A Tauranga man has no plans to slow down his quest for improving New Zealand's water quality and pollution levels after successfully walking the length of the country.

Lance Talstra finished the final leg of his 3000km trek from Cape Reinga to Bluff via the Te Araroa Trail on Easter Saturday – after starting the solo journey last October to raise awareness of the country's deteriorating water quality.

Lance Talstra, during his six-month length of the country, via the Te Araroa Trail.

'I'm feeling pretty happy that I have finished I think. It was a really experience and the best thing that I have ever done, but after six months I was ready to be done,” says Lance.

'Not until probably around about Queenstown did I get over it. I was still enjoying the walking and seeing the different places, but around about then I was ready to get back to the Bay and see some friends and family and talking about the experiences.”

Along with taking in some of the country's most breath-taking scenery, the 37-year-old has gained valuable friends and contacts in his mission to help inspire and make a change in NZ's natural environment – including NIWA and the Department of Conservation experts.

And despite his feet feeling 'like stone”, and taking some well-deserved time with his feet up, Lance is keen to continue looking at what can be done to turn this polluted problem around – particularly in the political sector.

He believes the South Island is a problem area, even though a number of groups and regional councils are providing strong strategies and regulations. The problem must be addressed somewhere to begin with, says Lance.

'I think that we have a lot of people concerned about it all around the country. But there is a real lack of political will to do anything of substance.

'They are really trying to see what sort of half-measures they can get away with putting in place without people getting upset about it; ‘how little can we do about this to keep people happy'?”

'I think as a nation If we were to decide ‘hey we want to do something about this we could' it would cost quite a bit. But they want to triple their tourism revenue as part of GDP and that's one way where you need to start and clean our act up.”

Lance is also endeavouring to write a book about his journey in the next six months, but for now is happy to be back home after putting in the leg-work for his cause.