Caregivers are being urged to keep their doors and gates locked after a 3-year-old boy went for a walk yesterday morning to find his dad, some 7km away.
The boy went only 300m before he found someone who would walk with him. He was found by Dave Apete, who saw the boy in his Mill St, Koutu, driveway.
"I've never seen him before," Mr Apete said.
"He was walking around the corner of my house as I pulled in to the driveway. He said he lived nearby, 'just over there', he said. Just over there became a couple of kilometres."
He said he called police when he had reached the cycleway crossing at Kawaha Point Rd.