Innehållsförteckning för October 2016 från Wilderness

A memorial service in August celebrated the life of conservationist and tramper Andy Dennis, well-known as the author of the Paparoas Guide, Images of a Limestone Landscape, and several national park guides. Andy, a long-time member of both Forest & Bird and Federated Mountain Clubs, was an articulate and outspoken conservationist who had a rare ability with words and a broad understanding of the natural world. Andy died in July, aged 72, after a battle with cancer. His legacy includes Kahurangi National Park, and Nelson’s Horoirangi Marine Reserve, both of which he championed – as well as important translations of old Icelandic sagas. Andy was also a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit.…

Cat bites, concussions and broken legs: these are just a few of the ailments that wounded birds are being treated for in a small, cozy house on Auckland’s North Shore. For 30 years, Sylvia Durrant has been caring for the sick and injured birds of Auckland. Now at 83, she’s lively and energetic. She has to be; she sees 4000 birds a year at her bird sanctuary in Rothesay Bay. Durrant’s knack for healing birds stems from her training as a nurse; she used to care for disabled children at the Wilson Home. “A lot of what I learned as a nurse – giving injections, fixing bones – caring for birds was just a carry-on.” After working at the Wilson Home, she became a district nurse, caring for disabled adults.…

If you’re at Punakaiki and want to escape the crowds at Pancake Rocks, a short walk along the Pororari River Track will do the trick. The track passes through the lush, forested river valley, surrounded on all sides by dramatic limestone cliffs and bluffs, eventually reaching Paparoa National Park and a junction with the recently reopened Inland Pack Track. A 15-minute walk from the car park brings you to a seat and a lookout over the river. The track continues for another 2.5km to the Inland Pack Track. This sub-tropical forest, with uncountable shades of green and diverse leaf shapes of nikau palms, tree ferns and towering rata, is a delight to walk through. Wildlife abounds – weka cross the track and tomtit, bush robins, kereru, tuis and bellbirds fly…

In a previous column I spoke about the concept of having a ‘holiday in a hut’ (July 2016). I used the term slightly metaphorically, or perhaps in an advertising jingle sense, as a way of looking at tramping as a varied, multifaceted recreation. I thought of it as a sort of re-branding exercise, a way to shed the negative connotations that sometimes are associated with tramping: the long and pointless toil – the dull, muddy trudgery (I think I just coined that word). But it occurred to me not long after that I was also being literal. You can have a holiday in a hut. In fact, I’ve done it so many times that it has practically become a family tradition. And you can do it, too. Kiwis have a…

South Island high country tenure review has been going for as long as Wilderness has been printed; since 1991. It’s a two-way split of Crown pastoral land, between conservation and freehold. Tenure review affects 10 per cent of the nation’s landmass – 2.4 million hectares along the eastern slope of the South Island’s Main Divide. The area is slightly larger than Israel and just smaller than Belgium. At its inception, those few who were watching were supportive because it had something for everyone: farmers received freehold title; conservationists saw sheep removed from hilltops and new parkland; recreationists secured access to the backcountry for fishing, hunting and tramping. Over 25 years, the Crown has sold freehold title to 370,981ha to the former leaseholders of over 100 stations. By law, the Crown…

New Zealand’s hut and track network is unique in the world. It tells the story or our intrepid past and facilitates our adventures into the future. It is an international resource, one that brings visitors to New Zealand again and again. DOC has managed the network since 1987, enabling free and unhindered access to New Zealand’s natural places. The network has expanded and evolved during this time with the 10th Great Walk – The Pike29 Memorial Track – scheduled to open in 2018. DOC’s job is a big one; the management of about 30 per cent of the country’s land mass, plus marine and coastal areas. Wild places are being put under increasing pressure, both from local and international visitors. DOC has to find ways to manage popular destinations, to…

