Friday 31 August.
(David)
Erica picked me up from my hometown of Kawerau and after a round trip of some 4hrs we arrived in time to start the Hikoi.  At 2 pm Colin delivered his mihimihi outside the Family Court in Tauranga and we were OFF! Colin and Erica walked through Tauranga and out towards Greerton handing out brochures about the campaign to passersby and placing on car windscreens and in letterboxes.  Colin also detoured to deliver his mihimihi outside the Police station - to understand Colin’s mihimihi is to understand who he is, where he comes from and why this is all so important to him (please see copy below).
 

It was a beautiful sunny day for walking though I was driving the ute with our large green banners displayed (same as the banner on all the pages in Colin's website and shown in pics at www.kidsneeddad.com) and towing a poptop caravan.
A number of people stopped Colin to share their similar stories of bad and delayed decisions by the Family courts, and I was pulled over on several occasions for similar chats. All in all, a revealing series of observations that showed that so many fathers were suffering in like fashion to Colin - deprived of access to their children!  One guy gave Colin $50 towards expenses! Thank you so much!!!
 

After a 16km walk we stopped overnight at the school at Pyes Pa and set up our camp for our first night on the road.

 

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(Erica)
Word of advice people – it may not be the wisest choice to camp overnight at a school.  At least five cars stopped over briefly spilling out drunken idiots and disturbing our slumber!  Colin spoke to at least one group and luckily no one was violent but who would have believed it!  I never knew schools were so popular in the middle of the night - no wonder the custodian chained up the grounds, though he gave us the padlock so we could lock ourselves in.
Oh, and it was soooo cold!  I wore 5 layers of clothing to bed – how crazy is that!  And I can say I was very lucky as neither Colin nor David were snorers – whew!
 

Saturday, 1 September.
(David)
Up bright and early, breakfast, and on the road about 8:30 am.  We did 13 kms and stopped for lunch by the roadside. A guy called Vaughan joined us and shared a bite with us, and Colin and Vaughan exchanged their stories of Family court experiences - amazingly similar!
Another beautiful day and they walked the next 14 kms  which included a couple of gorges which meant steep uphills and a lot of twisting road, before stopping for our second camp at a junction at Jackson Road not far north of Ngongotaha.

 

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