The Taieri Gorge train returns: A journey through Otago’s stunning heartland
By Rosemary Irion
After a four-year hiatus, the Taieri Gorge train is finally back!
Travellers are invited to immerse themselves in one of New Zealand’s most captivating landscapes with rolling countryside, along rugged cliffs and over century-old bridges.
This iconic journey blends breathtaking scenery with rich history, offering an experience like no other.
The journey begins from the city’s historic Dunedin Railway Station. The sound of the train horn is a nostalgic call to adventure, welcoming passengers to settle into the comfortable carriages as the train rolls out of the station.
As the urban sprawl gives way to the open
expanse of the Taieri Plain, the commentator weaves tales of Otago’s past and the people who once inhabited the Gorge including early Māori, Chinese settlers, and European pioneers.
This scenic trip is not just about the views. Dunedin Railways has recently partnered with Precinct – an award-winning caterer – who serve up a delectable range of freshly baked goods, handmade pies, and gourmet sandwiches, all from the convenience of the onboard café.
When the train enters the Taieri Gorge, sheer rock walls envelop the carriages. The dramatic change in scenery prompts
The Taieri Gorge section from Hindon to Pukerangi is spectacular.
(Photo: DunedinNZ)
many passengers to step onto the open-air balconies, cameras in hand, as the train passes a variety of engineering marvels including hand-carved tunnels, the quant one-house town of Parera and the 47m high wrought-iron Wingatui Viaduct.
One of the most extraordinary parts of the journey is the Notches - a series of narrow, cut-through sections of rocky terrain which were formed by the erosive forces of the Taieri River over millions of years.
The Notches presented a formidable challenge for early rail pioneers who spent two years cutting 300m of track through this region. They employed a hammer-and-tap sledgehammer.
The train’s destination is the remote outpost of Pukerangi. A brief stop allows time to stretch your legs and enjoy the quiet isolation of the area before returning through the Gorge to Dunedin and civilisation.
Don’t miss the chance to experience this unforgettable journey. Book your ticket now and rediscover the magic of the Taieri Gorge train this summer.
Book your ticket now at www.dunedinrailways.co.nz
THE UNRELIABLE WITNESS
“That’s all we are in the end, any of us, a couple of dozen unreliable stories.” (Iain Sinclair)
For a long time I’ve loved the idea of the great London psychogeographer Iain Sinclair’s work.
I confess to mostly struggling with the reality, as the texts are densely packed with references to unfamiliar places and occurrences. But in terms of expressing how we experience a place by existing within it, Sinclair’s writing is singularly compelling.
Always engaging with the landscape on foot, he unpicks the hidden layers that help form a place - the memories, meta-myths, microcultures, and other ephemera.
Sinclair’s work is also analogous for
how we define our lives, as a gradual accretion of experiences that become the stories we tell about ourselves.
This self-mythologising is all very well and good, but on at least a subconscious level we know that how we see ourselves is probably not how others observe us.
That dichotomy is probably best illustrated when it comes to eulogising the departed.
Because no matter which way you slice it, you’re never going to be able to capture the whole of the person.
The best you can hope for is to do them some justice by painting a vague
portrait through the warped lens of your own experience.
But some people leave a legacy that’s so powerful there’s really nothing left to be said.
The late Shaun Barnett was one of those. His images of New Zealand’s great outdoors, as collected in the new book A Wild Life, pay tribute to a life well spent.
In his intro Barnett wrote, “I have been able to have an inner world which has been immensely enriching and rewarding to me”.
Can we all hope for such a fulfilled epitaph?
EDITOR
Gavin Bertram
gavin.bertram@alliedpress.co.nz
DESIGN
Mike D’Evereux
ADVERTISING SALES MANAGER
Nic Dahl (03 479-3545) nic.dahl@alliedpress.co.nz
CONTACT
Email: south@alliedpress.co.nz
Online: www.southmagnz.co.nz
Digital edition: issuu.com/alliedpress
Facebook: @SOUTHMagNZ
Instagram: @south_magazine_nz
Cover image: Motatapu Track, Otago, from A Wild Life by Shaun Barnett.
BIG ASK: With Dunedin jeweller Holly Simpson-Howe.
18 FOOT LOOSE: The late Shaun Barnett documented our beautiful backcountry.
22 ON LAND: Matt Vance’s journeys through the landscape.
24 BOOKENDS
26 HOW YA GOING?: Poet Andrew Johnston lives in Paris.
27 I WAS THERE: The 1965 Rolling Stones visit to Dunedin.
28 ONCE UPON A TIME: John Paul Jones on his time in Led Zeppelin.
30 LOOSE ENDS
Rhythm & Alps, December 30-31, Cardrona Valley. (Photo: Supplied)
3D design: A beginner’s guide to using texture
When you walk into some rooms, have you noticed, they seem to feel warm, inviting and interesting, even though they may be very simple in design and feature only one or two different colours?
Often, that comes down to texture. Sometimes that means different textiles and anything that offers a tactile experience in the room, whether it’s a woven wall hanging, an anaglypta wallpaper like Resene Wallpaper Collection RD101 or a soft velvet throw.
It can also mean visual texture. Which means how different patterns, shapes, materials and furniture placement visually break up a space to give it depth and interest.
Resene Colour Expert Amy Watkins explains: “Texture in interior design has a multipurpose meaning. It can relate to your wall textures meaning, are you painting or using wallpaper? If you’re working with wallpaper does it have a smooth finish or a linen, woven finish? If finishing with paint, is it a two-tone look or does it have a gritted texture using something like Resene Sandtex?
“On top of that you have the different textiles in your space and what type of material or pattern is used, such as curtains and blinds, rugs or carpets, cushions, wall hangings and art and even functional items like towels. Even plants and flowers add texture to a space.”
