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Jack’s mum, Mawera Karetai, was feeling extremely proud on Wednesday morning.
“What he’s done over the last two days, there’s plenty of adults that wouldn’t have done it.”
She said Jack had been reluctant to stop walking despite the fatigue and pain he was experiencing.
“He got down to a shuffle, but he said, ‘I have to do this’. I said ‘you’ve done enough my boy’. He said, ‘no, I haven’t done enough until I finish’.”
Karetai said Jack was worried that he had let people down by not getting to Arataki in time.
“But that’s him. He’s just got such a strong sense of honour and duty. He doesn’t like letting people down.
“I look at this boy and I see the man that he’s going to become. He’s such a really wonderful person. He’s got a good, strong heart for things that really matter.”
Jack told Local Democracy Reporting there was plenty of support along the way, with hundreds of motorists honking horns, stopping to chat and bringing him food.
Higgins contractors volunteered to open the gates through a closed area of the shared use path along the Tauranga Eastern Link motorway, between Paengaroa and the Kaituna River where construction was taking place.
Jack Karetai-Barrett enjoys a foot bath after walking 40km over 12 hours with blisters. Photo / Supplied
“They contacted me and said they’d heard that Jack was coming so they were going to organise for the gates to be opened,” Karetai said.
“So they opened the gates and walked him through so that he didn’t have to take a massive detour.”
She was grateful for the support.
“Whether it was from people stopping to check on him, bringing him kai, and just loving him really.”
His friend, Jess Hambrook, who lives in Tauranga, walked up to meet him and he stayed with her family that night.
