I need a rest, a change from fractured city life and caring for my dear old Dad. It’s been an exhausting year thus far, so I decide to escape the big smoke in favour of big nature.
My other half and I choose a winter adventure over a tropical location. Leaving road cones, speed camera surveillance and cycleway divisions behind us, we fly into crisp, sunny Queenstown to drive a hybrid rental across empty Mackenzie country, through cashmere coloured hills, black and white rocky ravines, along flat, straight, empty roads to Twizel.
Not a soul to be seen out on the streets such was the cold. Our destination, Aoraki Mt Cook, where I was looking forward to throwing on new hiking boots in order to shirk off city anxiety.
Anxiety from chainsaws felling massive trees in public places. For years the locals have stood guard over the trees, the birds and the bees at the maunga known as Mt Richmond/Otahuhu.
Led by my old Epsom Girls Grammar school friend Shirley Waru, this group works tirelessly to protect the environment. They hoped the newish mayor would intervene to stop the Tupuna Maunga Authority (TMA) eradicating non natives like the massive Morton Bay Fig trees. But that was not to be. The battle drags on as these caring citizens prepare to take legal action against the TMA and their council cohorts.
Past Twizel at the turn off to Aoraki Mt Cook, we slide in as snow clouds gather in the valley’s throat, hugging the white cloaked mountains on either side. Devoid of humans, the profound beauty of the Narnia-esque landscape silences us. An empty countryside full of operatic vistas. I wind down the car window to expel the congested haze of Auckland and gulp deeply on fresh alpine air.
Two weeks before this great adventure, I attended a public meeting in the education classroom at Auckland Zoo arranged by Urban Ark – a well-meaning group calling for community support with a leaflet in my letterbox: “Te Wai Orea needs your aroha!” They asked for volunteers to help weed, plant and monitor Western Springs Lakeside Park where once there had been a forest.
Utterly exasperated, I reminded them that over 15,000 native plants and trees were destroyed when the 200 Monterey pines were removed. Why don’t people pay attention when the shit is hitting the fan? Why do they allow bureaucratic stupidity to happen? And then, after the fact, they try to make it all better.
Those exotics left to die slowly would have returned their nutrients back to Papatuanuku. No volunteers needed and climate change held at bay a bit longer in our small corner of the planet.
My head was spinning, I definitely needed a break. We awoke the next day to snow fall, icy scraps fluttering gently to the ground, adding a powdery layer to the tree boughs which drooped under the weight. Where the branches diverged, the clumps of snow looked like animals resting – wombat, bunny, cat, marsupial, skinny at first then growing fat until they slid down to the ground.
It is magical to be away from the hustle and bustle, to stop the constant modern worry about what we have done and are doing to our world, to instead be refreshed by cold and revived by the majesty of nature.
Deep nature is what we need in our future towns and cities: big trees in public spaces, native species replacing the exotics as they naturally decline, concrete footpaths replaced with permeable surfaces, piped steams liberated.
There are examples all around us of how to do things better, to be more in tune with nature and Grafton Gully is a shining example, planted with an abundance of native plants and trees to absorb the sound and emissions, while creating a microcosm for birdlife, lizards and the like.
Standing in the shadow of Aotearoa’s tallest mountain, Aoraki, I am reminded that the greatest architect, planner and creator of all is Mother Nature. If we could only be quiet long enough to hear her ancient answers to our urban issues.
(Lisa Prager, Westmere)