The words ‘national park’ mean different things to different people in New Zealand. The National Parks Act tells us that they are there for the purpose of preserving land in perpetuity because of their intrinsic worth and for the benefit, use and enjoyment of the public. They are areas of New Zealand that contain scenery of such distinctive quality, ecological systems, or natural features so beautiful, unique, or scientifically important that their preservation is in the national interest. The word ‘national’ tells us that national parks are for—and valued by—people from all over New Zealand, local and afar. More accurately, national parks are international parks, because of the worldwide interest and love that exists for them, and the worldwide desire to protect them. On the other hand, because of a…

CARRY-IN, CARRY-OUT An explosion in tourists led to many facilities being overrun last summer. Reports of toilet waste beside tracks, near lakes and huts abound. Is the solution for everyone to carry out their own waste? They’re doing it on Denali, on Everest and in Aoraki/Mt Cook National Park. Is it time to look more at packing our own waste out of the mountains, as technology improves the ways and means to do so? Climbing environmentalists at Sustainable Summits conference held at mt Cook in August told how the costs of sewage systems in crowded mountain parks; the environmental issues (yes, tests show that stuff does travel down crevasses, through glacial ice and emerge, with pathogens, in rivers below) and cultural considerations inspired them to find ways to ‘clean up’…

My tramping buddy and I were keen to test our navigation skills beyond marked tracks and routes. A tip from a colleague set us on the Scott Creek to Kay Creek crossing between the Routeburn and Caples valleys. Even though the Scott Creek Track is described by DOC as a possible day walk, we had to weave our way through dense bracken at the start, looking out for markers hidden in the undergrowth. We also had to negotiate patches of windfall further upstream, with the biggest detour adding about 30 minutes. By sunset we had made our camp at the delightful Scott Creek forks, fringed by mountains and forest, and visited by a curious kea. The next day we climbed steadily beside an ever-diminishing Scott Creek to the pass linking…

This trip nearly turned into a hard day’s night. We were aware the route wasn’t going to be the easiest navigationally. Some homework had been done and the information indicated that the track was rough and the markers elusive. We started at Kiwi Road, which is easier than coming the other way from Mt Messenger. After a drive of about 9km of winding, narrow, bush-clad road and one tunnel we came out into open farmland – Rerekapa Station – and an unmarked stile near a large silo pit, the start of our day’s walk. About 50m across the farm, there is a large orange DOC marker. So, off we went over the green grass and commenced a hand-over-fist short but sharp climb to the ridge, through a fence and presumably…

Keep it clean. Did you sweat buckets on your last tramp? Or was it that bluebird day on the Abel Tasman that left your pack smelling like it was doused in a bathtub of dirty socks? Gear guru Ben Sinclair from Living Simply recommends you wash your pack as often as you sweat into it. Sweat begets breakdown, and your shoulder straps and back padding will gradually disintegrate before your very eyes if you leave your reeking pack in the corner after every sweaty outing. Packs like baths. Don’t go near your washing machine: Sinclair says the best remedy for a dirty, smelly pack is a long, hot bath. He recommends using soap and a fine-tooth brush to scrub out the muddy bits and the straps. After it’s fully rinsed,…

The rescue of a Czech woman from the Routeburn Track in August has raised awareness about tourism safety in the New Zealand outdoors. Pavlina Pizova survived a month in the hut warden’s quarters of DOC’s Lake Mackenzie Hut after her partner fell and died on the track in late July. Poor winter conditions and her compromised physical and emotional state meant she couldn’t leave the hut, so Pizova kept herself fed with canned food left from the previous season, and stayed warm by burning firewood. The Czech couple hadn’t communicated their intentions to anyone before they set out; it was the Czech authorities that raised the alarm. Pizova has said she and her partner were warned ahead of time that the track conditions could be challenging and dangerous. “Even though…