Thinking about how you will use texture in your interior design plan is important, Amy says, because it is what helps make a home feel lived in and personal. “It is often what adds an extra dimension to a space. It's what can remove the clinical feeling from an all-white room, for example.”
How much, or how little, texture to add will, like most design elements, come down to your personal taste and the finished look you are going for, Amy adds. For example, a maximalist look will probably include more different textures than those found in a strictly minimalist look. That said, a touch of texture
can often be most important in minimalism, to help spaces feel warmer and accessible.
“When you look at a minimalist style, it can sometimes lose the “homey” feeling and veer towards the impersonal. By adding texture, you will add in the feeling of comfort that is more welcoming.”
To find balance, Amy suggests choosing one texture as a hero. “One texture needs to be more dominant than the others. Let that feature texture inspire the other patterns you use in the rest of the space.”
A good rule of thumb is, if you think you’ve finished your interior but it feels as though something is missing, try adding a layer texture to see if it then feels more complete. It could be something as simple as a wool throw or a plant in a textured pot that just helps to visually break up the space.
Top tip: Texture needn’t always mean rough, natural or raised surfaces. A mix of shiny, smooth or reflective surfaces such as different sheen levels of Resene paint, glass, ceramic tile or even leather, also add texture by offering a contrast to other surfaces.
Tools
to try
The simplest and most obvious way to add texture to your interiors is to think about using a variety of different materials in your space. While it means thinking about curtains and cushions, it also means thinking about incorporating different building materials.
A key one is wood. Making the most of wood grains and natural wood finishes is a look that constantly evolves but never really goes out of style.
Before choosing a wood stain or other sheer
finishing product, think about the look you are ultimately trying to achieve and choose your stain shade accordingly. Consider the era your home was built in as a starting point for the wood stain colours you might want to try.
For a classic, stately home feel with more ornate wood finishes, use a darker shade like Resene Colorwood Mahogany, for a mid-century look use Resene Colorwood Meranti or for a more contemporary Scandi style on lighter wood like pine look to Resene Colorwood Natural.
Washes like Resene Colorwood Whitewash or Resene Colorwood Rising Tide, also have a relaxed finish that adds subtle colour but lets the wood texture still show through.
Wooden battens on walls or used as floor-toceiling room dividers are another way to create excellent texture in a room, and add elegance with their simplicity and streamlined finish.
Cost-effective wood materials such as ply, MDF, scotia and dowel can also be used to create wood panelled wainscotting or dado rails along large blank stretches of wall to make rooms feel more in proportion and visually interesting.
Try painting the lower panelled walls in a darker colour than the upper sections for a sense of added height or wallpaper the upper sections in the woven-look of Resene Wallpaper Collection ILA701 and pick out a similar green such as Resene Dell or darker Resene Palm Green to paint the wainscotting.
For a neutral version try lower walls in beige Resene Double Drought, with a dado rail in Resene Quarter Drought and upper walls in Resene White Linen.
Other materials that can add texture include concrete, which can be subtly coloured using Resene ConcreteWash or tiles in colours that either match or contrast with your main room colour.
Top tip: Adding texture to your finished look doesn’t have to be a case of covering a whole wall. Simply adding a Resene Sandtex finish to pots and planters, a couple of sections of textured wallpaper inside picture frames or a sponge-look finish on a storage cabinet, may be all you need to break up large blocks of colour and add some visual balance.
For ideas of how you can bring texture into your project, visit your local Resene ColorShop or Ask a Colour Expert online, www.resene.com/ colourexpert.
1. Simple MDF panels add a huge amount of visual interest to a large section of wall in this neutral monochrome room. The walls and panels are painted in Resene Bison Hide, with floor painted in Resene Quarter Bison Hide. Sideboard, small table and bobble vase in Resene Triple Bison Hide, large table in Resene Double Thorndon Cream. Sofa from Danske Møbler, rug from Nood, throw and boucle cushions from Republic Home. (Project by Vanessa Nouwens, image by Melanie Jenkins)
2. Ribbed panelling adds plenty of visual texture to this vibrant bedroom, because of its tactile nature but also in the way the light plays across it. The ribbed panelling and side wall are painted in Resene Dust Storm, floor in Resene Half Black White, bench seat and side table in Resene Sunglo. Duvet cover and pillowcases from Foxtrot Home, waffle blanket from Farmers, fringed throw from Adairs, waffle cushion from Spotlight, other cushions from Adairs. (Project by Vanessa Nouwens, image by Melanie Jenkins)
3. Woven textures and natural fibres break up this white-on-white living room to create a comfortable yet sophisticated space. Wall painted in Resene Half Sisal with floor finished in Resene Colorwood Bask to add soft colour to the timber grain. Rattan shelf in Resene Double Sisal. Tall vase from Kmart, striped and shell cushions from Adairs. (Project by Vanessa Nouwens, image by Melanie Jenkins)
4. Multiple different textures create a multi-dimensional sitting room, but a simple colour palette keeps things cohesive and calm. The wall is painted in Resene Half Putty with floor in Resene Double Pearl Lusta. Coffee table and tealight holder in Resene Teak, sideboard in Resene Pearl Lusta. Throw and tobacco linen cushion from Adairs, palm cushion and rug from Mocka. (Project by Vanessa Nouwens, image by Bryce Carleton)
1. Cirque Africa
Regent Theatre, Dunedin 6pm, December 15
Winston Ruddle directed the hit Broadway show Cirque Mother Africa. Now he’s produced and directed Cirque Africa, a brand new show featuring the very best talent from across the African continentincluding acrobats, dancers, musicians, and contortionists.
