Hut Track

Whakapapa

We were up at the mountain for the weekend. In the North Island everyone knows where "the mountain" is, Ruapehu. Ruapehu in Maori legend is the broad shouldered partner of Taranaki who dallied with the squat but volatile Tongariro. Now she is the winter playground for thousands of people who flock to the skifields at Turoa and Whakapapa.

For me it was a great place to take a few photos. There are not many places in New Zealand where we humans intrude into the alpine environment as much as at Whakapapa.

For Penny it was a chance to learn some new climbing skills and get to know some more people.

Greytone

Its greytone today. Southerlies from Africa, straight down from the Cape of Good Hope (where they are northerlies) over the frozen continent and straight up our spines. The front last night dumped plenty of snow on the Tararuas. I can just see the thrills of the skirt now. Just before the sun shone briefly on the headwaters of the Hutt. A haze of piercing subdued light, which I know from my time in the mountains can give false warmth and optimisim before the greytone returns.

Wayne Barrer

A friend reading in this blog of my curiosity for photography of the Urban Fringe, tipped me off about contemporary New Zealand photographer Wayne Barrer. I have never been interested in photography in this sense before so it is quite a journey of discovery ahead of me looking at our country anew through the lens of an artist.

The book she suggested and that I have found down at the Kilbirnie Library is "Shifting Nature". The photograhs of Wayne Barrer with an introductory essay by the late Geoff Park. The photos are landscapes but not as most of us know them. The picturesque New Zealand is there, tinged by a suggestion of the sublime, behind the camera. The subjects are the edge of our wild spaces, where the tentacles of our culture reach into nature.

Park sums it up well "by looking at the landscape as he does, Barrar lets us slip inside it a little. Integral to that craft is his pulling at our legs, imploring us to come down from The Picturesque Viewing Tower. He doesn't shout because he knows that won't get the message across and considered. But he doesn't want us to stay up there in the bitter colonial wind.

And it is Barrer himself who describes that space which I have crudely refered to as the urban fringe.There is a margin around most of our towns, and along most of our rivers and coasts - a border zone where until recently, few regulations were enforced and little responsibility was taken. At worst a dumping ground for waste or toxic leakage from industrial use, this margin can also be represented by the ordinary landscape of a summer beach community sprawling over the surrounding dunes. This "vernacular landscape" is true marginal land, and as such, carries the responsibility of providing a huge array of uses. It is also where I go to experience the greatest intensity of collision between natural processes and people. Great photos, great book.

It's nothing but a heartache....

The Wellington International Ukulele orchestra.

Sand and Mirrors

Aotea Harbour - the mud flats mirror the desolate sand scape of the north side of the harbour. Mt Karioi in the distance

Cycles

Penny hates it more than me, heaving her hefty bike up the path on cold mornings. I like pretending our path is an adventure race. It is slippery enough to be.

I was out for a Saturday morning cruise, down the footpath through Treasure Island to the Hataitai beach and round the waterfront looking for photos. It was an unusually misty morning and the becalmed yachts looked into the fugg fearfully.

Yesterday before the rain hit I had been intending to take some photos down at the "arsehole of Wellington". The gravelly beach of Evans Bay. This beach is the terminus of the body of water that sweeps below our flat. Northerly one day, southerly the next. It captures for a time any plastic debris that doesn't get sucked out the mouth of the harbour. Evans Bay Beach is the first piece of coastline any visitor drives by after leaving the international airport. Unfortunately the narrow built up verge and neglected plantings serve to shield it from their eyes...

I used to feel superior to the Guatemalans and Indonesians, in regards to their attitudes towards rubbish. Now I just feel shame. Would we do any better if we didn't have to do more than just leave it at our door. Hell no! At least they are not hypocrites, prepared to live amongst it, rather than pretend it never existed. I will never forget seeing an albatross chick vomit a plastic glove. I am reminded everytime I see plastic intermingled with the pebbles on a beach. Everytime I see another shitty single use container, or bag used in my hand. Even in the paper today, there is a report that the rare Blue Whale washed up on the West Coast was found to have a 7metre length of heavy duty fishing rope stuck in its throat. No one would have dared check its gut I suspect.

I moved on via Miramar to something infinitely more hopeful. A planting day for Forest and Birds Places for Penguins group at Tarakena Bay. Over 1000 plants, coastal and dune specific, were planted to revegetate an area to encourage little blue penguin nesting. Efforts are being made to revegetate the coast side of the road because too many penguins are being killed crossing the road to nest in the more established bush. A little video clip best shows the industrious little group at work.

And there is action around the world. Watch this video! It is one of the most surprisingly good environmental action videos I have seen. Take care out there.