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Weather watch issued for Clutha, Dunedin

2010-03-13T15:20:06.268Z

The Met Service says severe gales in parts of the Clutha and Dunedin regions are set to last through to Monday.

Rainbow At the Beach

2010-03-13T11:20:50.682Z

The jogger just happened to run through the frame as I was shooting this rainbow. Pure happenstance. A really magical scene. I've never seen such a strong rainbow before.

Drenched Walkers Auckland

2010-03-13T11:20:45.942Z

Auckland can be a very wet destination at times. These walkers were disembarking from a ferry to start an island walk. The photograph was taken through a porthole. If you are visiting New Zealand and would like to read about our trip, and see more photographs, please go to www.steveandjacqui.com

Benmore Range

2010-03-13T11:20:42.612Z

large on black About This shot is similar to one I posted previously, but it has a different perspective and HDR processing. That's my back fence in the foreground, the Benmore range in the background, and a sliver of Lake Ruataniwha in the middle. This is probably as green as the Benmore range ever gets, without colour filters that is. It's been getting pretty warm for this early in spring, so I think the summer is going to be a scorcher. You can check out the weather at my place on my weather station. :-) The Shot Standard 3 exposure shot (+2..0..-2 EV) handheld using Sony DSC-P10 Photomatix - tonemapped generated HDR using detail enhancer option Photoshop Elements - adjusted colour curves to 'increase contrast'

Arthurs Paddock 2007

2010-03-13T11:20:41.202Z

An average, but intriguing shot - due only to the weather.

Mt Fyffe - Kaikoura 2008

2010-03-13T11:20:40.090Z

Interesting weather that day, but this is the image that shows some of the clouded sky I guess - no one believes me that it was buketing down at the time! except perhaps my poor camera

Beach&sky

2010-03-13T11:20:37.282Z

Typical dramatic west coastal weather...

west coast remains

2010-03-13T11:20:35.742Z

I LOVE THIS. perfect coast weather and perfect subject for it :)

karitane gold

2010-03-13T10:40:42.751Z

just arrived back from my holiday in dunedin. the weather wasn't that great so sadly not many pics. when the sun did come out though it was magic and then i still didn't get any pics because i was out surfing...stand up no less :). good bye bodyboading...hello longboarding :) happy holidays all. u-ziq...grizzly bear | veckatimest View On Black...to sink your toes in the water and sand :)

A change in the weather is coming...

2010-03-13T10:40:41.467Z

Taken on the Mueller Hut tramp, Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park, Easter 2005. View On Black

Tongaporutu Coastline - rock strata, 8 March 2004

2010-03-13T08:31:01.199Z

Rock strata showing the effect of weather processes on the rocks. The rock has been sculpted into distinctive formations by weather and wave action. Image is dominated by a section of cliff face and its particular patterning. Photograph taken 8 March 2004.

Tongaporutu Coastline - The Fledglings from Beach One, 7 March 2004

2010-03-13T08:31:00.638Z

The Fledglings from Beach One a week after February 2004's trilogy of storms. Pat Greenfield calls the cliffs 'The Fledglings' as gulls nest on top of the cliffs. Expanse of black sand occupies the bottom half of the image, with weathered rock cliffs - patterned with horizontal striations - soil cliffs and small area of sky occuping the upper half of the image. The sea has eroded a cave in the cliff face to the left of the image (possibly a through cave, creating an arch), which with the force of the waves will eventually collapse. Photograph taken 7 March 2004.

four seasons in one day

2010-03-13T08:25:31.905Z

Like the tittle says... warmish weather, but cold, wet, and windy. Cloudy with blue skies, and snow kissed hilltops. Only in New Zealand (AFAIK). One of many taken in the mystifying rurality of the Southland.

Erebus disaster investigation - part 4

2010-03-13T08:25:04.926Z

Video footage compiled at the time of the Erebus disaster, largely relating to Operation Overdue. This segment relates to body recovery; includes discussion of the difficult weather conditions and long hours. It includes interviews with some of the mountaineers involved in the Operation, including p..

First film of the Erebus disaster

2010-03-13T08:24:57.356Z

Television One Network News presents the first film from the site of the Erebus disaster in Antarctica. It notes that body recovery has been disrupted by bad weather, and the difficulties in getting personnel and supplies to the area. Video supplied via YouTube by TVNZ on demand .

