I'm not sure whether to rate this as a two or a three, but honestly, I have to say I scanned my way through. A.H. Reed is dear old fellow who loves to chat about everyone he meets on his epic walk, who loves to stop at every school along the way to visit the children, and who never faces a night in the cold.

Apparently, he was a well-known figure in New Zealand before he started the walk and had written several books already, all about New Zealand. He was founder of a press that published books about New Zealand as well as Sunday School religious materials. Press and radio came out to see him whenever he arrived in their neck of the woods and pretty soon his walk was known about all over NZ.

Folks come out to bring him a cup of tea as he walks by, that sort of thing. And, like an old-fashioned small-town news reporter, he makes sure to give the full name and complementary remark about every single on of them. The plan used to sell papers and I guess in 1961 New Zealand it sold books.

The writing is shallow but the walking is amazing and inspiring to an old walker like me. That's one reason for the three, a non-literary one. The second reason is it does provide a picture sort of a charming and long gone provincial society where everybody knew everybody else and everyone had time for a chat wit a friendly old bugger who's hopping it down the road for 1700 miles. ( )