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A retired English university lecturer who vanished while tramping more than a week ago was a "lovely guy" who tried to teach a group of Israeli tourists how to play cricket the night before he disappeared, according to one of the last people to see him alive.
A six-day search, called off on Wednesday, failed to find Dr Derek Hawkins, 72, who had set off alone on a four-hour bush walk to Crucible Lake in Mt Aspiring National Park on March 29.
Radio Wanaka station owners Ed and Kim Taylor, who reported the retired metallurgist missing, had shared dinner with him the night before. Kim had almost talked him into walking the track through the Siberia valley with them at breakfast the following day.
Ed Taylor said Hawkins, who was diagnosed with angina 10 years ago, looked extremely fit. "You would have picked him for about 62," he said.
"He asked Kim if we were still going, and she said we were. He said he'd see us at the top. She joked that he would probably pass us."
Describing his disappearance as "quite bizarre, a mystery", Taylor said Hawkins was friendly and chatty. "He was trying to teach these Israelis about cricket. He was trying to explain how you get in, how you get out. We were laughing our heads off."
Hawkins was on a seven-week holiday, spending 10 days with his sister in Katikati before heading south. Rescuers believe he may have fallen while crossing a fast-flowing stream in the valley.