Returning bodies of Erebus victims

2010-03-13T08:24:52.746Z

The bodies of the victims of Air New Zealand Flight TE901 were flown by Royal New Zealand Air Force Hercules aircraft to Whenuapai Air Base in Auckland. By 8 December 1979 the Erebus disaster recovery operation was finishing up, but bad weather delayed the evacuation of the Disaster Victim Identific...

Erebus disaster recovery work during blizzard

2010-03-13T08:24:52.046Z

Recovery work among the debris of Air New Zealand Flight TE901 on Mt Erebus continued even in terrible weather conditions. The original caption of this photograph reads: 'Hugh Logan below main fuselage. Strong ground blizzard blowing through wreckage'. Final confirmation that there were no survivors...

Today in History

2010-03-13T08:24:46.356Z

Long-haired Christchurch mountaineers John Glasgow and Peter Gough became the first to successfully scale the 2000-metre Caroline Face of Aoraki/Mt Cook, declaring it a ‘triumph for the hippies’. The highest peak in New Zealand, at 3754 m, Aoraki/Mt Cook in the central Southern Alps became the focu..

Today in History

2010-03-13T08:24:46.296Z

Prime Minister Sir Joseph Ward ceremonially opened the North Island main trunk railway line by driving home a final polished silver spike at Manganuioteao, between National Park and Ohakune. According to a reporter who accompanied Ward on the trip from Wellington, the ceremony was 'as impressive as ..

Today in History

2010-03-13T08:24:43.916Z

The editorial in The Press on 11 September 1928 observed that if Australian pilots Charles Kingsford Smith and Charles Ulm successfully crossed the Tasman that day, the rejoicing in New Zealand would be even greater than that in Australia. New Zealanders had yet to 'see a plane arrive from another c..

Today in History

2010-03-13T08:24:43.476Z

Soon after leaving Nelson for Napier, the newly built brig Delaware struck bad weather. It was wrecked on rocks in a bay between Graham's Point and Pepin Island that is now known as Delaware Bay. Accounts of the incident often focus on the heroism of Huria Matenga, the only woman in a party of five ..

Today in History

2010-03-13T08:24:34.787Z

The distance between Dunedin and Paris may seem far, but even in the 19th century ideas and technology travelled fast. On 31 March 1889 Gustave Eiffel's famous tower was officially completed in Paris, France. At 300 metres high (plus a 24-m flag pole), it was the centrepiece of the 1889 Paris Unive..

Today in History

2010-03-13T08:24:33.837Z

All hands were lost when the modern coastal freighter Holmglen foundered off the South Canterbury coast. The cause of the tragedy was never established. The 485-ton Holm Company motor vessel was bound from Dunedin to Wanganui, via Oamaru and Wellington, when it sank some 40 kms east of Timaru. A Ma..

Today in History

2010-03-13T08:24:32.477Z

On 23 October 1948 two experienced pilots, Commander Max Hare and Second Officer Brian Russell, flew ZK-AGK Kaka , a Lockheed Electra of the National Airways Corporation's fleet, from Hamilton to Palmerston North. They were due to make the return journey later that day. At 1.16 p.m., after refuelli..

Today in History

2010-03-13T08:24:31.957Z

Jean Batten left for New Zealand from Lympne Aerodrome, Kent, at 4.20 a.m. on 5 October 1936. Despite the early hour a large media contingent gathered to capture the event; Batten was already famous for her successful solo flights from England to Australia in May 1934, and to the South Atlantic in N..

Today in History

2010-03-13T08:24:15.799Z

The fact that Pauline Parker and her friend Juliet Hulme killed Pauline's mother Honora on 22 June – a sensational crime later dramatised in Peter Jackson's film Heavenly Creatures – was never disputed. But in finding the two teenagers guilty of murder, the jury rejected the defence's assertion that..

Today in History

2010-03-13T08:24:14.447Z

HMS Britomart arrived at Akaroa, on Banks Peninsula, a week before a shipload of French colonists landed. The ship's captain raised the Union Jack to confirm British sovereignty over the area. In 1838 the commander of the French whaling ship Cachalot made a dubious land purchase from Maori on Banks..

