{"id":9098,"date":"2024-01-30T05:23:32","date_gmt":"2024-01-29T16:23:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=9098"},"modified":"2024-01-30T05:23:32","modified_gmt":"2024-01-29T16:23:32","slug":"taranaki-maunga-pensioners-playground-even-at-90","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=9098","title":{"rendered":"Taranaki Maunga pensioner’s playground – even at 90"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Ngatea pensioner who has climbed Taranaki Maunga to mark his 90th birthday says it was a “humbling” experience.<\/p>\n

David Baker is believed to be the oldest person to have ever reached the 2581-metre summit.<\/p>\n

Baker grew up on a family farm in the shadow of Taranaki Maunga and it has been his playground ever since.<\/p>\n

“It was hard against the boundary of the last farm before you went into the bush and I used to chase goats with my dog in the bush above the farm.<\/p>\n

“I even climbed the mountain when I was 12. I followed up some men who were cutting steps in the ice on my own – just went off up the mountain.”<\/p>\n

He has climbed Taranaki frequently since including on his 70th and 80th birthdays and decided if he made the ascent again for his 90th it would be to\u00a0raise funds for Starship Hospital<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Ninety-year-old<\/p>\n

David Baker on the mountain with his family and other supporters.\u00a0<\/span>Photo:\u00a0Supplied \/ Carl O’Sullivan<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Although Baker reckoned he had trained hard for Friday’s climb it was not without incident.<\/p>\n

“Coming down is worse than going up. Down those marbles on the scoria, my feet went out from under me and bang down I went.<\/p>\n

“At my age, my problem with that climb was that I’m now losing my balance – my reflexes aren’t as quick.”<\/p>\n

He was modest about what he had achieved.<\/p>\n

“For my age that I am fortunate enough to do something like that when so many people are suffering and cannot even live to this stage, it humbles me.<\/p>\n

“And the people that say to me you’re a marvel and I just feel I’m a pretty ordinary guy.”<\/p>\n

He set out from North Egmont before dawn and needed six hours to reach the summit where he had an hour-long break before tackling the five-hour descent.<\/p>\n

Baker said he had brushed up okay after the ordeal.<\/p>\n

“The next day I was fine. I have some skin off my elbow and my tailbone is a little sore from when I came down on the scoria. Except for that, I’ve managed the climb effortlessly.”<\/p>\n

\"Ninety-year-old<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
rnz<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Ngatea pensioner who has climbed Taranaki Maunga to mark his 90th birthday says it was a “humbling” experience. David Baker is believed to be the oldest person to have ever reached the 2581-metre summit. Baker grew up on a family farm in the shadow of Taranaki Maunga and it has been his playground ever […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":9099,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[222,174],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news","category-nz-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9098","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9098"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9098\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9100,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9098\/revisions\/9100"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}