2. Summer Concert Tour
Gibbston Valley Winery, Queenstown 10am, January 18
With Oz legends Cold Chisel celebrating 50 years, this year’s Gibbston Valley show promises to be a big one. Jimmy Barnes and the boys are joined by countrymen Icehouse, along with US rockers Everclear, and New Zealand favourite Bic Runga.
3. Sarah Millican Town Hall, Dunedin 8pm, January 21
English comedian Sarah Millican was a quiet child at school, but now she’s proudly loud. Her brand-new stand-up show Late Bloomer explores that evolution, as well as lots of other stuff like dinners and… other things. Audiences should definitely expect some adult themes.
4. Freestyle Kings
Forsyth Barr Stadium, Dunedin 6pm, January 31
Get ready for a two hour spectacular with this action packed show featuring world class freestyle motocross athletes and BMX riders. Expect all the thrills as the riders go sky-high, along with music, fire artists, pyrotechnics, and more.
5. UIM World Jet Sprint Championship Aqua Track, Luggate
January 25-26
With teams from Canada, the USA, Australia, and New Zealand competing, jet sprint enthusiasts will enjoy a spectacle of speed, skill, and sheer excitement. There are three thrilling classes - Superboats, Group A, and the new LS Class - promising unparalleled displays of prowess.
Big Ask: Holly Simpson-Howe
Dunedin jeweller Holly Simpson-Howe had a couple of years away from her business to focus on raising her daughter. But now she’s returned to the discipline to create the new HH Cluster Collection.
Dunedin jeweller Holly Simpson-Howe.
What inspires you?
Nature and architecture are a great inspiration when it comes to my design process. I'm equally inspired by people, conversations, and the energy that can come from those interactions.
And what annoys you?
Social media and how it can impact how you see yourself and your work. I wish it wasn't such a vital tool for business these days. I feel like I have to put more energy into that than I do designing and making jewellery. I remind myself that my worth and value isn't tied up in views and data but I'm not sure it helps some days.
Can you recommend a book, a film, and an album (or song)?
Book: I read a lot and bounce between light-hearted love stories and thriller murder mysteries. I just finished Normal People by Sally Rooney and it was fantastic but how can she leave me hanging like that!
Film: The Darjeeling Limited is a standout. Such a beautifully shot film.
Album/song: The Moana soundtrack is on high rotation in our house at the moment. It's hard to choose. Music is so mood dependent. I am loving Andrew Bird’s new album with Madison Cunningham, Cunningham Bird
What’s the most important thing that you’ve learnt?
You can't allow the silent expectations you have of people effect you, be open and have conversations so you're not building up a story in your head that doesn't exist.
Who do you admire?
I have a huge amount of respect and admiration for other creative women in business. Being a small business is unbelievably challenging, being a creative small business even more so, especially in this current economic climate.
What do you love about where you live?
Dunedin is so lucky to have some of the most beautiful beaches and walks. I wish we had the climate to match. It is such a creative city, there are a lot of people doing some incredible things.
What do you most enjoy doing?
I am not what you'd call an outdoor adventurer but my happy place is nature. We spend a lot of our free time in Waitati and the Otago Peninsula. Walking the Orokonui Loop track and exploring the ecosanctuary. Spending time in and by the water at Broad Bay and exploring the Future Forest. We also have a garden that I love; nothing beats growing your own produce and seeing your child snacking on fresh vege and getting excited about where her food comes from.
When (other than now) was the best time of your life?
I'm not sure anything could ever top the birth of our daughter. One day I'm just Holly, and then next I'm someone's world. There isn't a single day that goes by that I don't think of how lucky I am to have had her.
What are you looking forward to?
Our family holiday in Bannockburn, it's just out of Cromwell in Central Otago. Two weeks of sunshine (hopefully) and adventures. Christmas hits different with kids too so I'm pretty excited about creating some magic for our daughter.
I think everybody should… at least once in their life.
Turn a dream into reality. To have the opportunity and courage to pursue something that they have always dreamed of doing. Of course privilege plays a massive role in that. But it would be a beautiful thing to live a life following your dreams.
Rings from Holly Simpson-Howe’s new HH Cluster Collection.
Okaaay, so it’s hardly been tropical recently. But summer officially starts tomorrow so it’s got to get better right? Here are some warmer weather wardrobe essentials for when it does.
THE JOYS OF SUMMER
1. Notion dress in Purple Orchid, available from Moochi in the Meridian Mall, Dunedin. 2. Adeline pant in Cherry and Ada slim sweater in White/Cherry by Cartel & Willow, available from Hype in Dunedin. 3. Yonder pant in bronze, available from Moochi in the Meridian Mall, Dunedin. 4. Slanted box dress in Ivory & Black Stripe by 6&7, available from Moochi in the Meridian Mall, Dunedin. 5. Linley short in Burnt Orange by Ricochet, available from Hype in Dunedin. 6. Crawford wedge sandal in Ivory Leather, available from Merchant 1948 in the Meridian Mall, Dunedin. 7. South Beach dress in Floral by Coop, available from Hype in Dunedin. 8. Camilla mini dress in Watercolour by Tuesday, available from Hype in Dunedin. 9. Nemesis jumpsuit in black, available from Moochi in the Meridian Mall, Dunedin.