Today in History

2010-03-13T08:23:58.497Z

In what is still New Zealand's worst internal civil aviation accident, all 23 passengers and crew were killed. Helicopters were used for the first time in the search and rescue operation that followed. The National Airways Dakota DC-3 left from Whenuapai Airport, Auckland, bound for Wellington via ..

Pencarrow Lighthouse documentary

2010-03-13T08:23:28.798Z

Hear this 1959 Radio New Zealand documentary made to mark the centenary of the Pencarrow Lighthouse. Click on the arrow to play. For Tuesday's ceremony the weather was fine and sunny. But by the time we'd climbed to the lighthouse there was a strong north westerly wind blowing, as you will hear in a...

Lake Taupo

2010-03-13T08:23:27.888Z

The weather during our stay in South Waikato was pretty miserable (fortunately the only period of a four week trip!) so photo opportunities were few and far between. Our last night was much the same and coupled with the horrible hostel we were in we decided that a meal out would cheer us up. Walking the scenic route (I always had to!) into the main town area I looked over the lake and saw a faint glimmer of light........30 seconds later and I'm running back to grab the camera, jump in the car and pick up Sarah! The air was still but the clouds over the West shores of Lake Taupo parted in the most beautiful mix of colours. Getting a suitable composition was simply a case of walking the shore of the lake until I found some interesting rocks in the foreground. Once I was finished we went out for our delayed meal and it tasted all the better knowing I had at least one good shot of this area! Dan www.danedmundsphotography.com

Today in History

2010-03-13T08:23:19.118Z

On 15 March 1944 the 6th New Zealand Brigade attacked the Italian town of Cassino as part of the Allies’ advance on Rome. This was one of four Allied assaults on the German defences at Cassino between January and May 1944. The New Zealand Division played a significant part in this campaign and by th..

Today in History

2010-03-13T08:23:18.788Z

A record one-day total of 84.8 millimetres of rain caused extensive surface flooding in the streets of Invercargill, Riverton, Otautau, Tuatapere and Bluff. A state of emergency was declared in the early hours of 27 January. Matters were made worse in Invercargill where a high tide prevented flood w..

Today in History

2010-03-13T08:23:15.638Z

Robert FitzRoy, the second Governor of New Zealand, took his own life at his home in Surrey on 30 April 1865. Opinion on his governorship has always been divided. The writer Steve Braunias described FitzRoy as ‘our first great wretch’. Biographer Ian Ward argued that FitzRoy's ‘achievements were co..

Today in History

2010-03-13T08:23:14.998Z

The voyage began promisingly. On the evening of 12 February 1909 the Union Company's passenger steamer Penguin left Picton for Wellington in fine weather. The ship was small (749 tons) and old (launched in 1864), but had been rebuilt, and Captain Francis Naylor knew the route thoroughly. By the tim..

Today in History

2010-03-13T08:23:14.528Z

Australian Guy Menzies' flight from Sydney ended in some embarrassment as he crash-landed in a swamp at Harihari on the West Coast. But set against the backdrop of the Depression, his heroic flight helped to lift spirits on both sides of the Tasman. The first successful flight across the Tasman Sea..

Today in History

2010-03-13T08:23:14.198Z

The first official New Zealand airmail to the United States departed Auckland for San Francisco aboard Pan American Airline's Samoan Clipper . This Sikorsky S-42B flying boat was piloted by Captain Ed Musick. Musick, Pan Am's top pilot, had completed the first survey flight from San Francisco to Au..

Today in History

2010-03-13T08:23:13.208Z

American Lynne Cox swam from the North Island to the South in a time of 12 hours 2 minutes and 30 seconds. She battled heavy seas and strong winds and on two occasions the Cook Strait cargo ferry Aratika hove to alongside the swimmer to protect her from the wind. The ferry flew the American flag as ..

Today in History

2010-03-13T08:23:12.567Z

Around 40 Maori chiefs, led by Hone Heke, signed a Treaty with the British Crown at Waitangi in the Bay of Islands. The Treaty of Waitangi, as it has become known, had been prepared in just a few days. Missionary Henry Williams and his son Edward translated the English draft into Maori overnight on..

Today in History

2010-03-13T08:23:11.258Z

The 27-kilometre line between Invercargill and the port at Bluff, built by the Southland Provincial Council, was the country's third public railway. Like its predecessors – Canterbury's Ferrymead railway (1863) and Southland's Invercargill–Makarewa (1864) line – it opened amid much fanfare and opti..

