Gone by Michael Blencowe
Author:Michael Blencowe [Blencowe, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-10-15T00:00:00+00:00
My 70-litre backpack is stuffed with enough food, water and sunscreen for four days âtramping in the bushâ, but Iâve strapped my most essential item, my digital camera, to my hip like some sharpshooting sheriff. If a kÅkako lands in front of me, Iâll need to be quick on the draw to get my photo before it reaches for the sky and flies back into oblivion. News arrives that just two days ago a Department of Conservation ranger heard ârepeated kÅkako-like flute callsâ about a dayâs walk ahead. I envisage myself as the man in Rudyard Kiplingâs poem âThe Explorerâ, searching for âSomething lost behind the Ranges. Lost and waiting for you. Go!â Alone in a vast wilderness Iâm eager to experience the freedom, the peace, the solitude.
This is hell. Itâs 3 a.m. and Iâm sharing a cramped wooden bunkhouse in the back of beyond with 13 complete strangers. My foam earplugs are powerless against their raucous snoring. In my bottom bunk Iâm a prisoner in my own sleeping bag; all I can do is peer through the zipped opening to where a silver sliver of moonlight illuminates a poster pinned to the wooden wall. Itâs the exact same poster that Liam Beattie saw after his sighting of a South Island kÅkako âchilling outâ just behind this bunkhouse. Its masked face is the last thing I see as I finally slip into sleep and dream of orange wattles.
At first light I emerge from my cocoon, tiptoe past the snoring strangers and burst from the bunkhouse into another sparkling New Zealand morning. Behind the hut lies âThe Enchanted Forestâ, a fairy-tale woodland of waterfalls and caves where every tree and rock is festooned with soft mosses; I half expect to see a unicorn trotting past. I find a comfortable spot in a glade and sit, soaking up the silence, waiting for my own mythical creature, the Grey Ghost. Itâs undeniably exhilarating, the feeling that, at any moment, the paths and destinies of a foraging kÅkako and a wandering middle-aged Englishman could cross. I fantasise about returning to the Booth Museum, NZ$10,000 in my back pocket, opening that cabinet of extinct animals and reclaiming the kÅkako for the land of the living. Iâd raise the stuffed specimen above my head like the World Cup as Iâm carried, shoulder high, through the cheering crowds along Dyke Road.
After a few hours of kÅkako-free bird-watching, I relax my grip on my camera and despondently head back to the bunkhouse for some lunch. And thatâs when I see it. I freeze. Standing right there in front of me, maybe just 3 metres (10 feet) away, is a bird. A bird that has been extinct for 50 years. And yet, there it stands, next to the bunkhouseâs outdoor toilet. It looks up and fixes me with a hard stare. I fumble for my camera, point and press the shutter button just as the toilet door bursts opens and a woman exits, the swinging door almost knocking the bird to the floor.
Download
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.
Automotive | Engineering |
Transportation |
Urban Outlaw by Magnus Walker(2953)
Never by Ken Follett(2915)
OPNsense Beginner to Professional by Julio Cesar Bueno de Camargo(2833)
Sapiens and Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari(2426)
Machine Learning at Scale with H2O by Gregory Keys | David Whiting(2324)
A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bryson Bill(2142)
Will by Will Smith(2077)
Hooked: A Dark, Contemporary Romance (Never After Series) by Emily McIntire(2008)
Borders by unknow(1792)
Rationality by Steven Pinker(1777)
Holy Bible (NIV) by Zondervan(1718)
Freedom by Sonny Barger(1491)
The One Percenter Encyclopedia by Bill Hayes(1471)
Five Ways to Fall by K.A. Tucker(1407)
Girls Auto Clinic Glove Box Guide by Patrice Banks(1370)
Far and Near by Neil Peart(1360)
The Becoming by Nora Roberts(1344)
Cuba's Car Culture by Tom Cotter(1330)
A Short History of War by Jeremy Black(1309)