Cesar Baena aims to roller ski from Cape Reinga to Bluff. Photo / Dean Purcell
Cesar Baena aims to roller ski from Cape Reinga to Bluff. Photo / Dean Purcell
It's a skier's climate-change nightmare - stabbing your poles at the melting tarseal of a hilly highway, instead of the snowy crust of an alpine trail.
But with wheels under his skis, the wind on his back and a driving ambition to break a Guinness World Record, 28-year-old Cesar Baenais happy to pull himself along the length of New Zealand's highways and byways for eight hours a day, over 43 days.
"This is my attempt to break the record for the longest journey on roller skis by zigzagging 3000km from Cape Reinga to Bluff," he said on arriving in Auckland - exhausted from battling Northland's steep hills but keen to head south.
The Venezuelan representative cross-country skier said he had held the record in 2012 when he covered 2246km between Oslo in Norway and Stockholm in Sweden.
"However, French national Gerard Proteau broke the record from Oslo to Paris last year and I want to reclaim it - for personal reasons."
He exceeded the Frenchman's distance in Venezuela only to fail to qualify for an official record "because I did not take a public transport boat to get across a lake".
His New Zealand bid is sponsored by the Venezuela Government as appropriate training for the Nordic Skiing World Championships.
"It is my dream to break the record in New Zealand in Bluff on February 4.
"It is not my first time here. Back in the winter of 2009 I worked as a dishwasher at a restaurant near Wanaka in the South Island.
"I was a cross-country skier who needed training but had no money.
"So in return for working five hours a day, I had access to the track and food."
He returned home when his grandmother was dying.
"I told her stories about New Zealand and about my idea of crossing the country from north to south.
"She thought it was a fantastic idea and made me promise that one day I would take on that journey."
Roller skiing is popular in Scandinavia and northern Europe when snow is scarce on cross country trails and it was recommended to him as a development tool.
"I really love it. It's riskier and has the speed and adrenalin of cross-country skiing."
Roller skiing
• Roller skis - short skis, each with two solid plastic wheels attached underneath to move over paved roads.
• Guinness World Record longest journey on roller skis - 2783.4km, set in June by Gerard Proteau of France.