Natural Landscapes (S1P1)

2010-03-13T08:20:50.301Z

Ashwell Vineyards, Martinborough. I call this lazy photography, because I thought that there was potential for great pictures with all the water drops hanging of the vineyard wires after the rain, but couldn't be bothered rugging up and going outside to shoot it properly - this was taken through a bedroom window of the vineyard owners' house. This is using my 24mm lens, the next couple will be closer (50mm), where you can sort of see the water drops... There was a great layering of weather systems, with snow clouds on the hills in the background, and some moody heavy rain clouds above - the sun struggling to break through here and there (it one out in the end...)... Here's the plug - look out for Ashwell wines in your local winestore (NZ and parts of Aus) or on the menu in many Wellington restaurants, they do a good range, and a cracker Pinot Noir if you ask me... (others agree ). Not to be confused with Ashwell Valley wines of Australia however...

Kohi Sunrise

2010-03-13T08:20:26.222Z

This is sunrise at Kohimarama Beach, Auckland. I managed to drag myself out of bed at 5:30 this morning. I thought I'd better get in another sunrise shoot before the weather craps out again, and it turned out to be a pretty nice morning. This is a combination of 3 shots, manually blended in Photoshop. I also used a Singh-Ray 3-stop reverse GND filter to hold back the sun. Oh, and I'm not sure if that's my footprint there or not, I can't remember! There were some doggies that ran past while I was taking the shot, but I don't think they were wearing shoes. View Large On Black

Night sky over the Church of the Good Shepherd

2010-03-13T08:14:44.269Z

You can purchase a fine art print of this photo here. This photo was featured in the Discover Magazine limited edition issue "Whole Universe" as a double page spread. Read all about it in my blog. This photo was also featured in smashingmagazine.com: 60 Beautiful Examples Of Night Photography The weather this day had been unseasonably windy, to the point that the waves on Lake Tekapo even had whitecaps. This near gale-force wind was coming right off the glaciers and cut right through you. It was into this weather that I ventured out in the pitch black night under the spectacular New Zealand sky to capture some photos of the Church of the Good Shepherd by starlight. Rugged up, bare handed, with tripod and kit bag, I looked around for a good spot, and fought the howling winds. I didn’t then have a cable release and I quickly discovered that I needed more than the maximum 30 seconds shutter speed. I spent the next half hour sitting by the tripod as low as it would go for stability, my finger holding down the shutter while I took shot after shot counting to 120 or 240 seconds, trying not to move during the exposure. For fear of getting more exposure than the sensor, I came inside after half an hour. I only got this one decent photo, but it was worth it. It was this experience that lead me to buy a wireless remote shutter release.

Rangitoto Island , New Zealand

2010-03-13T08:13:43.060Z

Rangitoto Island is a volcanic island in the Hauraki Gulf near Auckland, New Zealand. The 5.5 km wide island is an iconic and widely visible landmark of Auckland with its distinctive symmetrical shield volcano cone rising 260 metre (850 ft) high over the Hauraki Gulf. (Wiki) Ah..it's Sunday again. Free for the evening, and such a fine weather today! How can I resist the urge to go to the beach?

Titahi Bay sunset

2010-03-13T08:12:04.192Z

I like this one - the sky was ablaze for a few minutes and then the sun must have dipped. Hard to get with the point and shoot but picnik helped a bit

Wellington Sunrise II

2010-03-13T08:11:43.042Z

The weather seemed good so I got up early and decided to try a new spot. This is taken from on top of the hill at the terminus of the cable car going from Lambton Quay to Kelburn near the Botanical Gardens.

The Pacific Islands and the world conference

2010-03-13T08:10:58.493Z

The Pacific Islands and the World: The Global Economic Crisis, held in Brisbane on 2 and 3 August, brought together Pacific Island leaders, ministers, officials from international and regional organisations, private sector and civil society representatives, in advance of the annual Pacific Islands Forum leaders meeting. The Pacific Islands region as a whole has weathered the global economic crisis better than many other developing countries to date but the impact of the global recession is still significant. The conference recommended that the Pacific Island governments should seize the opportunity of the global economic crisis to make fundamental reforms to the way they manage their development planning and do business.

