Why an ‘average bloke’ from Wollongong is preparing to traverse New Zealand on foot – ABC News

Josh Storey is the kind of guy who, in a "random moment", decided to walk from Nowra to Wollongong on the New South Wales south coast.

It was an 81-kilometrewalk, but it planted the seed of achieving something much bigger.

He then walked from Newcastle to Wollongong a distance of 266 kilometres.

Now he's looking beyond the horizon. At the end of this year he will take on the Te Araroa trail from the top to the bottom of New Zealand.

"For me, it's a good sense of understanding my brain better," he said.

"I love throwing myself into situations where I have to push myself and understand how my brain works.

"It's a better way to see the world as well because you get a better understanding of where you are and how far you're going.

"It's a beautiful way of seeing things."

For Mr Storey, long walks and long skates were a major part of his childhood.

His mother did not drive and his father has Parkinson's disease, so he would have to find ways to get himself to school and his two jobs. Usually, that wasby foot or by skateboard.

"I'm an independent person and from a young age I had to be independent," he said.

"I've always been the type to do everything myself and I didn't have the easiest childhood I started working two jobs at 14, went to school and slept about four to six hours a day.

"I had to get myself from A to B and that could mean skating home at three or four in the morning, but I look back now and appreciate the time I had to myself and it helped me a lot for my future."

Mr Storey says the New Zealand walk, which he intends to do with almost no help, will be about 3,000km long and take him about four months.

Despite the enormous stamina required to traverse New Zealand, MrStorey is keeping his preparation simple.

He is working with a personal trainer to prepare his body for carrying considerable weight, but his training will not include any enormous walks.

"It's a lot of conditioning and getting my mind mentally ready," he said.

"I'm fortunate that now I'm very mentally strong, but it's about getting the body used to what it's about to encounter.

"I'm absolutely not walking in the lead-up to it.

"I'm an average bloke, but it's all mind over matter and I'll get there no matter what.

"Even if it takes me a bit longer, I'll be pushing every day."

Mr Storey will be raising money and awareness for Illawarra-based charity Talk To Me Bro.

The mental health organisation runs an early intervention program to reduce the rates of male suicide, as well as weekly social meet-ups.

"When I was looking for a new charity, I definitely wanted to keep it on the mental health side of things," he said.

"I go pretty much every Friday for their morning session where we go for a swim, have an ice bath or go for a walk and have a coffee.

"If you have something to talk about you can, if you don't, it's perfectly alright because it's just a bunch of blokes hanging out and having a good time."

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Why an 'average bloke' from Wollongong is preparing to traverse New Zealand on foot - ABC News