Autumn - a time for reflection perhaps?

Yesterday I took a long walk on a new walkway that follows the Hawea River from Albert Town to Lake Hawea, and I marvelled at the far-sightedness and investment of a Trust that created it from go to whoa, inc. a very substantial swing bridge...


Yesterday was also the day our New Zealand National Govt. unveiled plans to mine in our National Parks. Predetermined plans at that, it seems!

Unlike Lake Wanaka I find Lake Hawea has a real sense of rawness about it. It maybe autumn though, but we're getting a lot of spring [Oct.] like gales at present...


I note that many local Bed and Breakfast operations promote this long walk/ride overseas. So I truly wonder what is going on if our Govt. thinks it can earn more overseas dollars by destroying our landscape, than we'd get from tourism, which is our biggest earner, and has been for sometime...




Today on National Radio this whole mining thing got examined again - I recall the last time was in the last century, and it was discarded out-of-hand. Yet this time it's spooky - it's the predetermined approach of our present Govt. that does this to me. The focus on the National Radio, of course is Great Barrier Island, that jewel in the Hauraki Gulf, and the nearby Coramandel Peninsula area, both close to our largest city Auckland.

But down here in the south we have a larger jewel and maybe the Govt. hope it'll be overlooked if the hullabaloo is centred near Auckland!

Since there is a following on my blog here of people who enjoy a virtual journey, lets examine Stewart Island / Rakiura, coastline and landscape of our third-largest island of New Zealand.

From Oban, the only town on Stewart Island, to get to Port Pegasus, the southern most harbour, is several hours at 8 knots - two thirds of the trip being in the true Southern Ocean...


This is the shoreline on this long and exposed leg...


There are hazards like Black Rock accentuated by wickedly strong currents, right where the naive would sail, ...


The entrance to Pegasus - a tricky harbour to enter due to severe currents, but once inside there is enough to keep adventurer sailors like Arthur here, and his mates [myself, son and others] busy for a month...


But wait... there has been mining here too. The Tin Range, for example, is not called "The Tin Range" for nothing, but back then the technology was quaint, so there is not much left behind...


And maybe real pirates did use this "Pirates Cove". But today's pirates, if they come, will come in more than rubber boats...


Port Pegasus is a beguiling place, full of history [like Fiordland it was populated early and then abandoned], and is rather ominously a good harbour too...


Ashore it is a wild windswept place of great beauty - essentially wilderness that contains low scrub [wind affected/stunted] and low mountains like Gog and Magog...


On Magog we can see the even wilder west coast - a glimpse to the right...


My son Dougal on Magog, and over his right shoulder.. that is Gog...


Dougal surveys northern Port Pegasus from Magog...


Gog and Magog from Bald Cone which is further south again. Check out the ice sculptured landforms....


And even further south [sth. west actually], there are even more isolated mountains and valleys evident in this amazing wilderness...


Bald Cone...


So this is our jewel of the south - Stewart Island / Rakiura...


Further north in Paterson Inlet there is Ulva Island. An outstanding success in terms of a bird sanctuary. So much-so that thousands visit it by water taxi every "season" [tourism], and many far-sighted visionaries are mooting the whole of Stewart Island / Rakiura be turned into a predator free zone bird sanctuary. I believe this is a possible and an absolutely stunning goal. Sadly though it could be that those who would desecrate that which is a spiritual landscape, will be the predators!

Ulva Island weka...


Govt. eyes up estimated 7 billion

So dear local readers and overseas lovers of NZ, what do you think about mining our National Parks?

A celebration of our wild New Zealand landscape and National Parks - and a "heads up"

Quentin Smith of Wanaka has recently formed a FaceBook group: Hands off Mt Aspiring NP and a few days ago membership stood at 5000, and it's now well over 6000!

... which relates to the noises our new, seemingly unenlightened and uninspired, New Zealand Government are making to initiate mining investigations in our National Parks. Not only my local Mt Aspiring National Park I might add!

While they say it's only a stock-take even that is a transgression and impossible to do without major disturbances and destruction of our heritage put aside for all coming generations.

Having got this off my chest [link below] I'm here sharing some of my favourite landscape photos I've made of our wild New Zealand landscape.

This is Mt Brewster - somewhat in the middle of the area of Mt Aspiring National Park our National Government has it's beady eyes on [and in bed with which multi national corporation that historically is always in the background taking profits when it comes to mining resources in any country?]...


