Until last year, Miss Hart (20) had never been in a kayak, but that was not going to stop her paddling the 80km from Kinloch to Kingston, raising money for four mental health charities.
For her, it was personal.
In 2019, aged 17, Miss Hart was diagnosed with major depression and social anxiety, and her mental state degraded to the point she dropped out of school.
"I was finding life really hard and it progressively got worse over time and I ended up in the psych ward quite a few times ..."
After medication and treatment from psychologists, Miss Hart developed tools to help her through her illnesses, and in October last year was discharged from mental health services.
“It’s a bit of a process.
“You don’t really want to admit that you’ve been to the psych ward, or that you’ve got this mental health diagnosis, but it happens to a lot of people, and I’ve learned a lot, which I’m really grateful for."
Miss Hart decided kayaking Lake Wakatipu would act as a good metaphor for the challenges she has faced improving her mental health.
With a boat of support crew, thanks to Peter Excell Building, she set out from Kinloch just before 5am — "I’m not a morning girl, so that was rough" — and 12 hours and five minutes later got out at Kingston.
"I can’t believe I did it," she said.
"The last stint was definitely the hardest, but the first three, four hours was pretty good and then it just got worse and worse after that.
"I was hecking fresh, but it was actually a really a good morning for it — pretty still, a little bit of a backwind, so it got me places fast."
She said she was surprised she was still able to walk once she got to Kingston, but by yesterday afternoon she was feeling it.
"I’m really sore ... I can’t even prop myself up in bed because my elbows are so sore."
She expects she will have raised about $9000 in total to be split between four mental health charities — I Am Hope, Voices of Hope, Lifeline and Mental Health Foundation New Zealand — which she wanted tagged for early intervention.
"Normally you only get help when you reach crisis level and I think that needs to be changed."
- with additional reporting by Lucy Wormald
