NZ Biography & Memoir

Some people walk to improve their fitness, others because they love to be in company or conversely, to seek solitude. Lily Ennis set out to walk the length of the North Island because she wanted to do it while she was physically able. Eventually, we all discover that our bodies are not what they used to be, the trick is to have the foresight to achieve our goals before that happens.

To walk with Lily Ennis is to see this exceptional country through the eyes of a geologist, an historian, a naturalist and an ornithologist. The connection she feels to the landscape that is her homeland shines out from every page. We learn of towns that once thrived but are now mere shadows of their former selves, of treaty deals and missionaries. Lily Ennis understands not only the rock formations and fossils she encounters but also the flora and fauna. An enthusiastic “birder,” she is ceaselessly delighted by the sighting of a new or rare bird species.

This book will appeal to anyone who yearns to escape their desk and head for the hills. Such dreams are not without challenges and may, as Ennis discovers, require support and back up (she does seem to have the sort of husband we’d all like to wake up next to in the morning). It can be challenging, as a fair-skinned redhead, to be out in the sun all day, but Ennis isn’t one to admit defeat and she battles both sunstroke and injury. Along the way, the kindness and generosity of strangers endures and there is a ready supply of like-minded souls with whom to share the path, track or waterway. I think you’ll enjoy meeting them; I certainly did!