Waking in the middle of the night trying to remember the name of a horse that fell into a crevasse in the Ross Sea area during an Antarctic expedition was one side effect of David Barnes' preparation for Sunday's Mastermind New Zealand.
The Dunedin man won his semifinal, and is set to contest the final on TV One on Sunday at 7.45pm.
Mr Barnes will compete against three other contestants, from Auckland, Havelock North and Wellington.
He came second in his heat in May but got through to the semifinals on points, and won that with 23 points.
His specialist topic in the semi was the music and history of Split Enz, but on Sunday he will answer questions on British Antarctic expeditions to the Ross Sea, the subject he chose for his heat.
There would be three sections, with the others general knowledge and New Zealand.
Mr Barnes said he did not think he could practise for the latter two, but for the specialist topic "clearly you needed to''.
There was an agreement in advance with the producers about what texts would be relied on for the specialist topic, so that meant rereading the books.
"That was in some ways quite good, because it meant you could focus your study on those particular books without having to think 'where the hell are they going to dredge questions out of'?''
Mr Barnes said he took notes as he read, and those notes became the mainstay of what he memorised for the show.
He would test himself, trying to name the members of parties of explorers, where they camped for the winter, and "what was the name of the horse that fell down the crevasse?''
"Sometimes you'd wake up in the middle of the night and think 'oh jeez, what was the name of the geologist in that group?'.''
Mr Barnes said he was not stressed in his first round, but had been for the semifinals.
"For some reason during the filming the semifinals seemed more stressful. I felt less at ease, and looking at it, I think that came through.''
Mr Barnes said he was someone who was good at retaining facts.
"I don't make an active point of remembering - it just sits there.''
