At first I felt a bit miffed. In 2016 when I volunteered to check a trapline in the kiwi area of Remutaka Forest Park, I was offered an easy route – one that followed well-known and well-used tracks.
‘Is that all they think I'm capable of?’ I thought. I used to bash through all sorts of godforsaken supplejack-infested hellholes when working professionally in predator control for DOC. And before that I had spent countless hours off-track, sometimes in the dark, surveying kiwi.
“TRY AND HIT THAT TREE.” KATHY POINTS TO A TREE ABOUT 15M AWAY. I HURL THE OLD EGG AT THE TRUNK AND MISS. “PATHETIC!” SHE RIDICULES ME.
At the briefing session my suspicions seemed to be confirmed. The two fit-looking volunteers, both in their mid-20s, were assigned off-track lines.
‘You're a middle-aged man,’ I told myself. ‘Get used to it.’
