Chester Borrows: Day to reflect on Kiwi character

REMEMBRANCE: Keeping the Anzac spirit alive.

YESTERDAY, I was driving between Palmerston North and Whanganui and I picked up a hitchhiker on the outskirts of the city, a young American from Tennessee on his first trip overseas.

He had decided he wanted to visit New Zealand after meeting Kiwis in the United States. So he has three months of hitchhiking around our country's islands, climbing the odd peak and tramping, they call it "hiking" because tramping has a whole other after-dark urban meaning anywhere else but New Zealand.

I bought him coffee and real-fruit icecream in Whanganui, and we visited a couple of beaches and Dawson Falls. He spent the night in the spare room before being breakfasted and dropped off at North Egmont to climb Taranaki.

There is a real satisfaction in showing our country off to foreign tourists, and I was pleased to note he was staying three months and not just catching his breath on a trip to Australia like so many.

I had a similar feeling when picking up French hitchhikers in Tekapo who were spending a year in New Zealand and walking the Te Araroa Trail. The overwhelming impressions and lasting memories that people have of our country is its natural beauty and the friendliness and hospitality of the people.

A couple of days before Anzac Day, it is interesting to reflect on this.

Last year, I represented New Zealand at the Anzac Day commemorations in Berlin, and it seemed unusual to be celebrating with Germans, Turks and Italians, as well as countries who had fought with the Allies in World Wars I and II. The Turks have a fond regard for New Zealanders, despite their incredulity at our celebrating a massive loss, and in a battle where we were the invading force. Yet they pledge to guard and protect our fallen soldiers who lie beneath their soil.

We visited Arras in Northern France, where Kiwi tunnellers from the mines in Waihi had been sent to extend underground caverns that would hold 27,000 troops for a surprise attack on the German offensive line.

Each portion of the tunnel was named after a New Zealand town so the tunnellers could easily identify their location on a map they carried in their heads. Palmerston North was north of Wellington and west of Napier etc ... and so they could make their way around the maze of tunnels in the dark.

In Caterpillar Valley, we visited a memorial for New Zealand soldiers not far from a spot where my great-uncle was killed by machine-gun fire.The water-tower position of the machine-gun still stands. The memorial is erected in commemoration of Kiwi troops who liberated the village from German soldiers, and, so I am told, New Zealanders still don't have to buy a drink in the local pub, 100 years after the battle.

It is not just the courage, fighting prowess, tactics and skills we are renowned for. It is the humour, friendliness and easy-going, Mickey-taking personality that has become the hallmark of the New Zealand character and which makes other nationalities think warmly of our countrymen and women.

My hitchhiking house guest was taken by the proliferation of war memorials and their condition. They act as a record of sacrifice, village by village, and the huge toll World War I, in particular, took on such a young country. Remember, one in 10 of our young men served overseas and 20 per cent were killed. All of this was for a war on the other side of the world and driven by a sense of loyalty and kinship that is hard to quantify today.

The young fella leaves New Zealand at five in the morning on Anzac Day - 101 years after the battle for Gallipoli, which it commemorates.

He won't get to a dawn service, but he tells me he has truly witnessed the Anzac spirit.