{"id":68708,"date":"2025-01-03T09:01:39","date_gmt":"2025-01-03T00:01:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2025\/jan\/03\/they-spread-magic-new-zealands-trail-angels-offer-weary-hikers-food-showers-and-hope"},"modified":"2025-01-03T09:01:39","modified_gmt":"2025-01-03T00:01:39","slug":"they-spread-magic-new-zealands-trail-angels-offer-weary-hikers-food-showers-and-hope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=68708","title":{"rendered":"\u2018They spread magic\u2019: New Zealand\u2019s \u2018trail angels\u2019 offer weary hikers food, showers and hope"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A network of locals ready to provide a bed, a lift, or a box of chocolates to tired walkers along the Te Araroa trail has become a lifeline<\/p>\n<p>American hiker Donna Barkley was weeks into walking New Zealand\u2019s longest hiking trail when her strength started to falter. Starting at the northern tip of the country in mid-October, she had trudged south along vast empty coastlines, over farmland and through dense forests thick with mud.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have a new definition of muddy \u2013 at home we have boot scrapers but after these trails, you need a fire hose,\u201d Barkley tells the Guardian, while taking a rest day in the central North Island.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2025\/jan\/03\/they-spread-magic-new-zealands-trail-angels-offer-weary-hikers-food-showers-and-hope\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A network of locals ready to provide a bed, a lift, or a box of chocolates to tired walkers along the Te Araroa trail has become a lifelineAmerican hiker Donna Barkley was weeks into walking New Zealand\u2019s longest hiking trail when her strength started &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2286,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41,56,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-68708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-new-zealand","category-world-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2286"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=68708"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68708\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":68709,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68708\/revisions\/68709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=68708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=68708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=68708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}