As told to Elisabeth Easther
Growing up in Kaikohe, we used to play tiggy on our bikes, and use the whole town as our playground. Sometimes we'd cycle down to Twin Bridges and camp and swim. Or we'd head to Ngawha, to the spa at the old hotel, but unfortunately it's closed now.
When I was at Teachers' College, one summer a group of us cycled around the South Island for six weeks. Because one of us was a scout, we stayed in scout halls; we also had tents, so sometimes we freedom camped, although it wasn't called that then. Because we didn't have cellphones, we didn't have weather forecasts, so we'd just get up and start cycling – but one day the wind was blowing over 100km an hour. We also got caught in a horrible flood in Lyell.
I went on an overseas experience when I was quite young and that helped me work out which places I wanted to go back to, and which ones I never wanted to see again. The first time I went to Venice, I thought it was quite dirty and needed a good water blasting. As for London, just walking around made your clothes go black. I loved Ireland and Scotland, I think because they reminded me of home. I also loved Austria. Coming from Northland, we never saw snow and I remember our tour bus driving through snow. Seeing it fall was like something from Disneyland.
About 30 years ago, I was living in Rerewhakaaitu at the base of Mt Tarawera near Rotorua. It was the school holidays and I'd been out to get groceries when I picked up some Swiss hitchhikers. They were hitching to Minginui to do the Whirinaki Track, and I said "you'll never get a ride here", so I took them home for lunch then dropped them where they wanted to go. And I said to them, "if you want to walk up Mt Tarawera, come back on Saturday morning and I'll take you". Well they hitched back and were at my doorstep at 7:30 on Saturday morning. We went up Mt Tarawera and we've been friends ever since. They live in New Zealand now and we've done a lot of travel together, including walking Te Araora trail.
