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There's something I don't quite get: why would anybody pay good money for a treadmill when there's a perfectly good footpath just outside their front door? I guess there are some perceived advantages to staying nice and safe and cosy inside your house while you walk, but there are great disadvantages too. Namely, that it is nice and safe and cosy. We walk out of our little street, turn left and head up the hill. There is a bit of a wind from the South and the sky is threatening rain.  At the dirt path on Highcliff Road we begin the gut busting slog up steps which are never in quite the right place, and stop halfway up on the pretext of taking in the view. The hills shield the harbour from the wind so the water is silvery and still. "Look at where we live", she says. I take a picture. I can't hope to capture the grandeur of what lies just past our place, but I try. We walk on and down the other side with my thigh muscles asking what the heck do I think I...

Just before Christmas Bridget broke her ankle rather badly, so Clemency and I parked our caravan in her driveway in Rolleston and have been there ever since, pretty much, helping with the grandchildren. I've been back to Dunedin most weekends, leaving early in the morning and timing my setting out according to where I want to be when the sun rises. This time it was the Moeraki boulders. Once or twice it was Oamaru, with the old limestone buildings glowing in that early light which bounces golden under the clouds and leaves long strong shadows  Or sometimes it is the wetlands which space themselves conveniently along the route from Dunedin to Timaru   I know this road well, and its odd how familiarity shortens it. The four and a half hours is taking on the feel of normalcy.

  What with one thing and another I've driven this road, between Dunedin and Rolleston, 5 times in the last fortnight. It's becoming quite familiar. Travelling in the early morning I pass the wetlands at Waitati. just after Blueskin Bay. The Moeraki boulders are always worth a stop... ...as is Oamaru in the hour after sunrise.

I carried a camera with me for most of Te Harinui - our Hikoi of Joyful News - but I seldom used it. Nevertheless, here is a selection of my few Hikoi pictures. Day one began with this sunrise over Invercargill After breakfast we took the plane to Stewart Island. The aircraft for this route are  Britten Norman Islanders, "The Landrovers of the Skies" robust little machines that rattle and leak but are virtually indestructable. They are piloted by young people who are usually in hot demand by other airlines for the large experience they pack into relatively few years. On Stewart Island Wynston Cooper led us on a preliminary guided tour of the Ulva wildlife sanctuary The following days took us through a progression of Southland and Otago landscapes Every week there was a regional event. This one, in Wanaka The peculiar landscape of Bannockburn reminded me of the American West Part of journey was on the Otago Centra...

We got away almost on time for the final leg from Duntroon to Kurow. We were joined by Mary, who had walked some of the way with us a few days previously, and Jane, Mary's daughter. The weather was dull; not actually raining but always promising to. The road was flat, and for most of the way, devoid of corners. We stopped at the rock drawing site just out of Duntroon and looked at the barely visible artworks left for goodness knows what purpose during the 18th and 19th Centuries by groups of roving Maori. More visible than the works themselves were the works of Pakeha plonkers - the 19th Century ones who had removed the best works, ruining the limestone surface and making the survival of the rest problematic and the 20th Century ones who thought we needed to know their names and those of their assorted girlfriends. We walked past many soldier trees. After the first world war the locals planted  oaks on the roadside near the places where fallen soldiers had lived or worked. The...

The last couple of days have been across the undulating hill country on the South side of the Waitaki Valley. I have driven this route many times but, again, the difference in perspective gained from viewing the familiar landscape at 6 kph and with no intermediary metal and glass has been revelatory. We have been joined at various points over the last couple of days by people from the local parishes who have walked with us. We have stayed the last two nights with Alison, widowed 21 years ago and who continued farming on her own account since. She is intelligent and well informed and all of us - Phil, John, Graham, Tash, Dion and myself - are sharing her house and her conversation. It has been wonderful. We have been ferried to and from our starting and ending points in the van which has provided our mobile headquarters over the past month. Yesterday it was overcast and cool; today clear, still and warm. On both days there has been a succession of tiny rural hamlets on a road which...

I took this photo as I waited in Hampden for the van to appear with the others so we could begin our day's walk. The sky continued this blue and the wind continued this still. It was a beautiful day for walking. From Hampden we journeyed North along SHW1, accompanied for a short way by one or two of the locals. Then near the Mill House we stopped for coffee before heading down the coast road towards the distant sea. 19 km later we arrived at All Day Bay just South of Kakanui, and took the gravel road straight to Maheno, arriving at St. Andrews Church just before 2:00, having covered 27 km. We are on the last leg now. Since All Day Bay we have been heading inland, and we continue for another 3 days until we reach Kurow on Saturday afternoon. This evening we met with the people of this lovely village for a pot luck dinner and I spent some time talking with a local farmer who has walked the Camino Santiago twice. As we talked I thought again of one of the characteristics of the C...