A fair-weather friend: Australia's relationship with a climate-changed Pacific

2010-03-13T08:10:58.143Z

Climate change will bring significant challenges to the island nations of the Pacific. This paper examines Australia's attitudes to climate change in the region under the two most recent federal governments. The Howard Government's engagement with the region profoundly influenced understandings of Australia's role in a climate-changed Pacific. Initially in opposition and later in government, the Australian Labor Party (ALP) took issue with this approach and recast discussions of security in the Pacific as 'collective' within a developmental 'human security' framework. Generous adaptation assistance was guaranteed to Pacific nations and the ALP promised to champion compassionate solutions to the problem of displaced neighbours. But over halfway into its first term, the Rudd Government has failed to secure a more hopeful outlook for Pacific Islanders when it comes to climate change.

Matakana war memorial

2010-03-13T08:10:45.223Z

The badly weathered sculpture of George V on the Matakana war memorial in Northland. The sculptor was W.H. Feldon. The Matakana memorial was one unusual because it was sculpted by a New Zealand sculptor, W.H Feldon whereas most N.Z communities sent orders for sculpted figures to Italy. Feldon had wr...

Officers and gentlemen? - Lyttelton-Wellington ferries

2010-03-13T08:10:36.723Z

It was essential for political and business reasons, that a strict and reliable timetable was observed, and though masters were forbidden to take risks, they had to do so in fog and thick weather, or would soon find themselves back in the West Coast colliers. J.D.G. Jensen Thai royals aboard the Ran...

Ruapehu

2010-03-13T08:10:18.474Z

Tongariro National Park, New Zealand September 22 2008 Mount Ngauruhoe and Mount Ruapehu were both used as Mount Doom in Peter Jackson's Lord Of The Rings trilogy. It was quite nerdily exciting on my first morning in Taupo to sit outside by the lake and have my breakfast while looking at Mount Doom. My timing was a bit off unfortunately. I really wanted to do the Tongariro Alpine Crossing across/around these volcanos but the snow didn't clear up enough. I spent a few days waiting around Lake Taupo (often in a lovely pub called Mulligans) in case the weather would clear but it didn't. So I took a bus onwards. Now as we came up the desert road, the driver asks if there are any tourists onboard and so a few of us put up our hands. He tells us that we are a bit ahead of schedule and so if anyone wants to stop at the top of the Desert road to take a few photos of the volcanos, then we could have about 5 minutes. This would turn out to be quite common throughout New Zealand. If there was something to see along the way and there was time, the driver would happily stop to let tourists take a few photos and then move on. Great stuff. So...photos!

Aratere ferry slideshow

2010-03-13T08:05:49.539Z

This slide show depicts the Aratere in good and bad weather. In 1999 the Dominion ’s Infotech Weekly enthused about Tranz Rail’s latest ferry, the first ship in 16 years built specially for the Cook Strait run. ‘From bridge to engine room, Tranz Rail’s new ferry Aratere bristles with technology to ..

Strikes and strandings - Cook Strait ferries

2010-03-13T08:05:47.149Z

Strikes … again The Cook Strait ferries were vital to the flow of freight and passengers between the North and South islands (especially before the days of cheap air travel). Any interruptions, whether they were caused by bad weather, mechanical problems or strikes and lockouts, inevitably hit the h...

Metalloid mobility at historic mine and industrial processing sites in the South Island of New Zealand