Lights and music
Spend the new season immersed in beautiful sound and lighting with these ideas from local retailers.
anne mardell antler ater blacklist bored george cartel & willow coop cooper curate maxed mimoso mink pink neris nes non nyne nineteen 46 naturals ricochet recreate staple the label silk & steel storm tuesday two by two
1. Vintage lighting, available from Miss Vintage in Invercargill. 2. Bluesound Node Nano wireless music streamer, available from Relics HiFi in Dunedin. 3. Audio Pro T3+ wireless bluetooth speaker, available from Relics HiFi in Dunedin. 4. Plinius Hautonga New Zealand made integrated amplifier, available from Relics HiFi in Dunedin. 5. Tex Tone Nicola McLaren art speakers, one-off design crafted in Dunedin, available from Relics HiFi in Dunedin
328 George St, Dunedin
10 APRIL – 13 APRIL 2025
GEORGE BEGG FESTIVAL
CELEBRATING ALL THINGS ITALIAN
Dust off your retro threads and transport yourself to a golden age in Kiwi motorsport. The 2025 George Begg Festival will bring the party vibes of the 1960s and 1970s to Invercargill for four fantastic days from 10 April – 13 April, celebrating all things Italian! Our retro motorsport event in Invercargill is racing like the good old days—but with so much more!
BUY TICKETS
GEORGEBEGG FESTIVAL.NZ
Get revved up for the George Begg Festival in April 2025
Pull out your retro threads and get ready to be transported back to the golden era of kiwi motorsport racing.
George Begg Festival 2025 will bring the party vibes of the 1960s and 1970s to Invercargill for four fantastic days from April 10 – April 13.
With action-packed racing and plenty of off-track entertainment, our retro motorsport event in Invercargill is racing like the good old days—but better.
In 2025, we’re turning up the heat with an Italian theme, celebrating the legendary motorsport culture of Italy.
See iconic brands like Ferrari, Lamborghini, Maserati, Alfa Romeo, and Fiat both on and off the track.
First held in 2023, the George Begg Festival celebrates all the good parts of motorsport racing, while paying tribute to homegrown Southland motorsport legend George Begg.
Once compared to Italian Enzo Ferrari, this year’s Italian theme could not be more fitting.
Begg built 18 racecars between 1965 and
1974 at his ‘Toyshop’ in rural Southland. They competed with, and beat, some of the biggest names in motorsport.
Alongside the Italian contingent, the festival named in his honour will also bring many other classic cars and some of the country’s most renowned drivers to Invercargill.
First to be confirmed was Dunedin rallying legend Emma Gilmour - the firstever woman driver for McLaren Racing. She can’t wait to get back south for her first festival, saying “I love coming down and competing”.
One of the biggest names in modern-day motorsport in New Zealand is also back for the George Begg Festival 2025.
Four-time Bathurst 1000 champion Greg Murphy is taking to the track again at next year’s festival, relishing the chance to be part of the event again after first attending in 2023.
Also looking forward to their first George Begg Festival are Australian heritage racers
Rick Allen and Meon Nehrybecki.
Rick is bringing the BMW E30 M3 that he’s owned since 1998, while Meon will have his 1991 Mercedes Benz Sonax 190E 2.5 16v DTM, of which only 17 were made.
“It’ll be quite a crowd-pleaser,” he said. “I’d always had some aspirations to do some international racing.”
And there are still many more star drivers to be announced.
Among the programme of track events, there are Historic Touring Cars (19822000), Formula 5000, Historic GT, Pre1978 Classic Saloons, Vintage Racing Cars, and Modern Touring Cars (post-2000).
In addition to the classic Italian cars, legendary Italian bikes from Ducati, Moto Guzzi, Bimota, and more will be tearing up the track in demonstrations on both the Saturday and Sunday.
While the main base will be the legendary Teretonga Park Raceway, some events will be held at venues around Invercargill.
Off the track, events include The Rev Upan exclusive celebration of George Begg, to be held in the George Begg Bunker at the Classic Motorcycle Mecca.
Friday night sees Bill Richardson Transport World transformed for A Night at the Opera with Queen, held in Bill’s Shed, featuring Queen’s iconic greatest hits. Time is ticking to secure your tickets for what is a must-do on any motorsport fan’s calendar.
Tickets for the George Begg Festival are now available from www. georgebeggfestival.nz/tickets, with options available for all interests and budgets. Follow George Begg Festival on social media to stay up to date with the latest news or sign up to the newsletter on the website www.georgebeggfestival.nz
George Begg Festival: Various venues in Invercargill, April 10-13, 2025.
Celebrate motorsport racing at the George Begg Festival. This year’s festival will be held over four fantastic days. Enjoy the other activities away from the track.
WALKS ON THE
WILD SIDE
A new book celebrates the career of the late New Zealand wilderness photographer and writer Shaun Barnett in spectacular fashion.
By Gavin Bertram
SOUTH / Summer 2024
The late Shaun Barnett in Kahurangi National Park. (Photo Peter Laurenson)
“Tramping tests your resilience, which all lives need to be meaningful,” Shaun Barnett writes in A Wild Life.
The new book is a tribute to the legacy of a man who became this country’s preeminent tramping writer and photographer.
Barnett died earlier this year, having worked with publisher Robbie Burton to complete the book. A generous coffee table edition, it spectacularly showcases the images he took over 35 years of roaming the New Zealand backcountry.
A Wild Life spans the country north to south, taking in much of our greatest tramping country, including the Tararua, Ruahine, and Kaweka Ranges, Tongariro, Kahurangi, Mount Aspiring, Fiordland, and Rakiura national parks. But many less trodden places that he visited also find a place in the book.
The result is an engaging chronicle not only of the wilderness on our doorsteps, but of the rapture Barnett regularly experienced in his life in the midst of it.
Capable of “feeling joy in a storm”, the author was deeply passionate about the beauty of the great outdoors in all of its guises.
“A huge part of it is the awe you get about being in places,” Burton reflects. “With Shaun it was really evident and hugely pronounced. He lost none of his enthusiasm for doing this. He just loved it.”
The publisher, who with photographer Craig Potton owns Nelson book publisher Potton & Burton, first
met Barnett in the 1990s through writer Rob Brown. Born in 1969, Barnett had decided to try and make a living as a tramping writer and photographer. Ultimately he managed to do that for 25 years, contributing to and editing Wilderness magazine, and writing various books.
