The Perfect Bushman.

Brunner spent several weeks at Taramakau and the Grey River mouth (Mawhera), recuperating and waiting for the spring of 1847. In October of that year he continued his journey southward along the coast, mapping the country, sketching, and noting all the features of the land. On October 21, the day before he reached Okarito (100 miles south of Hokitika) he wrote in his diary:

“I believe I may now assert that I have overcome the two greatest difficulties to be met with by bushmen in New Zealand, viz., the capability of walking barefoot, and subsisting on fernroot. The first, the want of shoes, had been a dread to me for some time, often fearing I should be left a barefooted cripple in some desolate black-birch forest on this deserted coast; but now I can trudge along barefoot, or with a pair of native sandals, called paraerae, made of leaves of flax, and what is more durable, the leaves of the ti or flax-tree (cabbagetree). I can make a sure footing in crossing rivers, ascending or descending precipices; in fact I feel I am just commencing to make exploring easy work. A good pair of sandals will last about two days’ hard work. They take about twenty minutes to make.”