Thur 26.05.11 - wed 01.06.11
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Laughter and blues
Main picture: Mt Ae olus as seen from Grandview. Inset: Mt Aspiring as seen from Gran dview. PHOTOs: GILBER T VAN REENEN
page 2
It must be love page 3
Mistaken identity A mountainous mix up revealed
Sue Wards
Superstar DJ page 5
Knitsy’s back page 8
sunviews page 17
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www.thewanakasun.co.nz
Our highest peak has been known as Mt Aspiring for 154 years but a local man has discovered it has been a case of mistaken identity all along: Aspiring, also known by its Maori name Tititea, was called Cloudy Mountain by the first European to see it, who intended to name a completely different mountain Aspiring. The first European to see Mt Aspiring was Otago’s chief surveyor J.T.Thomson. After standing on Grandview Mountain in 1857 and taking in the view, he wrote in his fieldbook: “At the head of Hawea, dist. about 40 miles is a very lofty [indecipherable word] peak which I called Mt Aspiring.” The peak he was actually looking at, however, was Mt Aeolus. Gilbert van Reenen, who has lived in this area for 30 years, has spent years unravelling the puzzle. “We’d been up on Grandview and looked for Mt Aspiring and couldn’t find it,” he said. “Things didn’t line up.” From Grandview Mt Aspiring is obscured by Mt Alta, whereas Mt Aeolus is conspicuous. “When Thomson first saw Aeolus and named it Aspiring the real Aspiring was most likely obscured by cloud as it is on the main divide,” Gilbert said. “Aeolus is about 5km east of the divide and usually clear of cloud under those
norwest conditions and would have been quite prominent as it would have been completely covered in snow and ice.” Gilbert contacted John Hall-Jones (author of John Turnbull Thomson first Surveyor General of NZ, and Thomson’s great-grandson) to ask some questions about the mystery and was told someone else had recently contacted John with the same questions. It was Danilo Hegg of Dunedin, whom Gilbert knew through the climbing community. The two men started working together. Danilo had also climbed Grandview to see Aspiring and was disappointed he saw Aspiring’s summit “barely showing above the high ridges of Mt Alta” while he saw a much more conspicuous peak (Mt Aeolus) at the head of Lake Hawea to the north-west. Danilo was convinced Thomson was referring to Mt Aeolus when he named it Aspiring, but he knew further evidence would be required to convince others. Danilo, who has a maths and engineering background, reconstructed Thomson’s triangulation system using the measurements in Thomson’s old fieldbooks. “After repeating his calculations, I had
conclusive evidence that the peak seen by Thomson from Grandview Mountain was Mt Aeolus, not Mt Aspiring,” Danilo said in his on-line blog, which details the calculations. Both men have scrutinised Thomson’s 1858 map of Otago’s
mountains; his bearings on a “Cloudy Mt” intersected with the second of his bearings so he discarded the first one, which he had taken from the location he named the peak from. This is how Mt Aeolus was wiped from the map and our highest peak
The peak seen by Thomson from Grandview Mountain was Mt Aeolus, not Mt Aspiring. interior. The first hand-drawn draft of the map, picured below, offers another clue: a question mark next to Mt Aspiring – the only question mark on the map. The location of the mountain was correct, however, indicating Thomson was unsure
about the name. Danilo has traced how Thomson assigned the name Aspiring to the wrong peak on the map: Thomson took two bearings on “Mt Aspiring” from two different
got its name. Gilbert does not want to see Aspiring’s name changed, he just wants to clear up the name’s origin. He recently wrote to the New Zealand Geographic Board, asking (tongue in cheek) what they would do if it was proven Aspiring was misnamed. An advisor replied: “I cannot say what the Board’s action would be, other than due process would need to be followed. … Mount Aspiring / Tititea is a Ngai Tahu name and is locked in by their settlement legislation; any change to the name would require an amendment to that 1998 Act.” Gilbert and Danilo believe Thomson did an incredible job surveying this area. “His theodolite sightings were down to fractions of a degree,” Gilbert said. Thomson went on to become New Zealand’s Surveyor-General and taught surveyors in other regions.