Everyone knows the iconic tui. Its beautiful song of loud and complicated tuneful notes interspersed with coughs, grunts and wheezes is widely recognisable. Along with the bellbird, they would have to be our most melodic native bird. Tui are widespread and locally abundant on the North, South and Stewart islands as well as many offshore islands. The drier, largely open, country east of the Southern Alps is about the only area where they are scarce. Tui respond extremely well to pest control programmes which target possums, rats and mustelids as these animals are their main nest predators. Resulting population increases are significant. They are a very adaptable species, found in native forest and scrub, rural gardens, stands of flowering kowhai and gums and in suburban parks and gardens. From a…

Back in the mid-1990s, I worked for the Department of Conservation at a time when it was establishing a network of bait stations in the Northern Block of Pureora Forest for pest control. One of my jobs was to take a compass bearing through this extensive area of flat forest, establish a line, and mark it with flagging tape. Rarely have I ever walked through such featureless terrain, or found myself immersed in a forest so dominated by one species. Despite being the middle of a sunny day, it was dark, almost like dusk was about to fall. I looked up through tiers upon tiers of branches, from which hung a myriad of thin, green leaves. These multi-layered trees were tawa, and the density of their leaves cut the light…

The cover of the 1991 New Zealand Alpine Journal features Nick Cradock and Brian Alder climbing steep ice during the first ascent of the east face of Popes Nose, in Mt Aspiring National Park. That ascent was made by a team of four climbers, who helicoptered to the base of the climb, took two days to reach the top of the face and then helicoptered off. In 2014, Guy McKinnon soloed the same route in just five hours. Guy also walked in and out from the remote face with no extra support. There is no doubt, the standard of alpinism in New Zealand has improved over the last 25 years. But the biggest influence on climbing in our mountains has been the changing landscape. A warmer climate has made the…

Nelson’s Kahurangi, with its marbled mountains, massive wilderness and now our second largest national park, was gazetted in 1996. In 2002 Rakiura, encompassing the southern rainforests, sprawling dunelands and tundra-like tops of much of Rakiura/Stewart Island, became our 14th national park. Both parks brought into the fold of national park protection special landscapes, ecologies and recreational opportunities that previously existed in a mishmash of lesser protected forest park, reserves and assorted other kinds of Crown land. Despite fears and protests prior to their establishment, it’s fair to say their higher national park profile has not resulted in hordes of trampers and tourists descending on these parks, with the exception of some specific sites. Neil Clifton, former DOC Nelson Conservator, says the Kahurangi region had long been recognised for its recreation…

In New Zealand we have two worlds: the surface, and a complex network of underground caves. Over the last 25 years, cavers have been exploring this network at an unprecedented rate. We have seen the boundaries of the country’s most significant cave systems stretched and had a glimpse of the true potential of what’s still left to discover. Perhaps the most significant discovery was Stormy Pot on Mt Arthur, which is the top entrance to the Nettlebed System. The entrance allows cavers to tramp up Mt Arthur, descend the cave and traverse under the mountain range before emerging at the Pearse Resurgence – dropping 1200m in elevation. The journey takes two to three days and ranks alongside the greatest cave through-trips in the world. New Zealand’s longest cave, Bulmer Cavern,…

It wasn’t easy exploring off-road on the early boneshakers. But then, there weren’t many roads, and New Zealanders have always been adventurous. Explorer A P Harper biked over Haast Pass in 1900 (65 years before the road was completed) and then contacted The Press to warn anyone from following in his tyre tracks. It would have been an arduous trip, even with a modern-day mountain bike. In 1982, the first mountain bikes trickled into New Zealand. They were fat-tyred, multi-geared, and tough. The following year hundreds were built by local manufacturers: Healing in Christchurch and Morrison in Hastings. By 1990, the trickle was a tidal wave, and in 1991 the first mountain bike guide book was written. Within 10 years, mountain biking had become a mainstream activity. Throughout the 1980s,…

