Epic 600km adventure for student

Sixteen-year-old adventurer Jenny Willers says her 600km journey had its ups and downs – and not just the altitude changes from mountain tops to sea level.

The Motueka High School (MHS) student labelled her 12-day mission “A Little Bit of Epic”, relishing both the personal challenge and the chance to introduce some newcomers to the wilderness.

Jenny won a $1500 Federated Mountain Clubs of New Zealand scholarship to undertake the adventure, which saw her tramping the Old Ghost Road and Heaphy Track, kayaking the Abel Tasman National Park, and cycling the hundreds of kilometres in between.

She planned the trip to promote the outdoors and involve friends who had little experience.

A member of the school’s high-profile adventure racing team, Jenny intentionally invited people outside that circle.

“I really wanted this to be about inviting new people to the outdoors,” she says. Jenny loves the learning opportunities adventuring brings. “There’re so many aspects, from knots to different skills like bikepacking. I love the scenery, like God’s creation, and all the different ways that I was able to see it. I love the challenge.”

She had to map out every aspect of the trip, including the bike transitions and drops of fresh clothing and food, with help from her parents and a borrowed Garmin InReach for communication.

She was also grateful for sponsorship and support from Real Meals - even temporarily giving up on vegetarian status to make the most of their supplies – as well as Abel Tasman Kayaks, MD Outdoors, Bare Kiwi, and her school. The support of friends and family was invaluable, she says. Jenny’s journey began at 5am on 25 November, when she set out from her Lower Moutere home on a solo cycle to Lake Rotoroa. She met childhood friends Ryan Kroupa and Austin Rowling at the start of the Old Ghost Road. After that three-day tramp, she biked solo up the West Coast to meet Harrison O’Reibow and Nia Stephenson for the Heaphy Track.

Another solo ride took her to the Abel Tasman, where she kayaked with her friend Keanu Potaka,  as well as MHS outdoor education department’s Willy Polson and Michelle Campbell, the latter having supported her throughout the trip’s planning stages.

The epic was not without its challenges. A navigation misstep on day one wasted valuable time and energy, and the weather turned bleak on the Old Ghost ridgeline, with one hiker’s raincoat buried deep in his pack.

“There was this Mitre 10 shelter that came out of nowhere… so we hunkered down there,” Jenny recalls. “Otherwise, it could have gone really bad.” She laughs about the dire day she had miscalculated her meal plan. “My lunch that day, if I can recall correctly, was squashed bananas and an afghan biscuit my mum had made.”

The cycle from Pohara to the Abel Tasman in the beating sun left her feeling faint and slightly grim.

The trip provided abundant highlights too.  Sleeping in an open fly made her feel “very adulty”, and taking extra time to explore the estuaries along the Abel Tasman coastline was “so special”.

As a Christian, Jenny says solo stretches were spent with God, “so it didn’t feel like I was alone”.

“It was definitely a lot more fun when there were mates, but also really good to just have a break and, I don’t know, think about stuff,” she says.

Ultimately, Jenny is drawn to the outdoors for the sheer freedom of it - to “tie your hair up and not worry about anything and just get from A to B”.