The mother of a young man treated with compassion after falling asleep on a stranger's couch has spoken of her gratitude to her son's good Samaritan.
Gordon Pryor woke just before dawn to the sound of someone entering his unlocked rural home in the hills above Mangawhai, halfway between Whangarei and Auckland.
To his astonishment it was a young man he did not know. The 60-year-old father of two watched as the man settled down to sleep on the couch, pulling a bean bag over himself for warmth, but decided to let the man sleep.
The Taranaki-raised University of Canterbury engineering student later told Pryor he entered the home after trying to walk to Waipu. He had earlier got off a shuttle from the Northern Bass Festival, taking place at nearby Kaiwaka, when he discovered it did not go to Waipu, 25km away.