That’s because by December 31 she’ll have walked virtually every day this year, rain, hail or shine, raising funds and awareness for biodiversity charity, Southern Lakes Sanctuary (SLS).
The 55-year-old, a founding SLS trustee, planned to walk 5200 kilometres this year, or 100km a week.
She reached her target at Labour Weekend but decided to carry on and by early last week had chalked up 5820km — an average of 16.82km a day or 22,290 steps.
"If I haven’t walked 15km a day I feel like I’ve done nothing, because it’s just become a habit," Booker says.
Her most common trails, from home, are a morning stroll up Tobin’s Track and an afternoon walk up Sawpit Gully.
To celebrate hitting 3000km she walked up Arrowtown’s Bush Creek Saddle during a snow storm.
One stage she got a bit lost with her dogs on the wrong side of Bush Creek.
"I got completely scrub-bound and had to bush-bash our way through — even the dogs were thinking I was mental that day."
Booker says the cause means a lot — "it’s quite shocking to me, the degradation of the biodiversity over the last 40 years in terms of bird life, loss of native trees and spread of wilding pines, sycamores and other weeds".
Lately she’s been heartened by the increased bird life around Arrowtown.
"I reckon the trapping’s made a huge difference, particularly where they’ve taken out those possums up in Bush Creek."
So far she’s raised $33,374 for SLS but is still hoping for more — her fundraising page is jo-steps-up.raiselycom
Meanwhile, Booker says the other reason for her mission is just five years ago she was totally paralysed by Guillain-Barre syndrome.
Her aim’s now "just to try and squeeze something good out of the day for me".
She quips she’s probably the only person who’s walked almost 6000km in a year and put on weight — "I think, ‘oh yeah, I’m going to walk 20km today, I’ll eat a bit more"’.
As for what she’ll do next, "my partner has said to me, ‘Can we please do some mountain biking next year?"’
