She logged more than 15 years as a councillor with the Otago Fish & Game Council.
Then in 2024, having moved to South Canterbury, she was elected on to the Central South Island (CSI) Fish & Game Council, so became a member of two councils.
But after sitting on two councils for about 18 months, last month she resigned from Otago. In the end, one had to go.
"I’d put the hard work in with Otago but obviously leaving the Otago council was actually a very hard decision. But it was around my relocation. I’m living up in Fairlie now and was trying to do the two roles at the same time," she said.
"But in saying that, you have to know where the wall is and you don’t pass on any information to anybody.
"Like when I leave Otago — the doors shut, the information stays there. When I go to CSI, the same thing. So if they were wanting me to break, they were sadly mistaken. It didn’t happen."
She had gained a lot of skills and faced plenty of challenges while on the Otago council and it had been a privilege to work with the other councillors, she said.
She had always been up for the challenge to try to make a difference in people’s lives.
She was brought up on Mt Burke Station, near Wānaka, and fishing and hunting were front and centre.
As the only woman on the Otago council — and on a national scale, too — at times it was lonely.
"I do find that being a sole woman on the council is definitely not an easy road to travel. You do have to wear a certain amount of armour to protect yourself.
"You’re lonely, isolated.
"You feel like you’ve got to work harder," she said.
"You’ve got to be very, very careful that you say the right thing because I’m pretty good at shooting from the hip. I think I’m common sense, so it’s like if I wasn’t happy with something, everyone would soon know about it. I did not hold back. The old blood pressure would go up."
She felt the exchanges between her and others were frank and it was a situation of "you’ve got to all agree or not agree and just move on".
Licence costs always riled her the most.
She was most proud of the establishment of the Lower Clutha Mata-au Salmon Sports Fish and Habitat Trust.
"We managed to start that up in the last year. I’ve been a founding member of that because I’ve really pushed for the advocacy of getting more salmon in the Clutha River."
She said before the hydro dams were built on the Clutha River, there were 80,000 salmon in a self-sustaining run.
"These days you would be lucky to see 50 a season."
The next step was to build a hatchery and ultimately getting a salmon run back into the river. Ailing populations in the Waitaki and Rakaia Rivers showed it would not be easy.
A mother of five girls, the 59-year-old was now living near Lake Opuha looking after her property.
Her role with the Central South Island council would continue.
"I’d love to see more women get on to these tables, but how the heck we’re going to do it I really don’t know.
"You know you need confidence. You need to be able to battle against a room full of men. You need to be able to just hold your own. You need to be tough."
