And, to make each step count, she hopes to raise $52,000, or $10 per km, along the way.
Jo Booker’s raising the money for Southern Lakes Sanctuary, which supports 100-plus voluntary groups trapping introduced predators between Makarora and Routeburn-Dart.
"I’m horrified by the decline in native birds in certain areas, but also heartened by the increase where the traps are visual," she says.
"I grew up at the Routeburn and I used to listen to the birds up at Lake Sylvan, and now you go there and there are none."
Booker also works with the management team of Soho Property Ltd, owners of the Mahu Whenua Open Spaces Covenants covering 53,000 hectares of pristine high country.
She says she was inspired by a magazine article suggesting you should walk 1200km a year.
"I thought, ‘gosh, I think I could do that in 12 weeks’, and then I thought, ‘why don’t I just go all in and try to do it all year, and all weathers if necessary?"’
Having been paralysed four years ago, "I’m also celebrating the fact I can now do this", Booker says.
She says her run-of-the-mill walks from home will be Tobins Track in the morning and Sawpit Gully in the afternoon.
But she’ll also mix it up with other walks — she’s inviting others to join her at any stage "and have a chat about the cause".
A keen golfer, Booker, who’s 54, will also measure the kilometres she gobbles up on the golf course — she recently logged 34km during a 72-hole ‘Longest Day’ golf challenge with seven other women for a Cancer Society fundraiser.
She also plans to exceed 100km a week during summer "to get some credit in the bank so the winter’s a little more doable".
Her fundraising page is jo-steps-up.raisely.com