Burton says Barnett was modest, humble, and gentle, but with a steely determination to achieve what he wanted to. He was also extremely organised and meticulous.
“He applied himself with a huge amount of dedication,” Burton recalls. “One of the things I really admired was he just got better and better at what he was doing. It was really evident in his photography. He was taking the most beautiful images at the end.”
With a degree in Zoology and a Post-Grad Diploma in Parks, Recreation, and Tourism, Barnett had a solid academic grounding.
That knowledge was continually supplemented by his wide reading, which as Barnett wrote offered him an “immensely enriching and rewarding” inner world.
Dave Hansford’s brilliant introduction to A Wild Life details how all of this fed the writer’s craft, forging a unique written and visual vernacular for capturing New Zealand’s abundant beauty.
Over the course of his career Barnett was influential in encouraging readers into the outdoors. He was also instrumental in capturing the history and culture of tramping in New Zealand, and so helped to keep it alive.
Barnett wrote guides including the hugely popular Day Walks in New Zealand and Tramping in Aotearoa
He also co-authored Shelter from the Storm: The Story of New Zealand’s Backcountry Huts and Tramping: A New Zealand History, and selected the country’s best tramping writing for the excellent Across the Pass anthology.
“He was just as into all the cultural stories as he was into guidebooks,” Burton says. “He had a very broad vision, and was extremely knowledgeable about not just the physical act of tramping, but who was writing what, and who had.”
A revised edition of Shelter from the Storm, which was first published in 2012, is due to be published by Potton & Burton in December.
Barnett wasn’t able to contribute much to that, after being diagnosed with a brain tumour in 2023. But he did work on A Wild Life until late in the process of its creation.
Both he and the publisher had arrived at the idea for the book independently. For Burton, as both a longtime friend and colleague of Barnett, it was a privilege to see the project through to completion.
“I was thrilled in the face of such bleak news to be able to do it,” he says. “It was such a long relationship, with a great deal of trust between the two of us, as we’d been working together for so long. He was also very trusting of my photo editing, which is a big part of what I do.”
The book was fast-tracked due to Barnett’s diagnosis. Burton had a huge archive of photos to sort through, but he says the structure of A Wild Life quickly became evident.
Like the other projects he’d worked on with Barnett, it was a relatively smooth process. Towards the end it
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became challenging for the author, and so his wife Tania assisted.
Due to the sad circumstances surrounding it, the book was one of the bigger challenges Burton has faced as a publisher. Knowing that Barnett was able to see the page proofs before he died gives him comfort though.
There’s no question that Barnett was influential in helping inspire new generations of trampers to hit the country’s tracks.
Bookings for the Great Walks often sell out in a day, while numbers on the nation spanning Te Araroa Trail have grown to thousands each year.
“It wasn’t like that 10 years ago,” Burton notes. “Even though old school trampers are complaining about places getting crowded, it’s got to be a good thing that people are getting out into the hills. I think it’s marvellous.”
• A Wild Life: Photographs from the Backcountry of Aotearoa by Shaun Barnett is published by Potton & Burton
1. Trampers in the upper Landsborough River on the West Coast. (Photo: Shaun Barnett)
2. Big Hut in the Rock and Pillar Range Conservation Area, Central Otago. (Photo: Shaun Barnett)
3. The South Branch of the Young River in Mount Aspiring National Park. (Photo: Shaun Barnett)
4. Sunrise in the Rock and Pillar Range Conservation Area. (Photo: Shaun Barnett)
“The landscape is a refracted autobiography.” (Iain Sinclair)
INTERIOR DESIGNS
Matt Vance’s new book Innerland combines essay and memoir to obliquely examine how landscape is fabricated by our minds.
By Gavin Bertram
Stephen Stratford described an early manuscript of Innerland as “like being stuck in a confined space with Gordon McLaughlan”.
The late editor nailed Matt Vance’s latest book with that sentiment. But where McLauchlan dissected the moribund fabric of New Zealand society, Vance has directed his scalpel towards something even more difficult to define.
The subtitle for Innerland is ‘A journey through the everyday landscape of New Zealand”.
Within its pages the author uses a persuasive alloy of essay and memoir to examine the soft landscapes of the imagination. Because the landscape surrounding us isn’t simply physical - to a large degree it’s a “fabrication of our minds”.
“The whole premise of the book is that for a large part of human experience, landscape is inside the head,” Vance reflects. “I’m sure there is a bit that’s outside, but a lot of it’s happening in our head, so you can’t have a universal theory of landscape - there’s no such thing.”
This is perhaps not the easiest concept to wrap one’s head around. Even in the prologue of Innerlands the author describes the confusion and fear he’s often been met with by first year Landscape Architecture students while lecturing at Lincoln University. The experience sounds a little painful for both parties. But in the book, Vance can stretch out and illustrate the abstract margins of soft landscape through personal experience.
Those observations and humorous encounters have
Matt Vance in Antarctica.
been lovingly composted, ultimately producing a harvest that’s rich in deeper meaning.
“Art is not a democracy,” Vance emphasises. “It is a fascist state, and you have to have a focus. You can collide two things that seem to be very unlikely in a story and, boom, you’re off somewhere else. You get a hybrid. Sometimes you don’t, but when you do it’s magic.”
The desired result is something that he hopes for when reading a book or watching a movie - to come away from the experience seeing the world differently. The hope for Innerland is that readers will begin to look at the everyday landscape through a new lens.
Many of the ideas unpicked in the book were arrived at through Vance’s teaching, and were then “backfilled with experience”.
