Residents from a number of Christchurch villages including Anthony Wilding, Ngaio Marsh, Diana Isaac and Kevin Hickman gathered at Travis Wetlands to knock off one of the ‘big four’ Friday inter-village walks being held over the month of September.
Knocked off are the operative words for Walking for Wellness: Everest Challenge. They are synonymous with the 1953 expedition to Mount Everest when Kiwi Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, of Nepal, were the first to summit the world’s highest peak.
Fellow Kiwi George Lowe was the first to greet Hillary on the return from the summit, and heard the line: “Well George, we knocked the bastard off.”
The Travis Wetland/Ōruapaeroa provided some gentler slopes for the residents today. There were several tracks for residents to choose from and there were plenty of those amongst a large group keen for an early getaway. By following their end to end app the residents set themselves up for a virtual base camp challenge.
Ngaio Marsh village resident Jay Pollock said the challenge so far had been great. She planned to walk every day in September. The trip to the Everest Base Camp is 64.4km and the return trip adds to 128.7km. Residents can choose to participate in the summit walk or the summit return.
Jay said she would try and participate in all four Friday intervillage walks. In Christchurch there are other inter-village walks planned include a stroll around the Halswell Quarry rim track, the Hagley Park perimeter route and the Godley Head walkway. There are also series of walks in Wellington, Auckland and Melbourne.
Today Jay was walking alongside residents from her own village including Miles Easterbrook, Jo Hill, Doreen Waugh, Frances Phipps and Activities & Lifestyle Coordinator Deborah Budden.
“We did some practice walks last month around Papanui, we’ve been enjoying it, getting out there,” Deborah said.
Penny Beardsley, Shirley Piper and Kay Sinclair, all from Diana Isaac village, said they were enjoying the social aspect of the walk. The three arranged their own transport, and met at the start of the walk at the Beach Road carpark in the east of the Garden City.
In New Zealand, Ryman residents are using their steps on a virtual walk through the Khumbu region of north-eastern Nepal. They started from the Nepalese mountain town of Namche Bazaar, located in the Khumbu rural region of north-eastern Nepal. At around six kilometres the walkers passed through Tengboche, the site of another town and a large Buddhist monastery and onwards past Pheriche, Lobuche, to the small settlement of Gorak Shep, before reaching base camp at 5,364 metres.
