Shane Kidby and Walking With Wings: Grief, Resilience and the New Zealand Coast
Shane Kidby on Walking With Wings and what happened once the idea became real
Walking around New Zealand’s coastline had been sitting in Shane Kidby’s head for years.
It was one of those ideas that could easily have stayed there. Work, family and normal life keep filling the calendar, while something as big as walking around the edge of a country gets pushed into the vague category of “one day.”
Shane honestly thought that might be where it stayed.
What changed wasn’t suddenly having loads of free time or waking up completely sure of himself. Other people started believing the idea could actually happen. Support grew, sponsors came on board and something he’d been talking about for years started feeling uncomfortably real.
“It started feeling real when other people began believing I could do it. People got behind the idea, sponsors came on board, and suddenly it wasn’t just something I talked about anymore.”
Eventually there wasn’t much room left between talking about it and actually starting.
“Right, I’m actually going to have a crack at this.”
That became Walking With Wings.
There was a lot more behind it than kilometres
Walking With Wings began in 2021 as Shane’s attempt to tackle Aotearoa’s coastline in stages while raising awareness around cystic fibrosis and mental health.
Those causes were personal. Shane lost his younger brother Daniel to cystic fibrosis when he was nine, and his mum died from cancer shortly before the walk began.
So the coastline wasn’t some clean escape from everything that had happened before it. Shane took all of that with him.
He found out how quickly on Ninety Mile Beach.
Night two on Ninety Mile Beach
On only his second night, Shane was sitting beside his tent when losing his mum hit him properly.
“I just sat there crying, thinking, ‘What am I doing?’”
There wasn’t much to distract himself with. No normal routine, no busy day and nobody beside him filling the silence. Just a tent, a lot of beach and enough quiet for everything he’d been carrying to catch up.
Shane doesn’t talk about walking as though it somehow fixed his grief. It didn’t.
What changed was finding out that a terrible moment didn’t have to decide the whole journey.
“I learned I could sit with what I was feeling and keep going.”
The next morning still came and there was still somewhere to walk. As the journey went on, the solitude that had felt so heavy in those first days became something Shane genuinely valued.
Not because being alone made everything disappear, but because he got more comfortable when it didn’t.
His hip wasn’t the thing arguing with him most
There was an obvious physical question hanging over the walk too.
Shane had already been through a hip replacement after living with the effects of Perthes disease from childhood. A challenge built almost entirely around walking very long distances wasn’t exactly the obvious next move.
What surprised him was how often his hip wasn’t the loudest voice telling him to stop.
“My body has taught me it’s capable of a lot more than I give it credit for. I’ve had a hip replacement and some hard times, but my biggest battle on a long walk was often in my head.”
There were days when Shane had already decided he was finished, only to keep moving and discover that his body hadn’t reached the same conclusion.
“Your mind can be your best mate or your worst enemy. Some days I’d convince myself I couldn’t go any further, then I’d keep walking and realise I could.”
That didn’t turn into a rule about ignoring every warning sign. Shane had injuries and health issues along the way that genuinely needed attention.
He simply got better at recognising the difference between being done and really wanting to be done.
That shift also changed what resilience meant to him. When he was younger, Shane thought it meant being tough all the time. Now he leaves much more room for uncertainty.
“Now I think it’s carrying on even when you’re doubting yourself.”
Some days that meant another kilometre. Other days the situation itself had the final say.
Near Pātea, it did.
The day near Pātea when the coast took over
During one stretch near Pātea, Shane ended up in the sea and was smashed against rocks while trying to get himself back out.
“I fought to get back for what felt like forever. At one point I thought, ‘This is it,’ and a strange calm came over me.”
This wasn’t tired legs making the next few kilometres look miserable. For a while, Shane genuinely thought he might not make it back.
He eventually got himself out, battered and shaken, with hours of walking still ahead.
There’s no point turning that into some heroic fight with the ocean. Mostly it shows how quickly the coast can take control away from you.
It also gave Shane a very different kind of lesson from the days where his own head was trying to convince him he’d had enough. Sometimes you find out you’ve got more left than you thought. Sometimes the conditions are giving you information you’d be stupid to argue with.
That’s the same distinction we’ve run into on a much smaller scale when thinking about when it’s time to turn around on a hike. The hard part isn’t always carrying on. Sometimes it’s recognising that the day has changed before pride starts making the decisions.
A coastline is nothing like a clean line on a map
“Walk around New Zealand” sounds beautifully simple until you look closely at what a coastline actually does.
It doesn’t behave like a track.
There are cliffs, river mouths, tides, private land, rocks, soft sand and sections where the route that looked perfectly reasonable from home makes very little sense once you’re standing in front of it.
Shane had to work with whatever was actually there. Some days that meant covering good distance. Others meant changing the plan, finding another way around or accepting that the day wasn’t going to look anything like the version he’d pictured.