Those experiences had been gathered indiscriminately from everyday life over years, including the time he spent living in Dunedin. Unsurprisingly walking has been fertile ground - Vance walks almost daily, “so that I can think”. He’s also an avid yachtsman, an activity
that offers a different perspective on landscape. As the author says, there’s water all through Innerland
Antarctica looms large, as Vance has spent a significant amount of time on the ice. He’s worked as an expedition guide there, and his previous book Oceans
Notorious was about the Southern Ocean.
“When it comes to landscape, Antarctica is like the ultimate fullstop,” he says. “The rules of landscape just don’t apply there. There’s no scale, there’s no time, there’s no smell. It’s quite surreal, and what it does to your mind is very strange.”
Like that continent, the subject matter of Innerland may seem vast and impenetrable. The reality is quite different, as Vance frames the journey in humour, and humanity.
As he explains, a lot of that has to do with the absurdity of the human species.
“That absurdity is everywhere, in every experience,” he says. “So to try to filter it out, I think you miss the humanity in things. And humour and humanity are completely and utterly gripped together. Humour, to me, shows a human touch.”
Innerland: A journey through the everyday landscape of New Zealand by Matt Vance is published by Potton & Burton.
Innerland author Matt Vance.
Bookends
Everybody loves pies, it seems. Therefore everybody will also love Derek Morrison’s excellent coffee table ode to the best that are on offer in New Zealand. Collecting the back stories of 38 of the country’s best pie makers, it wraps them in the author’s sumptuous photography of the product, the creators, and the landscape they inhabit. It’s so well-realised you’ll be wanting to go on the ultimate summer road trip this season, courting the possibility of returning home with dangerously high cholesterol. Fortunately we don’t need to go too far however, as it seems there’s an abundance of high quality pies being made in the south. See you at the bakery.
By
This fourth edition of Peter Janssen’s great guide features 170 of the country’s best classic pubs. With brief histories and details of the establishments food and accommodation offerings, the author has created a shadow cultural history of the land. With some of the pubs in the south dating back to the gold rush era, there are plenty of stories whispered by their walls. Or in some cases their ghouls, as many publicans report the spectral presence of previous owners who refuse to move on. Although some pubs are similarly stubborn in their resistance to change, others have embraced it by upping their game. Family-friendly, with great food and quality accommodation, they remain viable business during a period when hospitality is struggling.
By Paddy Gower (Allen & Unwin)
As far as nicknames go, ‘Night Train’ is far cooler than ‘Paddy Carrots’. The latter was a device of ridicule used by school bullies, while ‘Night Train’ became Paddy Gower’s handle when he began working at the NZ Herald in early 2000. The evolution is a useful metaphor for the transformation that is documented in his new autobiography. Change has been fairly constant over Gower’s 25 year career as he’s moved through different media, forging a prominent presence that has now effectively become a brand. But he’s also been forced to change on the personal front, conquering demons including the fallout from that early bullying, alcoholism, anger, and depression. Gower talks honestly about it all in the very moving and entertaining This is the F#$%ing News.
Force of Nature: A Conservation history of Forest & Bird 1923-2023
By David Young and Naomi Arnold (Potton & Burton)
Another brilliant addition to Potton & Burton’s growing catalogue, Force of Nature tells the story of New Zealand’s oldest conservation organisation. Such has been its contribution that it’s difficult to gauge what this country would look like if Forest & Bird hadn’t emerged in 1923. There’s a strong southern link, as founder Val Sanderson was born in Dunedin in 1866, although much of his life was spent in Wellington. It was there that Kāpiti Island “literally framed his conservation thinking and fired his outrage”. The island’s status as New Zealand’s first nature sanctuary had been neglected until Sanderson lobbied government ministers preWW1. Forest & Bird has similarly advocated for effective conservation over the decades since its inauguration, with a raft of campaigns including saving the last virgin kauri forest, and Lake Manapōuri from being dramatically raised. David Young and Naomi Arnold’s book fittingly marks the organisation’s centenary, with a vast amount of information about its many successes and ongoing battles.
New Zealand’s Best Gourmet Pies
By Derek Morrison (Adventure Media)
New Zealand Pubs: 170 Classic Pubs to Visit
Peter Janssen (White Cloud Books)
This is the F#$%ing News
We’re talking about Sleep Health. From the time you wake up, to the time you go to sleep you’re looking at a device – blue light emitting from everything and your internal hormones not knowing what time of day it is. Sleep health internationally is declining and making serious impacts to our health and wellbeing. Many studies directly link sleep health to our resilience and ability to cope, not to mention the impact on physical health,
AVOID POOR SLEEP HEALTH with Bedpost
Another epidemic is looming, and no one seems to be talking about it…. and yet it’s one that all of us can improve without it costing anything.
obesity, diabetes, heart disease, weakened immune function…
Sleepyhead’s 2022 Sleep Week
Survey concluded that 48% of Kiwis experienced difficulty sleeping. Your sleep health is all about the quality of your sleep: how long it takes you to fall asleep, how often you wake up, if you lie there awake, and how efficient you actually sleep. These factors are different for everyone.
Some of the tell-tale signs of poor sleep quality include feeling tired with low energy throughout the day, having
more caffeine to stay alert, being forgetful and having difficulty concentrating, feeling hungrier than normal, being stressed, irritable, and reactive.
Being on screens late at night affects sleep patterns and ultimately decision making and coping ability for the next day –especially for teenagers. It causes major disruption to hormonal balance, affecting appetite, stress and growth, impacting emotional stability, anxiety, irritability, and mood swings.
