Elvis Presley once sang, “Lord, you gave me a mountain”. Lisa Davies meets a bunch of volunteers \u2013 including one special member \u2013 who could sing along quite happily.<\/p>\n
Peter Winter is 94, but the retired farmer hasn’t let his age slow him down. <\/p>\n
He’s still a very active member of the Mt Somers Walkway Society \u2013 founded a mere 40 years ago \u2013 and has spent countless hours ensuring that the Sharplin Falls track is in top shape this summer.<\/p>\n
Winter laughs as he compresses freshly laid gravel with his rake, saying, “We are doing some good work and it helps other people”.<\/p>\n
When asked if the physical work helps keep him young he replied: “No. Haha nothing does that, surely….I’m just lucky that’s all.”<\/p>\n
Doc ranger Chad Adams is in awe of Winter’s work ethic. “Peter, at 94, is an inspiration. It’s hard to see myself making it to 94 let alone doing the kind of work he does.” <\/p>\n
Sure, Winter’s the oldest in the group. He shrugs when asked about rumours that he’s never seen a doctor and got a chainsaw for his 90th birthday. He likes to point out the others he volunteers with aren’t far behind, quite a few in their mid-eighties, bonded by their loves for Mt Somers.<\/p>\n
Barry Austin, who’s 86, has high praise for Winter, saying he’s “just incredible for his age \u2013 like we have to hold him back”.<\/p>\n
Austin describes the group as a fellowship. Robert Schikker agrees. “As you progress, it becomes your mountain and you just want to look after it for the next generation.”<\/p>\n
Now the group, which has spent thousand of hours finishing the Sharplin Falls walkway is moving into recruitment mode. <\/p>\n
“Us old guys we drop off every now and again,” Winter says, “so we certainly need other people to come along.”<\/p>\n
Schikker concurs. “We’re getting a bit long in the tooth now but we’re still keen so we could do with some new members.”<\/p>\n
If you’re keen you can find the group on Facebook or get in touch with the Department of Conservation. They’d like more volunteers, just like Peter Winter. <\/p>\n
Schikker adds: “The whole group is important \u2013 but he’s special.” <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Elvis Presley once sang, “Lord, you gave me a mountain”. Lisa Davies meets a bunch of volunteers \u2013…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":223817,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[158,273,42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-223816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-christchurch-canterbury","tag-environment","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223816"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223816\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/223817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}