It's only about 17 km from St. John's Waikouaiti to St. Mary's Palmerston, so we were finished by lunchtime. We set out just after 8, just the three of us and Mary who wouldn't mind me telling you she is not in the first bloom of youth. She walked briskly all the way, conversing with each of us in turn. It was great to have her along.  We walked out through the town and spent most of the trip walking on the shoulder of SHW1. We passed prosperous looking North Otago farms, a few forests and the occasional stylish house with a B&B notice at the gate. There are a few small hills and several bridges, most of which, oddly, seem to cross the Pleasant River. We walked steadily, stopping around 10 for a breather, and arrived in Palmerston around mid day. We were met by Juan Kinnear, the the priest in charge of Waikouaiti and a small group from the local parish who had prepared a tasty lunch of sandwiches and savouries. St. Mary's is a pretty stone church with a surr...

photo (c) Phil Clark 2014 In Oamaru our diocese has a couple of strong congregations, but the rural churches making up the rest of the North Eastern corner of our patch are small. Over the past few weeks they have come together to plan this morning's regional event and the result of the hard work involved was readily apparent today. What an event they put on! We met at St. John's Waikouaiti, the first church built in the Diocese of Dunedin. A large gazebo had been erected and fitted out with a sound system and the necessities for a Eucharist. Around the tent were a couple of hundred chairs and behind it was the lagoon: a beautiful still and stilling backdrop. We arrived in time to walk the 1 km or so from the main road to the church accompanied by about a dozen people. In the parish hall coffee and tea and the customary well filled tables were waiting. People arrived and chatted and moved slowly over to the gazebo. The service was due to start at 11:00 but the old double...

There is a back way out of Dunedin; or several, actually, but my favourite is via Leith Valley Road. I've driven it several times, cycled it twice and today I walked it. Strolling through Woodhough Gardens and up Melville Street, you rise gently through Leith Valley until the road becomes narrow and disappears into the bush clad hills. It climbs more steeply with the raucous infant Leith tumbling along beside it. The houses become scarce, and then disappear altogether although the occasional Rapid Number attached to a post tells you that there is one hidden somewhere up a convoluted driveway. After a while the road narrows further and the tarseal is replaced by lightly rutted gravel. Eventually the road crosses SHW1 by way of a plain concrete bridge, and follows the main road for a bit before doubling back over it at the crest of the hill and then winding downwards along Waitati Valley Road to Blueskin Bay. On a good day the views are amazing, and today was a good day. The sky w...

Photo (c) Wynston Cooper 2014 Today's schedule required us to travel almost 40km so it was decided to bike it rather than walk. Riding at a leisurely pace and stopping somewhere for lunch should see us there by 2.00, at least that was the theory. At Fairlight Phil's pedal fell off. So, rather than have him finish the day as a passenger in the support vehicle we decided to walk the last 12 km. Much of the riding section of the day was spent on the cycleway, which is not entirely finished but with one or two diversions because of non existent bridges - and for one small piece, non existent cycleway - it was perfectly manageable. At Athol we stopped to visit St. Bartholomew's church. This pretty little building looks and feels loved. It is clean and uncluttered and is one of the few churches around which is permanently open and yet remains unmolested by vandals or thieves. It is a holy and whole place. Sadly, it is one of our places of worship whose future is doubtful ...

On Saturday it was cold (again) but that didn't stop 32 of us making the next leg of our diocesan pilgrimage. This time it was a shortish trip from Dunedin up the coast to the places where it all started for us. We went to Waikouaiti where, in 1858, Johnny Jones - whaler, entrepreneur and benefactor of just about every Christian denomination he could think of - built the oldest extant church in our diocese. St. Johns is an extraordinarily peaceful and beautiful old building, set in it's churchyard by the lagoon shaded by its elderly trees. It is one of our great treasures, as are the other places we visited on this compact Otago Coastline. From Waikouaiti it was a ten minute backtrack to Karitane where we were welcomed onto the Puketeraki Marae, before walking up the hill to Hui te Rangiora church. The little wooden chapel is perhaps not as picturesque as St. John's but the view from the church porch is stunning. Below the church is the marae with its ingen...