Cathy at Bedpost Dunedin says the good news is that it can easily be fixed by following some simple guidelines: Having a consistent bedtime and time you get up in the morning will help with your natural circadian rhythm. During the day, make sure that you spend some time in bright light. Get 30 minutes of exercise five times a week. Eat your meals at a consistent time of the day. Have a consistent relaxing routine and put devices away at least an hour before bed. And heading to a bed you love
will improve your sleep health. You’ll get a better night’s sleep with a bed that is compatible with your body.
These are all easy little things to help improve your sleep health, but if you think that there might be more to it then call in and chat to Cathy and the team at Bedpost in Dunedin
“Yes we sell beds, but really we’re in the business of sleep,” Cathy says. “We’re always here so feel free to come in and chat – down by the Chinese Gardens where there’s plenty of parking.”
How ya going?
ANDREW JOHNSTON
Next year the Otago University Students’ Association magazine Critic Te Ārohi celebrates its centenary. Andrew Johnston, the publication’s editor in 1984, now lives in Paris. The poet has had several books published by the Victoria University Press, including 2016 award winner Fits and Starts, and 2023’s Selected Poems
So, how are you going? Blindly into the dark as usual!
Where are you and how’s the weather?
I’ve lived in Paris for 25 years. Right now it’s autumn which means a million shades of grey. Except on the odd day when the sun breaks through and everyone takes on a glorious halo.
What’s been keeping you busy recently?
I train UN and NGO people to write better. I love it, but finding work is tough at the moment. I’ve been working on a long, peculiar poem for four years, on and off. My astonishing teenagers keep me busy.
When you have visitors, where do you take them?
My visitors usually have precise ideas of where they are going! But if it were up to me, we’d just walk. Through the Marais, the Left Bank, the Luxembourg Gardens. Or parks attached to chateaux near Paris (Chantilly, Seaux, Chamarande).
What do you miss about New Zealand?
Friends and family most of all. The smell of the bush. Ocean beaches. Purple kumara. NZ mussels. Ginger crunch. And Wellington cafés – brunch at Maranui in a southerly!
Less than a year after The Beatles fabled visit to the city, the Rolling Stones performed in Dunedin in February 1965. The late broadcaster and city councillor Neil Collins met the band, and recalled the experience in 2011.
I was there: ROLLING STONES
“On a warm summer's night, 2800 people packed the Dunedin Town Hall for a package show that also included the New Beats, Ray Columbus and the Invaders, and Roy Orbison. I recall the electric atmosphere of the Rolling Stones' performance vividly. As soon as they walked on stage the audience were on their feet and many surged to the front of the stage. A line of policemen got there first and locked arms against the screaming fans.
The Stones kicked off with Little Red Rooster and It's All Over Now, and the packed hall was going off. Mick Jagger was having a problem with someone in the balcony throwing jelly beans at him as he shuffled around playing a set of maracas. He screamed at the police to 'get up there and throw that bastard out'.
Jagger had been swinging the microphone around. The contracted sound operator was no fan of rock'n'roll. He appeared at my elbow and said, 'Tell your mate to stop swinging my microphone or I'll turn the sound off'.
I knew what would happen and grabbed the police officer with the most official looking uniform. 'If he turns off the sound you'll have a riot you can't control'. He ran after him and said, 'Step back; leave that sound alone'. 'Right, that does it,' the sound operator said and reached for his hat and went home.
It was very exciting. They were knocking out whatever they had out up to 1965. They were quite a contrast to Roy Orbison who was fantastic also. It was a magic night.
Afterwards the Rolling Stones, Roy Orbison and others including myself set off into the night walking down the street to an after show party at the Sunset Strip in Rattray Street.
The Rolling Stones walked on down the main street, no limos, no security, and no police; can you imagine that happening today?”
Neil Collins (second from right) with the Rolling Stones in 1965. (Photo: Supplied)
Trampled Under Foot: Led Zeppelin were the biggest band in the world when they released the stupendous Physical Graffiti 50 years ago.
By Gavin Bertram
ONCE UPON A TIME…
“There’s still not been another band or artist that glimmers with the same kind of oneness as Led Zeppelin once did,”
Due for release in 2025, Becoming Led Zeppelin is a documentary about the English quartet’s unlikely rise to prominence.
From their inauspicious start in 1968, over the first half of the 1970s the hard rock pioneers became the biggest act on the planet.
Along with a series of mammoth albums and world tours, Led Zep created the template for offstage rock’n’roll excess that became the thing of legend.
While guitarist Jimmy Page, vocalist Robert Plant, and drummer John Bonham were at the heart of the chaos, multi-instrumentalist John Paul Jones was generally more restrained. He even seriously considered quitting the band between 1973’s Houses of the Holy and the sprawling double album Physical Graffiti’s release in February 1975.
“We toured a huge amount in those early days,” he told Mojo magazine. “We were all very tired and under pressure and it just came to a head.”
After Led Zep’s eventual demise in 1980, Jones pursued a quieter life as a producer and sometime session player.
But in 2009 he joined forces with Queens of the Stone Age frontman Josh Homme and Dave Grohl of Nirvana and Foo Fighters fame. Them Crooked Vultures was the result, a perfect supertrio that played to the strengths of each member. While he was on the publicity trail for that Grammy Award winning album, I had the opportunity to speak to the very genial Jones.
Most of the conversation was about Them Crooked Vultures, but of course Led Zep cast a very long shadow and were regularly referenced.
Speaking about the amount of attention his new enterprise was receiving, Jones said that was a familiar feeling.
“It’s another Zeppelin parallel,” he reflected. “In those days, Cream had come and gone and there was nobody else about that was really exciting when we hit the scene. Suddenly it was ‘wow, they’re here, and they’ve come to change the face of music’.”
Led Zeppelin certainly did that. Part of the unholy trinity of pioneering heavy metal acts with Black Sabbath and Deep Purple, they made a huge statement with the release of their self-titled debut album in January 1969.