That’s the less polished side of long-distance walking. Alongside the dramatic bits are sore feet, logistics, weather, detours and hours where nothing particularly profound happens.
You just walk.
Without that part, stories like this get cleaned up until they barely resemble the thing someone actually did.
Being alone changed shape as the kilometres added up
Long days on foot gave Shane a ridiculous amount of time inside his own head.
At first, that could hurt. Ninety Mile Beach made that pretty clear.
Later, the same solitude began to feel different. Grief could show up without taking the entire day with it. Doubt could be there without automatically getting its way, and a rough hour didn’t have to become a rough afternoon.
Shane didn’t come away with some magic ability to shut any of that off.
He just knew it better when it arrived.
For someone who started the journey beside a tent wondering what the hell he was doing, that was a fairly big change.
The original plan didn’t need a polished ending
Walking With Wings was a huge idea from the beginning.
It was also happening inside a normal life, which meant injury, COVID restrictions, health issues and everything else got involved. The full coastline wasn’t completed.
We don’t think that needs dressing up.
Shane still spent hundreds of kilometres walking parts of New Zealand’s coast. By December 2021, his own updates recorded 678 km, including sections from Cape Reinga to Herekino and New Plymouth to Wellington.
Inside those kilometres were grief, long days alone, a replaced hip, plenty of doubt and one frightening reminder near Pātea that the coastline sometimes gets the final say.
None of that suddenly means less because the original line around the country wasn’t finished.
If anything, the interruptions make it feel more like real life. Big plans rarely survive first contact completely intact.
The part we kept coming back to
There are plenty of big moments in Shane’s story, but the bit we kept circling back to was much quieter.
He’d wanted to try this for years.
He could quite easily have kept wanting to do it for years more, but eventually the support around the idea grew enough that he decided to see what happened if he stopped leaving it for later.
“Right, I’m actually going to have a crack at this.”
That line probably didn’t feel particularly profound when Shane said it.
Maybe that’s why we like it.
There’s no promise that everything will work. No claim that fear disappears or that starting guarantees some life-changing finish.
He was going to try.
Everything else came after.
Before you head out
We don’t think Shane’s story needs turning into a motivational speech.
You don’t need to walk hundreds of kilometres, chase something enormous or turn the next thing you want to do into a personal transformation project.
What stayed with us was simpler. Shane had something he’d wanted to try for a long time, and when it finally became real enough to start, he started.
The version that followed was messy, painful, frightening and good in different measures.
That sounds a lot closer to adventure as we know it.
Final take
Shane Kidby began Walking With Wings carrying a big idea and plenty of other things with it.
There was grief for his mum and younger brother, a body that had already been through a hip replacement, doubt that could get very convincing after enough kilometres and a coastline that didn’t care what the original plan said.
The walk didn’t make Shane fearless or teach him never to stop.
It taught him that his own head wasn’t always the best judge of what he had left, while the coast gave him several reminders that some warnings are worth listening to.
By the end of those stages, Shane knew himself a bit better when either voice turned up.
For something that began with “I’m actually going to have a crack at this,” that feels like enough.
Shane Kidby and Walking With Wings FAQ
Who is Shane Kidby?
Shane Kidby is a New Zealand adventurer behind Walking With Wings, a project built around attempting Aotearoa’s coastline in stages while raising awareness around cystic fibrosis and mental health.
What was Walking With Wings?
Walking With Wings was Shane’s long-distance New Zealand coastline project.
It combined a long-held goal of walking around the country with causes that were close to him personally, particularly cystic fibrosis and mental health.
Why did Shane Kidby start Walking With Wings?
Walking New Zealand’s coastline had been a dream for years, but the project also had a strong personal connection.
Shane lost his younger brother Daniel to cystic fibrosis when he was a child, while his mum died from cancer shortly before the walk began.
Did Shane Kidby walk around all of New Zealand?
No.
Walking With Wings was an attempt to tackle the coastline in stages, but the full circumnavigation wasn’t completed. Injury, COVID restrictions and later health issues all affected the original plan.
How far did Shane Kidby walk?
Shane’s December 2021 update recorded 678 km in 71 days, including rest days, covering Cape Reinga to Herekino and New Plymouth to Wellington.
Did Shane Kidby have a hip replacement?
Yes.
Shane had a hip replacement after living with the effects of Perthes disease from childhood.
What happened to Shane near Pātea?
Shane was caught in a dangerous situation in the sea near Pātea and was repeatedly smashed against the coast while trying to escape.
He eventually made it back to safety, but described reaching a point where he genuinely thought he might not get out.
What did Shane learn from walking alone?
One of the biggest changes Shane described was becoming more comfortable with his own thoughts.
Grief and doubt still showed up, but he became better at sitting with them without letting one bad moment decide the rest of the day.
What does Shane Kidby think resilience means?
Shane told us he used to think resilience meant being tough all the time.
Now he sees it more as carrying on even when you’re doubting yourself.