and focussed on nothing but survival and made it over despite the dangers, with passers by looking at us like we were dead men walking, aghast to see somebody on foot on THAT road. Malcolm drove ahead and waited with the "Caution, Walkers" sign to alert drivers to our presence. Now we have conquered the Rimutaka's they had better take us seriously in Wellington because we didn't risk life and limb for nothing!

So here we are in Upper Hutt. We stayed outside the courthouse last night and were moved on at 8.00 this morning by a very angry lady, who we thought might have worked for the courts but would not confirm or deny, with a posse of three police, telling us if we didn't hurry up they were going to help us pack up and we probably wouldn't like the way they did it. We asked where the sign was that said we couldn't camp here, but there wasn't one. The unnamed dragon told us we were on private property. Malcolm argued that the ministry of justice is a public organisation paid for by taxpayers money and that the land should be publicly, not privately owned. She couldn't really argue apart from asking us whether we paid taxes ourselves, to which we replied "yes, we have spent many years paying taxes to pay for things we disagree with and are now taking a stand about what that money is being used for". She wasn't interested in the cause, but after she left the police were. So apparently you can't camp on the courthouse lawn in upper hutt, but we did anyway. It wasn't a very nice place to camp, we had streetkids hasselling us, throwing rocks (we need rocks to hold down flyers at our stall) and other useful things like pens (which they obviously don't have use for) and an apple (which tasted home grown and delicious) at our tents and banners and sneaking around as if they thought we couldn't see them.

We will be visiting Trevor Mallard's office in Lower Hutt tomorrow and Parliament on Friday, so an update will follow in the next few days to fill you all in on all the no doubt maniacal details of those meetings.

Keep in touch,

Arohanui

--
Heather Simpson
Walk the Walk Organiser

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