Eleven year old completes New Zealand Trailwalker

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Ben sets record as youngest walker

16.04.2007
By DANIELLE HEYNS
At only 11, Ben Jones is the youngest person to complete the 100km Oxfam Trailwalker.

Ben was part of the Taupo team Kensington Trampers along with with his mum Tina Gamblin, 43, stepdad George Gamblin, 55, and George’s colleague Bobby Parnell, 30.

They took 26 hours to complete the walk around the Taupo district on Saturday.

“It’s the most challenging thing I’ve ever done,” said Ben.

“Mum and George asked me if I wanted to do it, and I said ‘yes’. We took off from there.”

Ben, in year 7 at Taupo Intermediate, says training for the walk was vigorous, but nothing like the walk itself, with night walking the hardest part.

The team were dressed as members of The Village People - something their support team of four came up with.

Ben, the cowboy of the team, says the costumes were fun, but hot to walk in.

“We are massively proud of Ben,” said Mr Gamblin, who called the organisers before the event to ask if Ben was allowed to compete.

“They didn’t say no, but said you should be 18 to compete.

“I asked ‘does that mean he can’t walk?’ They asked ‘do you think he can make it’ and I said ‘yes, he can make it’.

“Ben worked really hard for it. For an 11-year-old to do 100km in 26 hours is pretty impressive.

“We all trained a great deal.” For the team the highlight of the event was the start.

“Walking up there at six in the morning when it’s not quite light with people all around us and the crowd all for us was a real buzz,” Mr Gamblin said.

“It’s an amazing feeling of being part of something, a feeling of camaraderie.”

He said he and and his wife were inspired to compete when the teams passed through their home area of Kinloch last year.

However, the walk wasn’t what he thought it would be.

“I thought it was a walk, but it was much, much more. The hardest part of the course is at night, with steep drops to your side when you’ve already done 80km.”

Mr Gamblin said the team kept going by pushing themselves.

“You just have to keep walking.”

He said they could not have done it without their support team, who met them at each of the seven checkpoints.

“They did everything we needed including taking off our shoes, massaging our feet and applying plasters.

“We’ve got more blisters than you can imagine. Our feet were so sore at the last stop that we wouldn’t take our shoes off, we were far too scared.”

Mr Gamblin won’t be doing the Trailwalker again next year.

“I’m chuffed we did it, but I won’t do it again.”

More than 250 teams of four from New Zealand, Australia, Albania, American Samoa, Papua New Guinea and Singapore entered the event, each with a support group of four. All funds raised will go to Oxfam.