Firefighters stair down challenge

COMING THROUGH: South2Sky firefighters Matt Cooke (left) and Laurence Cameron head out of Greytown, with Greytown volunteer firefighters Dean Southey and Sid Taylor in support with Coco the dog.

A relay team of firefighters running from Bluff to Auckland were welcomed into Greytown on Sunday with a fire truck escort and support runners.

Greytown firefighters Dean Southey and Sid Taylor ran with members of the South2Sky team, eight firefighters who will take part in the Firefighter Sky Tower Stair Challenge in Auckland on May 23.

Before they even get to the challenge, each runner will do 20km a day over the 12 days it will take them to get to Auckland.

Once there, they will tackle 51 flights of stairs, just over 1100 steps, with 25kg of kit in a race with 750 other firemen to the top of Sky Tower, the tallest building in the Southern Hemisphere.

The Sky Tower Challenge is a fundraiser for Leukaemia and Blood Cancer New Zealand.

Mr Southey and Mr Taylor, accompanied by Greytown fire chief Harry Holland in the fire truck, met the runners at Tauherenikau River at midday, and escorted them through Greytown and on to the Waiohine River.

Mr Southey said he will "definitely" take on the Sky Tower Challenge next year "after inspiration from these guys".

Runner and co-ordinator Matt Cooke, Te Puke, said team members who weren't running were either resting or "bucket-shaking" in towns they passed through.

The team has members from Te Puke, Taupo, Kawerau and Southbridge near Christchurch, all volunteers bar one.

"We've been on the run for eight days - we had a day off in Picton."

He said the run was a year in the planning.

"Obviously, there's great enthusiasm, then the tiredness sets in, you get a bit short and scratchy - it's just human nature, you get on with it."

The seals at Kaikoura were one of the high points.

"And the southern hospitality."

He said it's all about monitoring one another, "refuelling" and rests.

"That's why we've come this way, because it's the rural brigades that really step it up, in terms of support."

He thanked their main sponsor Massey University and the Interislander and "the chiefs and deputies of rural families that have supported us on the way".