Wilderness December 2018

AS I WRITE THIS, the sun is blazing down on a glorious November afternoon. My daughter is climbing the grapefruit tree in the garden. It’s a scene of utter bliss and contentment and I can expect more now that the summer school holidays are just around the corner. Holidays are a new concept to my daughter – everyday is a holiday. But from next year she’ll be at school and, if my own childhood is anything to go by, the six weeks she gets off from late December to early February will be among the happiest times of her childhood. Lifelong memories will be made. My memories centre around family camping holidays at the beach where we’d get shipped off for weeks at a time to spend with mum and dad, or…

NOT MORE HELICOPTERS I DON’T REALLY want to have to wax cantankerous about what really is a laudable goal, getting more people out into the hills (‘Making mountains accessible’, November 2018), but are helicopters the answer to improving accessibility? If one can look past the massive nuisance they present as they whirr around the countryside, destroying what for many is one of the most fantastic things about the mountains – a soundscape absent of mechanised noise – they can hardly be seen as a reasonable form of access except to a privileged few. And that is the thing with helicopters; they are for the pleasure of the few to the detriment of the many. How can access that requires forking over hundreds, sometimes thousands, of dollars for a short trip be a way…

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IT HAD A FAMILIARLY tragic plot. A tourist sets off ill-prepared on a challenging alpine walk. The weather deteriorates, and exposed to the elements in blizzard conditions, another international visitor doesn’t make it home from a New Zealand track. The death of Indian tourist Sateesh Babu Halehally-Chikkanna on the Tongariro Alpine Crossing in October has reinvigorated debate about how to ensure the safety of tourists exploring the backcountry. In the wake of the death, police and DOC released a statement urging the public to intervene and talk to tourists about their plans. “Talk to visitors who are in your shops, petrol stations or hotels,” senior constable Barry Shepherd said. “Ask them their plans, tell them about the New Zealand weather – what cold really means here, what rain really means here. “Tell them that…

AN ACADEMIC is calling for public debate on public access to Crown-owned farmland, saying the law governing access is ambiguous and is begging for further clarification. The Crown owns more than a million hectares of South Island high country, the bulk of which is leased to farmers through pastoral leases which can be perpetually renewed. University of Canterbury senior lecturer Dr Ann Brower said historically the law governing pastoral leases did not give farmers exclusive possession of the land, but only the right to graze it. This would imply the public has greater rights to access these high country stations. But she said decades of lobbying had created a perceived right of exclusive access. “Other parts of the Land Act have ‘exclusive’ rights written into it, but it’s conspicuously absent from the law…

REVENUE FROM backcountry huts has declined after the country was battered by storms earlier this year. DOC’s latest annual report shows revenue from backcountry huts has been flat since 2015/16 and declined by $33,000 over the past year to $2,062,000. DOC recreation, tourism and heritage director Gavin Walker said track closures from storms across the country affected revenue at a number of popular sites. Pinnacles Hut in Coromandel, the largest hut in the country, was closed for much of the year due to storm damage and revenue was down $52,000. A number of tracks in the Nelson region also suffered damage following cyclones earlier in the year. Walker said, overall, more people were using the backcountry hut network, as the conservation estate has become increasingly popular with Kiwis and tourists alike. He said people…