In the spirit of Burke and Wills...

Those of you unfamiliar with the New Zealand landscape may be somewhat surprised to learn that we even have deserts, several in fact.

And of course being loons descended from loons who came 12,000 by sea to get here, we're just going to walk across one of them... in midsummer. Early next month about twenty people in various rolls will be undertaking an expedition to cross the McKenzie basin on foot though some of most magnificent scenery on the planet.

Naturally this effort isn't hard enough already so its going to be done in the kit of the traditional Victorian era explorers. The activity is being filmed, documented and made into a documentary. Were I inclined to be less cynical I'd tell you that it will be some good reality TV. But no such thing exists, anyway this isn't "reality" TV, this is reality. Those participating will be able to give insights that have been forgotten a long time ago because hell we're all pretty much just plain soft now. It is going to be hard, very hard. Personally I do not expect all of those planning to do the walk to finish the 120 mile trek.

I know the area, I spent a couple of years there in army and a lot of it may have looked really good in Lord of the Rings playing its part as the Rohan, but it kind of blows when you don't have a helicopter to get you back to air-conditioned luxury hotel room thank you very much. That's why I'm running a support group with a troop of WWII period jeeps, trucks and a NAFFI truck. We'll be leap frogging ahead to prepare the base camps and carry out our primary function of trying to ensure that none of the walkers die on us. Those that do finish the walk will end it the shadow of Mount Cook and in the footsteps of men like Kipling, Churchill, Haast and our own Ed Hillary.

All ripping yarns and boys own stuff sure, but we need help. On several levels, but most particularly we need money in order to feed our crew and fuel our vehicles. At this point we need an additional $4,000 NZD ($3,000 USD) to make our budget. If you think supporting a bunch of colonial loons challenging the nature is a worthy cause, then please contact me for more information on how you can help and what you stand to gain from it. Alternatly if you're up for making a small donation you can do that too via paypal.

We could always use more help too by way of spreading the word so by all means repeat this request.