Tapawera

So way back, uh, about two years ago now, I, I sat in the Hospice just room learning about it as part of doing some for a course and, um, a bit of a stats man, and the things I took away were there were 210 patients a month, a region, um, like I say, from Farewell Spit, um, right across, and the amount of money.

And, um, I started to think in my head, "Well, what, what could I do? Something special there." And I worked out that if I started running from, from Farewell Spit and did a little diversion via Tapawera [laughs] and then finished up at Hospice, it would be 210 kilometers.

And I did that as a, as a solo run last year and, uh, I set off on the Saturday morning, got in in the Sunday evening, and had it beauti- beautifully filmed by Todd Starr, and he, uh, produced that 210 Reasons to Run and, and the documentary called The Road.

So yeah, that was an amazing experience, highs and lows, um, which we can jump into, but, um, I found myself this year thinking, um, "I wanna do it again, but I don't want it to be just about my running." Every kilometer last year was, um, in memory of a lost loved one.

Yeah, so I was brought up on a farm just out of Springston.

We moved up to Tapawera when I was about 11 years old.

So converted sheep farms into dairy.

It was my dad was the young fella.

Where would you go?

Oh, well, I lived in the Baton, um, not West Bank side, the other side, and we went to Tapawera to our meetings.

They were held at night.

Mm-hmm.

[laughs]

So you land a job.

But I was, uh, nominated treasurer of the Tapawera branch, uh, quite soon after I joined, and then, uh, I was nominated president, uh, the year we shifted down to Lower Moutere, which was 1980.

And I no sooner got settled into the farm at Lower Moutere than the lady there nominated me to be this housekeeper secretary, which is a voluntary job, and I was also, uh, treasurer of the, um, Motueka branch just about, uh, all, all the, the whole time I was joined to it.

Not a clue.

And in the raspberry fields in Tapawera when I was picking raspberries with my sister-

Oh, wow.

Yeah