Speedy lengths of New Zealand on foot

Ah, I just found his blog, and someone's taken him to task about it in this post -- http://stevecleverdon.wordpress.com/2010/11/12/on-the-road-again/#comments , pointing out that Siegfried Bauer's time was 18 days 5 hours 1 minute and 58.3 seconds. It sounds as if he's specifically going for the Guinness "World" Record for "walking the length of New Zealand", which requires Guinness to have various specific evidence and so on, and therefore he's guaranteed to get the "official" record from Guinness as long as he actually does it (unless someone else starts after and finishes before he does)... which sounds a little empty given how much splash is being made all over his website about setting this record, because it's hard to believe anyone will take it seriously next to Bauer's non-Guinness-officiated effort, not to mention a heap of others who've done it in 30-40 days, but whatever. :)

I would love to walk the length of New Zealand myself but I would rather take longer to enjoy myself and see the sights along the way plus I think that the Te Araroa route is a good one but I would rather go down the Napier-Taupo rd etc, I`m not to sure if that would still count as the Te Araroa route if you changed it that much?

Just take the train most of the way and walk up and down the carriages. Or is that cheating?