Months-long solo trek 'raising awareness'

Christchurch resident Kelly Purdie celebrates the imminent end of a trek around the South Island....
Christchurch resident Kelly Purdie celebrates the imminent end of a trek around the South Island. Photo by Gerard O'Brien.

A 3500km solo bike ride and walk around the South Island, ending in winter, has had its tough moments, but has helped Christchurch resident Kelly Purdie raise awareness of a rare juvenile-onset form of Parkinson's disease.

English-born, Miss Purdie (37) left her former administrator job in Christchurch and from early this year has spent the past 194 days on a gruelling trek.

Her desire to raise awareness of "juvenile Parkinsonism'' was sparked by the experience of her sister Tracey Penfold (36) in England, who is preparing for brain surgery in response to a condition she had had since childhood.

Sometimes Miss Purdie has travelled by road, but after she began her trek in Dunedin she has often taken the ways less travelled.

Early in her trek she cycled the Otago Central Rail Trail, from Middlemarch to Alexandra, and has since followed many out-of-the-way walking and cycling tracks, following, at times, Te Araroa, New Zealand's national trail.

She has travelled an estimated 2095km around the South Island on foot, and 1389km by bicycle, first heading south via Invercargill to Stewart Island and then travelling north via the West Coast to the top of the South Island, before heading back to Dunedin, where she arrived yesterday.

Today she plans to complete her trek by walking to Dunedin Airport, where she will fly back to Christchurch.

"I feel OK.

"I'm tired and a little bit upset because my journey is coming to an end and I've met some incredibly amazing people that have helped me along the way.

"I've done the walking tracks, the bike trails, all over. These get you off the main road and they head into parts of New Zealand that people don't know about, even locals.

"You can see some incredible sights and get to enjoy and appreciate the Doc workers that have worked on these places.''

The tough moments included an early 28km walk inland from Dunedin, resulting in jarring and blisters, and a later shoulder injury which meant the end of carrying a backpack.

On her blog she also recalls some challenging work on the three-day Paringa Cattle Track on the West Coast, where "the terrain was ugly, switching from muddy forest floor to boggy swampy areas/grassland (sometimes knee deep, yuk)''.

She got lost when "re-entering the dense forest'' and found she had "many scratches and cuts on my legs and arms from forcing my way through the bush''.

On her trip Miss Purdie has raised more than $600 for the Multiple Sclerosis & Parkinson's Society of Canterbury, and through her blog site had helped raise international awareness of New Zealand.

"The journey is not about me.

"It's about raising awareness of something that's so rare.

"A lot of tracks that I've done have just been phenomenal.''

Many had been hard work, "but the reward is breath-taking''.

More information about her travels is on her blog: www.thelostpom.wordpress.com

john.gibb@odt.co.nz

Add a Comment

 

Advertisement