Nelson writer Naomi Arnold has two features in this issue, and both involve moments of extremis.

Arnold recounts her muddy, soul-destroying slog through Southland’s Longwood Forest, near the start of her Te Araroa odyssey last year.

Nine months after the forest of mud, she reached Cape Reinga. By then she was a feral shell of a person, subsisting on canned chocolate mousse, peanut butter and beef jerky, a nutritional plan she asked us to advise others against. (Our story is an excerpt from her superb book Northbound, published by HarperCollins.)

In March we sent Arnold back into the bush, to write about feral pigs and other pests gobbling native frogs.

To get a handle on the problem, hunters rummage through the guts of freshly culled pigs, counting tiny froggy arms and feet. Here, Arnold captures the moment the smell of that particular exercise hit her.