Guest of the week: Helena Olmås, long-distance hiker

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Helena Olmås normally works as a personal trainer, including through her own company Health by Helena. Right now she is on the other side of the globe, carrying out a project that is anything but ordinary. Helena is walking across New Zealand on foot - a walk of over 3000 kilometres! Is that even possible? Not only is the hike an end in itself, but Helena is also raising money for the Cancer Foundation. Absolutely fantastic!

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We had the chance to ask Helena eight curious questions about what prompted her to undertake this walk, about the hardships along the way, and about how the fundraising is going. If you'd like, you can also follow Helena's continuing adventures on her blog Newzealandbyhelena.com or on Instagram: @helenateodora.

Can you tell us a bit about yourself? Who are you and what do you do when you're not hiking through New Zealand?

My name is Helena Olmås, I am originally from Dalarna but have lived in Stockholm for the past 17 years. I work as a personal trainer and project manager at Master Training and also run my own company Health by Helena on the side, where I mostly work with running coaching and online coaching.

Have you done any similar hikes or adventures before? Tell us about it!

I embarked on my first 'adventure' in March 2010, after a winter of far too much work. Many years ago I had read Paulo Coelho's "The Pilgrimage" and I took a month or so off to go to Spain and walk the Camino de Santiago de Compostela. I did it very much for the physical challenge and also to have some time to myself, and I wanted to try to do the 80 miles in three weeks.

20 days after leaving little Saint Jean Pied de Port in France, I arrived in Santiago de Compostela, a little broken after walking an average of 4 miles a day and without a single day of rest, but with a frontal bone light years thicker than before.

The sense of victory of making it, despite all the pain along the way, and arriving at the cathedral in Santiago de Compostela physically exhausted is a feeling that has stuck with me for the rest of my life. However, I promised myself that I would NEVER go on a long walk again.

Just over four years later - in September 2014 - I fulfilled another of my dreams when I celebrated my 35th birthday at sunrise on top of Kilimanjaro. The trip was spontaneously booked just 3 months before, the day after my mum and I were a hair's breadth away from a head-on collision with a large BMW X5 that had hydroplaned and crossed into our lane. I realised that life is extremely fragile, that we never know how many days we have left and that we don't have time to wait to do everything we dream of. Life is short... too short.

How did you get the idea to hike through New Zealand and what is the purpose?

I've always dreamed of seeing New Zealand (who hasn't!?). When I returned from my hike in Spain in April 2010, I read a small note in a travel magazine that volunteers had been working for 17 years to complete a 3,000 kilometre hiking trail throughout New Zealand.

I thought "WOW!" but was still tired after El Camino and didn't think much more about it, it felt like something that would remain a "wow" and an unattainable dream - I mean, who has the time and energy to walk 300 miles? That's almost four caminos ...

When the trail was completed in 2011, a book about the trail was released and I bought it. I flipped through it back and forth, dreaming away but putting it on the bookshelf with my other travel books and thinking that I will never ever be SO crazy as to hike 300 miles. It's just not possible.

Te Araroa haunted my mind all these years and every now and then I would pull out that book, look at the pictures and think "maybe... maybe I could do it...?". One day about 1.5 years ago, I was sitting at work on a break between two customers and scrolling through Instagram.

I searched for the first time on the hashtag #teararoa and the first image that appeared in the feed was a picture taken over the sea, of a stunningly beautiful bay with unreal blue water. I clicked the image and almost fell off my chair when I read the text that ended with: "...overlooking Helena Bay". Helena Bay? That's my bay! I have to go there!

Planning and objectives with Helena Olmås

After that, not a day went by that I didn't think about Te Araroa, and after much planning and extreme budgeting to save money, I realised that I was actually going to do this walk. The little seed that had been planted in my head years before had grown into a whole garden of thoughts and feelings about the fact that I was now on my way!

It is far from everyone who has the opportunity to embark on an adventure like this. Many pieces of the puzzle have to fit and I felt so incredibly privileged to have this opportunity. I felt that I could not go to the other side of the world and hike 300 kilometres along one of the world's most beautiful, but also toughest, hiking trails and only do it for myself and my own ego. I wanted to do something more, something bigger.

In the summer of 2013, my aunt was diagnosed with breast cancer. My aunt and I are very close and I see her more as my sister, never would I have imagined that she would suffer from a serious and in many cases fatal disease. It felt completely unreal. Her illness was very hard on all of us and it was a difficult time with operations, chemotherapy and radiotherapy. The treatment was successful and she is now cancer-free.

If it hadn't been for the work being done on cancer research, my aunt might not be alive today, so the choice to start a fundraiser for the Cancer Foundation to add value to my walk didn't seem too difficult. I set a high target: SEK 50 per kilometre, a total of SEK 150,000 for cancer research. People raised their eyebrows, but I felt that if I was going to do this, I should do it properly.

Can you describe the hike? How long is it, what is the terrain and how do you spend the night along the way?

