Part of the joy of park runs is who you get to meet while out getting good exercise. The Kei Mouth Park Run is no exception — very few people get up grumpy to go to stretch their legs for 5km at 8am.
The attitude is jovial, festive, energetic, healthy, positive and inclusive.
The Kei Mouth Golf Club is a great starting point. The seafront stretch at Freshwaters on this run meanders through an avenue of giant strelitzia, ferns, red milkwood and coastal silver oak.
I had the pleasure of meeting up with Michael Phister, 52, a “jafa” (just another friendly Aucklander) from New Zealand.
Ex-Selborne and Rhodes University psychology, Michael has been in New Zealand for 25 years. He works in IT in the government education sector.
As a youngster, our jafa represented SA in karate but as the years, work and life went by he sank into the couch to the tune of 126kg, depression, diabetes and Covid.
During the pandemic New Zealand allowed people out to ride bicycles for exercise, which Michael did.
Something clicked. He rode like crazy but did not lose a kilogram. However his insulin dependence dropped and he began feeling better, so he carried on.
Then Covid ended and he began to run. A lot. The kgs began to fall off, all the way down to 86kg.
In 2024, Michael completed two ultras and six marathons. Along with his partner, Debbie Ann, they are the five-hour pace setters for the Taupo half-marathon in New Zealand.
A perfect running week for Michael includes the Monday underground pub run 5km. Tuesday is the Good George pub run 5km; Wednesday the Pigeon Pub run 5km and Thursday morning at 6am the GHC 15k circuit.
Thursday evening sees the Orakei pub run, 20 minutes out and turn around and run back home. Friday is the 445 club (kind of like tinder in tekkies — a large teenage/youth component. Speed dating of a sort?), 30 minutes out, turn around and come back.
Michael says about 200 teenagers run in the 445.
Saturday is a park run with a possible cycle in the afternoon and Sunday is the YMCA long run!
I asked Michael if he is compulsive and hard to live with?
“I am on the spectrum,” he replied with a laugh.
No wonder one of his knees is starting to wear out.
This past Saturday was Michael’s 99th park run and the letter K for Kei Mouth concludes all 26 letters of the alphabet for him.
We enjoyed breakfast at the Kei Mouth Golf Club after the trot and considered what the rest of the weekend had to offer — Seagulls and Trennerys, Morgan Bay, Double Mouth, hiking, cycling, fishing, surfing, squash, golf, abseiling, laughing, dancing or just lying down and reading a book. My recommendation: The Sunburnt Queen by Hazel Crampton.
The big surprise of the weekend for me was catching up for supper with Craig Pelser at the Bushpig Pub and Grill.
Craig I know from the building industry — he does floor screeds and polished concrete. What I did not know is that he is a genius in the kitchen and loves to cook.
His wife, Natasha, is a qualified chef and they both have experience ex Michaela’s, Chintsa.
Craig’s latest creation is a baked fish in a reduced prawn bisque sauce, with lemon grass on a bed of thin cut potato and a flash fried carrot garnish.
I know my way around a good piece of fish and this knocked me out. Ask for flat bread to mop up the sauce.
Craig’s steaks are spectacular, too. Expect the unexpected. I suggest you book to avoid disappointment.
If you are an ornithologist, I suggest you make friends with Noleen and Rowan Weyer.
They have the biggest flock of pintailed whydah that come to their feeder that I have ever seen, a resident pair of eagle owls that have just hatched chicks, a pair of very familiar chats and a massive array of other feathered delights that frequent their garden.
Two days in Kei Mouth is really not enough. Two weeks might be just right.
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