RV Exchange Travel Destination - New Zealand - Tackling The Untamable
A drive through Molesworth Station in the South Island encompasses all the beauty, heartbreak and challenge of New Zealand’s high frontier.It is one of the few ways to experience the high country’s imposing presence at close quarters.
Bill and I drove up the Awatere Valley from Blenheim and spent our first night parked by the willow-lined Acheron River on the flat at the entrance to the park. Apart from the resident ranger, we were the only ones there in that great wide space; and when the stars came out and spread themselves across the velvet sky, our world was as still as a photograph.
In the brisk air of the next morning I examined the original Molesworth ‘homestead’, which is close to the entrance to the station. It is hardly deserving of the name – just a two-roomed hut built of cob in 1866, and dwarfed by the soaring peaks that rear up around it. But I also discovered the outlines of other cob buildings built at the same time which have simply melted into the ground – dust to dust. There had been a small community here pitting itself against the awesome elements. Over the hill from the cob cottage is the newer homestead complex, which for privacy reasons can only be viewed from the crest of a hill.
The portion of New Zealand loosely referred to as high country stretches from the Nelson and Marlborough provinces to north Southland and comprises sub-alpine terrain dominated by soaring mountain ranges. It is extremely variable: bare schist, mixed with glacier-sculptured rock, cascading scree and gravel fans tumbling down to lumpy valley floors drained by wide braided rivers.
To early settlers who passed through when the country was in a gentle frame of mind, the tussock grasses looked lush, and, hoping for much, pastoralists claimed vast blocks of land which they stocked with enormous flocks of sheep.
They little understood, at first, the toughness of the terrain – a place where nature can never be brought to order, when tumbling brooks turn into thundering rivers, temperatures soar to 30°C and plunge to minus 10, snow buries whole flocks of sheep and föhn winds desiccate the top soil with their scorching breath. Farmers soon learnt that the sheep did not find tussock to their taste, so they took to burning it off to encourage the growth of grasses, herbs and sedges. Unfortunately, this practice also encouraged the growth of rabbits which thrived on the open terrain.
Burning and rabbits had a disastrous effect on the ecological balance, stripping the hills and valleys of vegetation and leaving the soil surface exposed to destruction by the elements.
Eventually bankrupt and beaten, the runholders walked off the land, their hopes of taming this country as devastated as the land itself.
Today partly managed by DOC, the Molesworth Station is an area of national ecological significance. Over 70 threatened plant species grow here and progress is being made on fencing and protection sites of value. Around 10,000 Angus and Hereford cattle fatten on the lower slopes and battle waged against invading briar, broom and wilding pines. The flat scabby weed hieracium is a headache spreading slowly but surely and turning hills to silvery wastelands.
We drove over Wards Pass, the gouged and naked flanks of the seaward Kaikouras looming on the other side of the river. The stillness was magnificent. Senses neglected in the battering of a busy life began to stretch. The only movement was an occasional shudder from the clumps of tawny tussock and the only sound the sudden strident shriek of an airborne kea somewhere between me and the vast, luminous sky. This was the high country at its most benign.
Isolated Flat was true to its name. Abundant blue flowering borage offered up its nectar and clusters of beehives dotted the roadside. At Red Gate a stand of pine trees marks the grave of poor Ivanhoe Augarde, who had entrusted the delivery of a love letter to his girlfriend to ‘German Charlie’. Charlie not only read the letter but showed it to all his mates along the route. When Ivanhoe heard of the betrayal he was so chagrined that he rode forth and shot the German and at Red Gate delivered the final bullet to himself. Mt Augarde was named in his memory, but I couldn’t work out which one it was.
One hundred and eighty one kilometres after leaving Blenheim, we arrived at the Molesworth’s southern boundary and Acheron House. The motorhome was coated inside and out with a thick film of dust as fine as icing sugar. The cob-constructed Acheron Accommodation house, built in 1862, is the oldest building on the station. Until 1932 it was an overnight stop for travellers and stockmen moving through the inland route between Nelson and Canterbury. Two shillings and sixpence bought a bed, meal and stabling for horses. Parking your RV here or camping now costs a mere six dollars a night, which in today’s terms seems just as good a bargain.
Despite the ecological and man-made disasters and the mis-handling of the high country, it is still a stupendous place to visit. The mountains are snow-capped most of the year. The hills and high peaks, though often gaunt through lack of vegetation, have maintained their monumental majesty. And the grey-bouldered riverbeds, scrubby ravines, the deep tarns, spiky cabbage trees, golden sub-alpine grasses and overwhelming scale of the big, broad shouldered landforms make a drive through Molesworth an unforgettable experience.
From Motorhomes, Caravans and Destinations. (www.motorhomesandcaravans.co.nz)
Author: Jill Malcolm
New Zealand - RV / Motorhome / Campervan Exchange International Travel Destination.
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Sunday, 5 February 2012