I ventured into a remote part of Te Araroa a little while back – the difficult Red Hills section behind Nelson – and some joker had posted an entry in the Top Wairoa Hut book: I’m so sorry . . . for everything. And signed it off ‘Geoff Chapple’. Ha ha ha. Not me – and 'Ain’t sorry yet', as the song goes. Te Araroa was built from nothing. I wrote a single newspaper story in 1994, and that roused enough interest to get it started. Bob Harvey, then Waitakere City mayor, responded. Jenny Wheeler, then editor of the Sunday Star did too. There was no active Government policy for it, and even the Federated Mountain Clubs seemed suspicious at first. It was just an idea that had once popped…

MERRELL AURORA 6 ICE + WATERPROOF $349 WARM FEET WHEN the ground is frozen is a luxury not to be taken lightly. Through the snow of this Dunedin winter, I have experienced this luxury. Merrell’s new Aurora boots will keep your feet warm, dry and stable beneath you. They are well padded and I found them comfortable from the get-go, yet not too bulky or heavy: 1050g for the pair. Tidy enough to wear to work on frosty days, the boot’s flat profile keeps the ‘Arctic Grip’ sole in maximum contact with the ground; this provides traction on frost, snow, and wet, slippery surfaces. ‘Arctic Grip’ is a textured rubber, designed by Italian outsole manufacturer, Vibram, specifically for wet ice, and I found these boots to have better traction than…

The Paparoa Wilderness Area is a large region of unmodified forests and ranges located to the north and east of Paparoa National Park. It is surrounded by buffer areas – public lands under DOC management – and largely covers the catchments of the Ohikanui River, which flows north into the Lower Buller, the upper Gordon, Rough (or Otututu), and Stony (or Te Wharau) rivers. It also encompasses the Paparoa Range from south of Buckland Peaks to the ridge crest approximately four kilometres south of Mt Lodge. This totality is an impressive, challenging, and diverse tract of mountain lands that will require excellent fitness, sound experience, and finely honed navigational skills to traverse. Most of the summits are difficult to access, requiring at least three or four days to complete, and…

For strong pack-carrying shoulders, try the dolphin pose – which also provides an excellent stretch Start on your hands and knees. Bring your elbows to the floor under your shoulders. Clasp your hands together. Point both pinky fingers straight ahead. Don't move your arms, but try squeezing your elbows towards each other as if you're giving someone a hug with just your elbows. Keep the muscle action of squeezing. This protects and strengthens your shoulders. If it feels ok for your shoulders, try lifting your knees off the ground and lifting your hips up. Relax your neck and head. Just let your hand hang. Stay here for a few breaths. Then bring your knees down, release your hands and take a few breaths before sitting up. To counter this pose,…

There’s an oasis of bush on Auckland’s North Shore. Nestled between suburban neighborhoods, the Okura Reserve is a unique strip of native forest, full of birdsong and dense bush. It borders a thriving marine sanctuary, teeming with schools of fish and scores of stingrays, which glide along the sun-warmed sandbars of the narrow estuary. There’s a small village just across the estuary from the reserve. The residents form a tight-knit community, deeply passionate about preserving one of Auckland’s last urban wilderness areas. And right now, they’re elated: they’ve just blocked a large developer from building 750 houses next to the reserve. The Okura Reserve has about 8km of tracks, which lead through regenerating kauri stands to Karepiro Bay, the historic Dacre Cottage, and on to Stillwater. The area gets about…

Location Shutes Hut, Ruahine FP, Hawke's Bay Camera Settings 24mm lens, ISO 1000, f5.6, 1/13 second GET EVERYTHING IN In small huts it can be hard to get everything into your photograph, so use a wide angle lens and frame carefully. If there is a table or some bunks in your shot, you can sometimes use these as leading lines to help draw you into the photograph. FIND A RUSTIC HUT While modern huts are very comfortable and nice inside, they often lack the character, quirks and stories of older huts. Shutes Hut, an old rabbiter’s hut built in 1920, has loads of character and history. ADD SOME WARMTH A good fire is an asset to any hut, and any hut photograph. It gives the image a clear focal point,…

