KEY POINTS:
A 22-year-old Masterton man with arthritis is halfway through "walking it off" by trudging the length of the country.
Andrew McNeur left Cape Reinga on June 20 and stopped for a breather on the steps of Parliament in Wellington today.
Mr McNeur was 20 when, in early 2005, he was diagnosed with ankylosing spondylitis. By the end of the year he had been discharged from the air force.
"I couldn't do my job.
"I didn't know young people got arthritis. It was a bit of a shock."
By this time his diagnosis had been changed to reactive arthritis which he says comes and goes, and could one day disappear entirely.
The idea to do the walk hit him while relaxing in a hot-tub during his OE in Canada.
"He sent me an email saying he wanted to do something special," said Arthritis NZ spokesman Johan Vos.
Mr McNeur hopes to raise awareness about arthritis, particularly to dispel the belief the disease only affects elderly people.
"I sent him a message back saying `do you know you are going to be walking in the middle of winter?'," Mr Vos said.
"He said he didn't want it to appear easy. I said `are you kidding me?'."
Now, almost two months into it, Mr McNeur says it really has been quite easy.
"I am enjoying it."
He says winter is a nice time to be walking, without being baked by the sun. He has scheduled 100 days for the 2469km trip so if all goes well he will arrive at Bluff on September 27, his 23rd birthday.
Most of the trip has been done without even the small luxury of an Ipod.
"It gave me blisters. Every time the song changes you change the way you step. As soon as I stopped listening to music I stopped getting blisters."
The only low points, he says, are when it gets really windy.
"But that doesn't last long."
When he gets to the end of the South Island Mr McNeur plans to take a leap into the sea before hunting down a cold beer.
- NZPA