Marks Flat under Mt Hooker - a huge tract of land designated at Conservation Estate in South Westland. Should it be part of the World Heritage Site in this area [Te Wahipounamu - South West New Zealand]?


You can "mine" great powder on the slopes of Mt Cook in Mount Cook National Park...


Alma hut in Westland National Park, with Franz Josef neve behind...


Mt Aspiring from Cascade Saddle


Lake Hankinson in Fiordland National Park [not far from the Milford Track]...


Looking down one of the significant glaciers in Westland National Park


There is a FaceBook generated link here, to view, or I suggest join the group: Hands off Mt Aspiring NP.

Or failing above then click on Groups in your FaceBook account and type in "Hands off Mt Aspiring NP"

And on a related matter this week I found out that New Zealand has 56,000 Kms of public roads that are not public, and our current New Zealand Government, and the preceding one it seems, have apparently been doing their best to sweep these "paper roads" under the carpet by use of cunning legal moves to give the land to those [many of whom have already fenced them off], in exchange for easements. The former offer us, the recreational users and owners unfettered access, the latter, easements, do absolutely nothing for us - only for self serving interests of those who've squatted on our rights.

The context of events in life

Whilst Oct. was quite benign, with just lower temps. than normal and a bit more cloud, right now Nov. is still misbehaving: there has been a wall of grey/white obscuring the mts. for a few days now, and recently a wind that never relents as it tore off little branches and leaves off the trees here. But at least the sun has been shining!

A rare calm period, during these late spring windy days on Lake Wanaka...


Last week I posted about the successes of the campaign to stop Meridian Energy [Project Hayes] building a wind farm on the Lammermoor Range in Central Otago, and as mentioned to Marg. who comments here, I find it wrong that we actually have to fight inappropriate ideas forced on us. As if reading my mind I then noted the Otago Daily Times had just published such an article called "Campaign took its toll on project opponents"

The basic problem with Meridian Energy's Project Hayes [and Contact Energy in the case of proposed dams on the Clutha River] is that their mandates [self imposed or otherwise?] are not aligned to support the full gamut of human needs. If they were these sort of institutions could benefit all aspects of our lives. At the moment they do not!

This all seems to come about by the limited capacity of either the individuals concerned flavouring the ethos of the organisation, or the organisation being of such a mind-set, that it/they only attract an energy [no pun intended] which is limited by the context of the inherited levels of awareness of the observers. Motives determine the goals and therefore the end result has little in it to benefit an energy situation that needs a solution. Or you could say the situation is poorly understood - the acquisition and need of energy by human beings goes way beyond electricity!

Therefore a low energy struggle ensues. Rather than "lifting the game" the institutions pull down the big picture ideals of people who could contribute so much, but become engaged in a drain of energy and resources such as reported in the above mentioned Otago Daily Times article.

The ODT also recently published the remarks of an elected counsellor who was criticising the positive and far-seeing results of the Environment Court. What was interesting to me were these two comments left by readers, who have presumably do have a "lifted game":

Submitted by RedTussock on Fri, 13/11/2009 - 7:49am.
Gerry whilst I enjoy your advocacy for common sense can I ask that you endeavour to do some research on what is happening elsewhere in the world. In the US a 345MW Concentrating Solar Power project cost $US200 million to build. It takes up no more land than a large vineyard, costs less, and does not blot the skyline with wind towers. CSP stations produce power during non sun light hours. The technology for new, cheaper, and better alternatives has advanced in the last few years to the point where the expense of wind power both monetary and geographically is hard to justify. The new alternatives are better.

Submitted by Ian Smith on Fri, 13/11/2009 - 11:41am.
Does anyone seriously consider that at the end of the economic life of these towers, (and it will come), the perpetrators will be summoned on-site to spend many millions of dollars restoring the landscape to its former pristine state? Of course not, it will become a graveyard of rusting hulks and a further monument, (as if one were needed), to mankind's greed and stupidity.

I therefore wonder at what seems to be a very limited view of the goals and solutions proposed by Meridian Energy, Contact Energy and the current New Zealand Govt!

The Blue Lakes of St. Bathans. A legacy left behind by the resource gathering of earlier generations. In this case a pretty and interesting slice of history, or should I say "sluice"...