Jamie O’Mannin, 31, was recently arrested after spending the last 12 years living on the West Coast, subsisting off of freeze-dried meals stolen from trampers spending the night in DoC huts. He had overstayed his visa by 11 years. Jamie was arrested last week, when he was caught in Mt. Aspiring National Park. He admitted that he had spent the majority of his time “just wandering up and down tracks, meeting people and stealing their shit in the dead of night”.
But things went awry when Covid regulations were put in place. “All of a sudden”, said Jamie, “the people just stopped coming. It was right in the middle of summer, when there’s usually the most food, and everything was just empty.” With no hikers to pilfer from, Jamie had gotten hungry and wandered closer to civilization. Last Tuesday, a tramper spotted him trying to lasso a cow in Mt. Aspiring National Park with a rope apparently made from his own pubic hair. “It was a strange sight”, said the tramper. “I figured this was just standard bogan behaviour, but my mate urged me to call it in. So I did.” Jamie’s crime spree is over, and trampers can rest easy that the only thieves they have to fear are our resident Kea.