Stewart Island sits about as far south as New Zealand goes. To get there from Ken's place you drive most of the length of the country, and there is still a ferry across Foveaux Strait waiting at the bottom. When his daughters raised the idea of a road trip, all of it, the long drives, the walking at the far end, Ken wanted to say yes. His right knee, however, was less sure.
Ken is 82. A Highlander, he'll tell you. Born in Inverness, Scotland and schooled in Edinburgh. His working life was spent in agriculture, both there and over here in New Zealand. It was this knowledge of the land that led him and his wife to run a wool and handcraft business.
After more than 50 years of marriage, he now runs the house on his own. Chief cook and bottle washer, he calls it, and none of it does itself. There is wood to bring in from the woodshed, leaves to rake, and a big garden to keep on top of. "There's always something to do," he says.
The plan for this stretch of life was never complicated for Ken. Keep the garden going. Keep the woodshed full. And keep turning up wherever his daughters are, which happens to be at opposite ends of the country, one in Auckland, one in the deep south.
It has never worried him though, travel has always been his thing. He came halfway around the world for it in the first place, and a man who has crossed the equator to get somewhere doesn't think much of a domestic ferry crossing.
One "better not" at a time
Over time though, change started to creep in the way these things do. His walking was not what it had been. The right knee had started making itself known, on the stairs, in the garden, and in the car on long hauls. Ladders came off the list, and for a man who had always done his own jobs around the place, that one stung. Trips got shorter, then further apart. Nothing dramatic. Just a life quietly narrowing at the edges, one "better not" at a time.
His daughters noticed before he said much about it. That is usually how it goes. "They tell me to slow down," Ken says. He understood the concern. He just never accepted the premise.
The garden does not shrink because a knee asks you to. The wood does not bring itself in.
And there is something quietly unfair about a body that objects to the very things you built your life around.
So when the road trip landed on the table, the honest answer forming in Ken's head was no. Asked later whether he would have gone without something in his corner, he doesn't dress it up. "Probably not."
It wasn't for lack of trying, either. He had worked through glucosamine and chondroitin over the years without much to show for it. "I thought that it hadn't done much for me," he says. By 82 you have watched enough bottles come and go to stop expecting the next one to be different.
The door was already ajar
It was his Auckland daughter who came across Koru Nutrition first, through its natural joint cream, Koru FX. The cream earned its place in the house, which mattered, because with Ken trust is earned in use, not in advertising. So when he spotted that the same company made capsules, Koru Joint, the door was already ajar. "I thought, oh, maybe they'll be of some help."
Koru Joint is a 3-in-1 formula, made in Rangiora, and it goes about the job three ways at once. Curcumin and boswellia, both rich in antioxidants, soothe the joint and support flexibility. Vitamin C and glucosamine nourish the cartilage. Chondroitin and hyaluronic acid support the synovial fluid that keeps a joint moving smoothly. Soothe, nourish, lubricate. Most supplements, like the glucosamine Ken had tried, concentrate on just one of those jobs and that is why Ken thought it wasn't doing anything.
Three jobs, one capsule
Soothe
Curcumin and boswellia soothe the joint and support flexibility.
Nourish
Vitamin C and glucosamine nourish the cartilage.
Lubricate
Chondroitin and hyaluronic acid support the synovial fluid that keeps a joint moving smoothly.
Made in Rangiora, New Zealand.
His system is not complicated. The capsules live where he can see them, and he takes them first thing every morning, before the day gets going. No chart on the fridge. Morning, capsules, kettle, on with it.
Capsules like these do not announce themselves, and it is worth being suspicious of any that claim to. There was no lightning-bolt morning. What Ken got was quieter, and in the end more useful. "Since taking them, they've been very good." Very good, in Ken's dialect, is high praise.
Useful looks like this. "I did a full day in the garden, moved some wood around and raked some leaves today, and I feel good for it. I'm confident in what I'm able to do and I would say it is because I have your tablets in my corner supporting me."
And useful, eventually, looked like a ferry
Ken and his daughters drove the length of the country and crossed Foveaux Strait to Stewart Island, where he walked around Ulva Island, one of New Zealand's great bird sanctuaries. "I'm so glad I've been taking this. With it I had the confidence to take the road trip, getting in and out of the car, and to walk around Ulva Island."
He puts it more bluntly, too. "I couldn't have done what I did, going down to the South Island and walking around the island, without it."
It is worth sitting for a moment with the other version of that year. The one where the answer stayed at probably not, where the photos are of other people's trips, and the garden slowly gets away on him. Ken doesn't dwell there. He just says what he knows. "I certainly wouldn't be doing the garden if I didn't have the tablets."
These days he has turned into a one-man recommendation service. A woman he met on the road trip went home with a bottle. A man at the recycling depot went home with the product names written down. His daughter keeps his orders topped up so he doesn't run out. "All I can do is keep recommending you," he told the Koru team on the phone.
In his own review, Ken described himself as 82 years young. Asked how old he feels on the inside, he settled on 30. His daughters can keep telling him to slow down. He's just back from the bottom of the country. And there's wood to shift.
The capsules in Ken's corner
Koru Joint, from Rangiora
One capsule, three jobs. Curcumin and boswellia soothe the joint and support flexibility, vitamin C and glucosamine nourish the cartilage, and chondroitin and hyaluronic acid support the synovial fluid that keeps a joint moving smoothly.
In our 60-day customer trial, 7 in 10 people felt real improvement within 30 days. And because capsules like these do not announce themselves overnight, every order carries a 60-day money-back guarantee.
Get Koru Joint →
