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The Big Walk
Two of this country’s leading adventurers have headed out onto Te Araroa – Graeme Dingle from Bluff, and Jamie Fitzgerald from Cape Reinga. They’re already known as blokes who don’t stand still, but there’s more to it.
Graeme is a hard man of the mountains and rock climbing, but he’s well-known too for bringing outdoor challenge to youth, and both he and Jamie have recruited teams of mainly 16-18 year-olds to join them on long sections of the route.
Outdoor adventure as a stimulus for youth: that’s the plan, and on November 30, Dingle set off from Bluff with Jo-anne Wilkinson. They walked from Stirling point to the township with 100 Bluff Community School 100 kids and a police car in front, all lights flashing The kids then saw them off with a haka, and the two set off walking accompanied by a smaller and older youth group from the YMCA.
Bluff-Invercargill is one unfinished Te Araroa section, so the two hopped on their bikes later.
Back at Cape Reinga, Jamie – winner with Kevin Biggar of the 2003 Trans-Atlantic rowing race, and first Kiwi to reach the South Pole unsupported in 2007 – was getting his communal adventure underway. After the rigours of ocean rowing and polar sledding he wanted to share some skills with young Kiwis. It was his idea to do what he’s called The Big Walk. Again local school kids were there, and an older group.
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The plan from here is for the Bluff twosome and the Cape Reinga guy to walk fast – biking some of the unfinished bits – to meet in the middle of Te Araroa – Wellington in early February. Along the way youth teams – usually recruited from programmes already set rolling by the Foundation for Youth Development which Graeme and Jo-anne founded – will join them for specific sections. Jamie and Graeme and Jo-anne have done stuff. They’ll give talks around the campfire at night of adventure, commitment and the thousand things that the outdoors bring.
You can follow the adventure on www.thebigwalk.org.nz