Loaded with instant classics including Good Times Bad Times, Dazed and Confused, and Communication Breakdown, it provided a blueprint that’s still influential in heavy rock. Page was the archetypal guitar hero, with a powerful arsenal of techniques absorbed during his time as a prolific session player on many British hits of the 1960s.
While grounded in the blues, he helped rewrite the vocabulary for guitarists as the 1970s dawned and rock’n’roll evolved into something harder.
Page was paired with Robert Plant in Led Zeppelin, a leather lunged blues vocalist from the Black Country. It proved a perfect union, with the duo responsible for much of the band’s song-writing.
They were joined by Plant's former bandmate John Bonham, a drummer of destructive force, and Jones, who like Page had a storied past in London’s session scene.
“We just burst upon the scene with very little fanfare,” Jones recalled of the band’s early days.
“We started playing shows, and the press used to turn up and realise that people had got there before them. There’d be lines around the block and they’d be like ‘how on earth do all these people know?’”
While Led Zeppelin reached number six on the UK album charts, their next eight albums all went to number one. They also conquered the United States, with six number one records.
Their success was largely the result of hard touring, due to a hostile relationship with the press and not being embraced by mainstream radio.
None of that stopped Led Zep becoming the biggest rock act of the 1970s, selling north of 300 million albums, dominating the decade with their metaphorical ‘hammer of the gods’. “There’s still not been another band or artist that glimmers with the same kind of oneness as Led Zeppelin once did,” Forbes business magazine noted earlier this year.
For Jones, who stated that “the stage is my natural home”, the band’s peak era in the early to mid 1970s was very much a double-edged sword.
“We controlled everything, we didn’t have to do stuff we didn’t want to do, we made the music we wanted to make,” he said. “We got pretty big I suppose. I can’t say I was in love with the stadiums. Especially the type of band that Zeppelin were, you need to connect with the audience.”
When the band split following Bonham’s death in 1980, Jones related that he “couldn’t get arrested” for the next decade. People were too scared to ask a former member of Led Zeppelin to play.
While he was happy to bring up his family in rural Devon, Jones also became more involved in music production and arrangement work. Over the years since then he’s worked with acts including REM, Peter Gabriel, and Heart. He produced New Zealand band The Datsun’s second album Outta Mind, Outta Sight in 2004, and visited Dunedin while on tour with them. Having been involved in music since the early 1960s, Jones’ love of playing had never faded “I can’t do anything else,” he said. “I live and breathe it; I play an instrument every day of some description.”
Quilting
John Paul Jones (left) on stage with Led Zeppelin in May 1975. (Photo: Ian Dickson/Redferns)
On the main stage at the Reading Festival in 2011.
(Photo: Simone Joyner/ Getty Images)
QUIZ TIME
1. Which Dunedin primary school did artist Colin McCahon attend?
2. How many Ōhau power stations are there on the Waitaki River?
3. In what year was Winton ‘baby farmer’ Minne Dean executed?
4. What TV show brought Dunedin’s Jenkins twins to prominence in 2010?
5. Which Dunedin band did Peter Gutteridge co-found in 1978?
6. Leon Narbey directed what 1988 film about Chinese gold miners in Central Otago?
7. How many test wickets did former Otago player Mark Richardson take?
8. This large home decorating company was founded in Dunedin in 1896.
9. Why did Alexandra’s famous clock stop in 2020?
10. In the Catlins, which small waterfalls are ironically named
One thing about…
There can’t be many towns the size of Alexandra that have regularly hosted cricket matches featuring the world’s top players. Molyneux Park, Alexandra’s main sports venue, has witnessed the likes of England’s David Gower, South Africa’s Jacque Kallis, and Pakistan’s Saqlain Mushtaq. Added to that list is a who’s who of New Zealand’s greatest - Richard
ALEXANDRA
Hadlee, Stephen Fleming, Martin Crowe, and Kane Williamson included.
As a prominent cricket venue, Molyneux Park was inaugurated when the Marylebone Cricket Club played Central Otago there in January 1961. In the late 1970s the picturesque ground hosted first class cricket for the first time, when Otago beat Central Districts.
Over the years since, international touring teams have occasionally played lesser matches against academy or regional sides. Some Under-19 internationals were also held there.
The park, named after the gold dredge Lady Molyneux, has facilities for netball, softball, outdoor ice skating, bowls, squash, and BMX too.
5 TRUTHS IN 5 WORDS
One does not love breathing. (Harper Lee) The sun goes down alone. (Don Henley) I want the fairy tale. (Julia Roberts) Failure cannot cope with persistence. (Napoleon Hill) Fiction is based on reality. (Hunter S Thompson)
Otago at Molyneux Park, after winning the Shell Cup in 1988. (Photo: Gerard O’Brien)
Answers: 1. Maori Hill; 2. Three - Ōhau A, B, and C; 3. 1895; 4. New Zealand’s Next Top Model; 5. The Clean; 6. Illustrious Energy; 7. One; 8. Guthrie Bowron; 9. Someone swung on the hands; 10. Niagara Falls/Manga Piri.
Open 7 days for lunch and dinner
a fault’’ approach it was originally founded on in 1999. And at the Speight’s Ale House Dunedin, the beer is matched to a menu of equal quality.
Food has always been a major part of the offering, with a focus on Southern fare, hearty servings, and value for money.
The menu has something for every taste, with classics including seafood chowder, blue cod, lamb shanks, steak, venison, and vegetarian options.
And, of course, there’s a superb range of brews on offer, including the original Gold Medal Ale, the Triple Hop Pilsner, Distinction Ale, Old Dark, Empire IPA, and even a cider.
What more could you want from a Dunedin Bar & Restaurant!