Nina and Andrew Mercer tramp the Mt Holdsworth Jumbo Circuit, one of the most popular tracks in the Tararua Ranges.
Continue Reading...Archives For 30/11/1999
Tararua Forest Park is home to almost 50 backcountry huts, ranger Don Herron tells us why Blue Range Hut is his favourite.
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Wairarapa – famous for vineyards, good food and great weather! It also is home to three forest parks, hundreds of kms of coast including Castlepoint and some amazing places to visit!
Wairarapa - Lower North Island's conservation secret
One of my major tasks for 2008/09 was to develop a brochure for Wairarapa day visitors and families.
Over the years Wellington Conservancy has shifted the majority of its publications away from printed material. Some feedback I received early in 2008 was that there was demand from visitors for printed guides to look around the large amount of recreation and visitor opportunities that DOC Wairarapa manages. The boss agreed and my work began.
It was a great exercise as a new migrant to Wairarapa and to DOC. I gathered destination information from various sources including long-time ranger Joe Hansen’s head and started to pull it together into a booklet. Originally thinking it would be around 30 pages the final product has 72 pages and is full of useful stuff and beautiful photos (some shown here).
Hunting up Waiohine River
The normal stuff in a brochure are included like track and hut information but I decided to engage with our local iwi and got them to write a section on sites of importance on DOC land (and slightly beyond). I love to read about stories about the local area as it gives me a different perspective so figured others would too. I’m glad they’ve allowed us to capture this because conservation doesn’t stop with species and places and we must conserve our cultural history as well.
Other cool sections in the brochure includes a section on bird watching and other interesting fauna, botany and tonnes of awesome photos including our front cover shot of the Waiohine Valley with the suspension bridge taken by the designer Mikis van Geffen.
Rimutaka Rail Trail ends in historic Cross Creek
You can have a look at our brochure on our website or contact a few different places to buy a printed copy for the bargin price of $3 (it’s the perfect size to fit in the glovebox of your car). These include:
- DOC Wellington Visitor’s Centre
- Carterton Information Centre
- Masterton Information Centre
- DOC Wairarapa Area Office
Let me know what you think as I’m always looking to improve!
I was on stand-by duty over Labour Weekend. We got a call to say there was a sick fur seal at Riversdale and I was provided with a name and phone number. I gave the person a call but there was no answer so decided about 4.45pm that I would take a trip to go and investigate.
We get a few calls about NZ fur seals because there are so many on our coastline here in Wairarapa. Cape Palliser has one of the few rookeries (where babies are born and spend their first 9 months) in the lower North Island and as numbers begin to grow the seals are appearing much further north in haul-out areas (places where they come to relax after a hard day’s swimming and eating). Most calls don’t come to anything because people interpret seals chilling out in the sun as not being well but we still need to investigate.
Fur seal relaxing at Palliser Bay by Joe Hansen, DOC
This time, however, I did find a very sick looking seal on the beach. He (I think it was a young male) was at the southern end of the beach. As I approached in our DOC ute along the beach I was assessing the scene and noticed quads/motorcycles, dogs and people including animals quite close to it. The site of the sick seal was in a patch of beach that was only about 15 metres wide but rather than give the seal some space everyone was walking within 5 metres of where he lay panting.
I parked up and took a look around and within seconds had reports from public that he’d been lying there for sometime without moving. A group of 6 or so children (aged around 12) walked up and asked me some questions about seals and then while I was talking on the phone one picked up a stick and was about to start prodding it. I was quite blown away that they could do something so mean to something so vulnerable but also who is a large mammal with sharp teeth. I tried to retain my composure and asked them to walk away and leave it alone.
The seal was obviously unwell and was the skinniest I’ve seen so I knew it wasn’t going to survive and had the unfortunate task of deciding to put the seal down. While I was away organising this the children returned and I felt really uncomfortable about leaving it alone so went back and parked the ute close to it. The children had seen me coming and were sprinting away.
I’ve not been faced with this situation before where people were torturing an animal that obviously was struggling to breathe. I actually felt quite sick and upset. If that seal was well enough to respond they could have been in danger.
In our role at DOC we spend a lot of time talking about seals as they are a beautiful (yet smelly) creature that has a right to relax on our beaches and their numbers are growing more plentiful. They would never intentionally hurt someone but are strong and fast and people need to beware.
Here are some other facts about being close to NZ fur seals and more information can be found on DOC’s website.
Rules for observing seals
- Observe the seal quietly
- Always keep dogs and small children well away from seals
- Avoid getting nearer than 20 metres to the seal
- Do not touch the seal under any circumstances
- Do not get between the seal and its access to water
- Do not feed the seal
Basking in the sun Oct 2009 by Joe Hansen
Next week I’ve been asked to visit two Masterton schools, St Patrick’s primary and Opaki, on Wednesday.
My talk at St Pat’s is to 5-7 year olds about our precious things. A few different “professionals” are going to be on-site and the children come around and talk to us about something that’s precious to us. I’ve had a couple of ideas that I’d like to run past you as I love my job but I don’t really have much experience doing this:
- Bring our summer placement trainee ranger Wiremu Grace as my precious thing. I believe that the future of DOC and conservation lies with the good training of our new rangers and having people like Wiremu there is important and very precious.
Hector's dolphin courtesy Engel and Maecker 2007
- Marine animals are very precious to me. I’ve got some Marine Mammal posters and I can talk about seals, whales etc
- Take a harakeke (flax) and talk about the benefits of native planting to NZ
- Tuna (eel) – see my earlier blog entry 🙂
- Or something else – any suggestions????
My second talk of the day is at Opaki which is just north of Masterton on State Highway One. I’m standing up in front of 70 children to talk about Castlepoint and what an exciting piece of the conservation estate it is. I’m going to run through dune plants and their importance and a few other things (yet to be determined).
It’s great to be able to get out and talk to school groups and its coincidence they’ve asked when I’ve got time in my diary. The children love to see DOC staff in their uniforms and hear about our exciting jobs. I’m looking forward to Wednesday – now I’ve just got to sort out what I’m going to say….
The striking Castlepoint Scenic Reserve
