"Team Rat" chief helicopter pilot Peter Garden, of Wanaka, is preparing to leave the remote South Atlantic island of South Georgia having completed a rat-eradication job that began nine years ago.
In an email to partner Bev Clark this week, Mr Garden said he was ''counting down the days'' until he was back home.
''It is now official - the last bait has been spread and we can breathe a gasp of relief.
''I would have said `sigh of relief' but we are all out of `sighs', used up in exasperation over the weather forecasts.''
South Georgia is 1500km and five days' sailing from the nearest airport on the Falkland Islands, and Mr Garden and the seven other New Zealanders involved with the programme do not expect to be home until late next month, at the earliest.
Mr Garden is in charge of the three helicopters used by the South Georgia Island Heritage Trust to drop Brodifacoum on the island in the biggest rat-eradication programme ever undertaken.
South Georgia is 167km long and between 1.4km and 37km wide and 70% is permanently covered in snow and ice.
On this, his fifth and final trip to the island, Mr Garden and two other helicopter pilots spread 95tonnes of bait over 360sq km of the island to kill brown or Norway rats introduced to the island from whaling ships 200 years ago.
It will be 2017 before it can be said the $13 million programme has killed all the island's rats.