By the time we turned into Anita Bay at the top of Piopiotahi/ Milford Sound, we were running late. I sat forward in the small grey inflatable as the rocky arc of the beach swung into view. “Hope they’re still here!” I shouted over the roar of the outboard. My friend Bridget Reweti shrugged and smiled. Nothing phased her. On the shore we saw what we were looking for: a group of Ngãi Tahu elders combing the shingle. Though they were searching for pounamu as our ancestors had, their transport, parked next to them, was a helicopter. I grinned. There was a ship riding at anchor out in the bay. Though the passengers were taking a modern cruise, their transport was a faux-colonial sailing ship, done up in wood and…

WHAT WAS NEW ZEALAND BEFORE IT WAS MIDDLE-EARTH? Back in the early 1990s, when Wilderness magazine first found its place on the shelves, just under a million visitors came to New Zealand each year. Now, that number has more than tripled, and Tourism New Zealand expects over four million annual visitors within the next few years. Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings and Hobbit trilogies have had an unprecedented impact on the tourism industry. For 15 years, Tourism New Zealand has promoted New Zealand as Middle-earth, a campaign that went hand-in-hand with the 100% Pure New Zealand marketing strategy to boost visitor numbers. The campaign has worked wonders. Tourism New Zealand reports that one in five US visitors say the trilogies were a factor in their decision to visit the…

In the early 1970s, New Zealanders had a dream network of high-country huts and tracks, unparalleled anywhere in the world, mostly free to use outside of national parks and fully maintained. Then, in the mid-1980s, things started to change. Neo-liberal economics, chronic underfunding, and increasingly prohibitive building standards and compliance codes led to a gradual and pervasive decline in the condition of many of the more remote, less-used and basic facilities. By the end of the 1990s, DOC’s approach was to remove rather than repair when things reached a certain stage. A few enlightened individuals who recognised and understood the problem began adopting the odd hut or track. But it was very ad-hoc. In 2004, the Remote Huts website was established to profile at-risk huts in Westland, provide up-to-date route…

Twenty-five years ago, two of New Zealand's endangered and iconic species were in big trouble. There were just 51 kakapo left – the lowest the population has ever reached – and just over 100 takahe, confined to a dwindling mountain population and a few birds on offshore islands. But since then, both species have been saved from the brink of extinction: their populations tripled due to innovative and bold science-based conservation management. Kakapo have just had the biggest breeding season in decades, with 33 chicks fledged from 47 hatchlings. This was the result of decades of development of conservation management techniques. Twenty-five years ago, kakapo could only be raised in nests, but now eggs can be artificially incubated and chicks hand-reared with a higher rate of success than occurs naturally.…

Wilderness started in my last year at Massey University, 1991. Our club (MUAC) was in the middle of a purple patch with many active students and trips running every weekend. We were yet to feel the full impact of student loans and fees. We were also in a purple patch with our choice of gear. No one could get enough purple fleece and purple Gore-Tex, so much so that you wondered whether or not New Zealand was a dumping ground for fabric of this colour. Sales were so great that the main New Zealand manufacturers of the time – Macpac and Fairydown – kept it in their range even when other colours became available. The two main retail chains, Bivouac and Alp Sports, were stocked full of it. For those…

John Travolta famously said of Glenorchy, ‘The views are literally breathtaking, this is where God lives.’ It’s also where Lord of the Rings fans can gleefully rediscover the elfin forest of Lothlorien, the golden tussock heights of Isengard, the peak on which Gandalf slew the Balrog and Mt Earnslaw’s snow-capped summit known as Methedras. Travolta is right, in a way, because the area around Glenorchy is called Paradise, some say after the multi-coloured paradise shelducks that alight on the golden tussocks, but also simply because of its beauty. Paradise has many inspirational vistas that are curiously familiar as it has been the movie set for box office hits such as Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, Prince Caspian, Vertical Limit and Wolverine and the television series Top of the Lake.…