Te Araroa (Maori for 'the long pathway') is 3007 kilometres long in total and runs from Cape Reinga on the northern tip of the North Island to Bluff, the southern tip of the South Island. The terrain is varied and consists of everything you could possibly imagine.

I've walked on sandy beaches, tarmac roads, forest trails, dirt roads, through towns, over mountains (the highest point along Te Araroa is 1925 metres), through (and in) rivers and streams, cow pastures, in knee-high mud, over volcanoes, through dense forest, up and down stairs (the longest section of stairs was 1.9 kilometres uphill!) and across large rolling fields. The start from Cape Reinga is tough with 100 kilometres along 90 miles of beach, 4 days on sand and I have heard of many people dropping out after the first few days. Walking on sand is not a game ...

I carry my little red Hilleberg tent with me and have spent countless nights in it, but otherwise I've stayed in cabins (New Zealand has a fantastic system of "huts" - cabins where you can stay as much as you want for 6 months for about 600 SEK), in hostels and in the homes of private individuals who have invited me to stay overnight. New Zealand is a wonderfully hospitable country!

Now we are curious Helena Olmås, what is in your pack?

The packing is well planned and I carry about 20 kg in my 65-litre backpack. In my pack, in addition to the clothes I wear (shorts from Haglöfs, t-shirt from Icebreaker, socks from Gococo and boots from Haglöfs): 

• Tent (Enan from Hilleberg)
• Storm cooker (MSR Windboiler)
• Sleeping bag (lightweight bag from the Haglöfs L.I.M. collection), sleeping pad (Thermarest NeoAir XLite) and silkliner, i.e. thin inner bag for the sleeping bag (Kathmandu).
• Sandals (Teva), extra shorts (Haglöfs), linen (Icebreaker), merino base layer (Haglöfs), thin merino blend pullover (Haglöfs), hat (Haglöfs), two pairs of extra socks (Gococo), three pairs of trousers, rain jacket (Haglöfs), rain trousers (Haglöfs), bikini
• Microfibre towel
• Drybags (Silva)
• Compass (Silva)
• Headlamp (Silva)
• Sunglasses (X-Cross)
• Olympus TOUGH TG-4 (waterproof camera)
• SPOT Gen-3 satellite messenger
• Water filter (Sawyer mini)
• Sunscreen, toothbrush, toothpaste, toilet paper
• Silver tape
• First aid kit
• Maps, iPhone, headphones, dictaphone, kindle (tablet with trail notes and e-books) and PowerTrekk charger from MyFC.
• Diary + pencil

In addition to this, I also carry food (including freeze-dried food from 24 Hour Meals/Blå Band that I brought with me from Sweden) and water.

How far have you come and how has it gone so far? What have been the toughest challenges and how is the fundraising going?

I have covered 2595 kilometres of the total 3007 and am currently in wonderful Wanaka. I have been here for a couple of days now due to a severe weather warning and large amounts of rain. I'm waiting here until the weather has calmed down, I have a couple of days in the mountains ahead of me and it's downright dangerous in the current weather.

I've already experienced a mountain top of just over 1700 metres in bad weather - talk about tough challenges - and I'm not doing it again. With a visibility of about 20 metres over Mount Crawford in the Tararua Ranges on the North Island and in a strong wind, I literally had to crawl along the ground and it was the first and only time I cried out of sheer fear.

In addition to Mount Crawford, the muddy forests in the north were the absolute worst challenges, Herekino Forest and Reatea Forest are the absolute steepest and muddiest forests I have ever experienced and often I had to use trees to get both up and down the steep slopes without falling. Terrible! I would honestly say that every day has been a challenge so far, if not physically then mentally. Pulling yourself together and staying focused for a long hike like this is demanding.

The fundraising is going beyond expectations and I have almost reached an amazing 130,000 SEK! There is only just over SEK 20,000 left to my goal and I hope and believe that we can do it before I reach Bluff. I am, to say the least, touched by people's incredible generosity.

Is there any place in New Zealand that you found particularly amazing? Tell us about it!

It is impossible to choose just one place, I would like to highlight this whole country! It is by far the most beautiful and hospitable country of the 30 or so countries I have visited. The North Island is green, lush and stunningly beautiful and the South Island is spectacular with all the mountains and ice-blue glacial lakes.

You have to experience this country at some point in your life and take your time. There are so many amazing things to see and experience, not least the local people who make New Zealand an extra special place on the world map.

Finally, a question we ask everyone we interview: What is your dream destination?

I've already ticked off a couple of destinations on my dream list (including the Galapagos Islands which I highly recommend!) but still have more than one left... Madagascar, Alaska, Iceland and Costa Rica is, however, high on the list.

I also want to go back to Africa for a longer safari and I am curious to hike in Utah, USA. However, my first destination after this adventure is home to my family in Dalarna, which is my strongest dream and greatest desire right now," says Helena Olmås.

Thank you Helena Olmås for sharing your experiences and thoughts!

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