New Zealanders and visitors engage in various outdoor pursuits, taking advantage of a land well endowed with rivers, lakes, coastline, and mountains. New Zealand's seven Great Walks attract many trampers, on a couple of walks the numbers are such that participants are regulated to walking in one direction only.

However, our choice is the Queen Charlotte Track, not a Great Walk, but a decent 71 kilometres (45 miles) including 1,700 metres (5,600 feet) of uphill stuff. Chosen partly because of its ease - 'moderate difficulty, average fitness required', partly because we are in the north of South Island having completed three weeks at Cheviot but principally the temptation of good hotels and good food and by no means least the package includes transfer of your baggage on water taxis each day. That's a big plus point for us. You can of course tough it out with a tent and sleeping bag and stove etc along the way if you so wish.

We just walk for four days and enjoy the scenery - short breaks in the dense bush - in each other's company. Within an hour of starting, we fall into conversation with a ranger who is checking traps set in the bush. This is an exercise to determine numbers of possums, rats and stoats prior to contracting out pest control over a large area of bush. He informs us that this type of control is pest specific; the alternative, aerial chemical control with 1080 (sodium fluroacetate), is environmentally unfriendly. The use of 1080 in New Zealand has attracted considerable antagonism, the opponents painting 'NO 1080' signs on road surfaces and billboards. Removal of introduced pests which prey on bird's eggs and young chicks is pursued with vigour in these parts, in an attempt to return the landscape to native bush with native birds as it was when New Zealand broke away from Gondwana. The purging of European nasties extends to killing then felling wilding pines and gorse.

Route marching under a 30 degrees sun requires a bit of stamina and lots of water. The longest day is the third, at 21km/13 miles. Words would not describe the superb vistas and even better feeling at getting your boots off at the end of the day then taking a swim in the quiet bays. A surprising number of bachs and houses have sprung up in the tentacled arms of the Sounds, their owners seeking to get away from busy urban lives. Access is only by boat, and no motor vehicles are permitted.

A few words each day are exchanged in the hotels with Lynda, Catherine and Christine, a mother and her two twenty-something daughters from North Island. Lynda has done a fair amount of walking in her time, and her achievements over the years are impressive for one reason only. She has had five hip replacements since her twenties. I ask her how many new hips she has had on each side, is it 5-0, 4-1 or 3-2? 'Yes, three on one side, two on the other'. And she was not slow on the track either.

So that brings our account up to Wednesday 28th. The birthday girl got a card and a couple of small presents that morning. The cup of tea in bed was not unusual. Having one eye on the clock for the water taxi back to Picton, and setting an ideal pace, Lesley strode the final 18km to the finish line at 71km. Our photo album tells the story…..and yes, she was in front of me for the whole way!