2010-03-13T08:05:16.680Z

Rocks of the South Island of New Zealand are locally enriched in metalloids, namely arsenic (As), antimony (Sb) and boron (B). Elevated levels of As and Sb can be found in sulphide minerals mostly in association with mesothermal gold deposits, whereas B enrichment occurs in marine influenced coal deposits. The mobility of these metalloids is important because they can be toxic at relatively low levels (e.g. for humans >0.01 mg/L of As). Their mobilisation occurs naturally from background weathering of the bedrock. However, mining and processing of coal and gold deposits, New Zealand's most economically important commodities, can significantly increase metalloid mobility. In particular, historic mines and associated industrial sites are known to generate elevated metalloid levels because of the lack of site remediation upon closure. This work defines and quantifies geological, mining, post-mining and regional processes with respect to metalloid, especially As, mobility. At the studied historic gold mines, the Blackwater and Bullendale mines, Sb levels in mineralised rocks were generally negligible (<14 ppm) compared to As (up to 10,000 ppm). Thus, Sb concentrations in solids and in water were too low to yield any meaningful information on Sb mobility. In contrast, dissolved As concentrations downstream from mine sites were found to be very high (up to 59 mg/L) (background = 10⁻� mg/L). In addition, very high As concentrations were found in residues (up to 40 wt%) and site substrate (up to 30 wt%) at the Blackwater processing sites (background < 0.05 wt%). Here, roasting of the gold ore converted the orginal As mineral, arsenopyrite, into the mineral arsenolite (As[III] trioxide polymorph) and volatilised the sulphur. The resultant sulphur-defficient chemical system is driven by arsenolite dissolution and differs significantly from mine sites where arsenopyrite is the main As source. Arsenolite is significantly more soluble than arsenopyrite. In the surficial environment, arsenolite dissolution is limited by kinetics only, which are slow enough to preserve exposed arsenolite over decades in a temperate, wet climate. This process results in surface waters with up to ca. 50 mg/L dissolved As. In reducing conditions, dissolved As concentrations are also controlled by the solubility of arsenolite producing As concentrations up to 330 mg/L. Field based cathodic stripping voltammetry showed that the As[III]/As[V] redox couple, in particular the oxidation of As[III], has a major control on system pH and Eh. Site acidification is mainly caused by the oxidation of As[III], resulting in a close link between As[V] concentrations and pH. Similarly, a strong correlation between calculated (Nernstian) and measured (electrode) Eh was found in the surface environment, suggesting that the overall Eh of the system is, indeed, defined by the As[III]/As[V] redox couple. Once the metalloid is mobilised from its original source, its mobility is controlled by at least one of the following attenuation processes: (a) precipitation of secondary metalloid minerals, (b) co-precipitation with - or adsorption to - iron oxyhydroxide (HFO), or (c) dilution with background waters. The precipitation of secondary minerals is most favoured in the case of As due to the relatively low solubility of iron arsenates, especially at low pH (~0.1 mg/L). Observations suggest that scorodite can be the precursor phase to more stable iron arsenates, such as kankite, zykaite, bukovskyite or pharmacosiderite and their stability is mainly controlled by pH, sulphur concentrations and moisture prevalence. Empirical evidence indicates that the sulphur-containing minerals zykaite and bukovskyite have a similar pH dependence to scorodite with solubilities slightly lower than scorodite and kankite. If dissolved As concentrations decline, iron arsenates potentially become unstable. Their dissolution maintains a pH between 2.5 and 3.5. This acidification process is pivotal with respect to As mobility, especially in the absence of other acidification processes, because iron arsenates are several orders of magnitude more soluble in circum-neutral pH regimes (~100 mg/L). From this, it becomes apparent that external pH modifications, for example as part of a remediation scheme, can significantly increase iron arsenate solubility and resultant As mobility. In contrast to As, the precipitation of secondary Sb and B minerals is limited by their high solubilities, which are several orders of magnitude higher than for iron arsenates. Thus, secondary Sb and B minerals are restricted to evaporative waters, from which they can easily re-mobilised during rain events. Metalloid adsorption to HFO is mainly controlled or limited by the extent of HFO formation, which in turn is governed by the availability of Fe and prevailing Eh-pH conditions. Thus, mineralisation styles and associated geochemical gradients, in particular pyrite abundance, can control the amount of HFO and consequent metalloid attenuation, and these can vary even within the same goldfleld. Furthermore, it was found that there is a mineralogical gradation between ferrihydrite with varying amounts of adsorbed As, amorphous iron arsenates and crystalline iron arsenates, suggesting that the maturity of mine waste is an important factor in As mineralogy. Once dissolved metalloids enter the hydrosphere, dilution is the main control on metalloid attenuation, which is especially pronounced at the inflow of tributaries. Dilution is, therefore, closely related to the size and frequency of these tributaries, which in turn are controlled by the regional topography and climate. Dilution is a considerably less effective attenuation mechanism and anomalous metalloid concentrations from mining related sites can persist for over 10 km downstream. The complex and often inter-dependent controls on metalloid mobility mean that management decisions should carefully consider the specific site geochemistry to minimize economic, health and environmental risks that can not be afforded. On a regional scale, background metalloid flux determines the downstream impact of an anomalous metalloid source upstream. For example, the Bullendale mine is located in a mountainous region, where rapidly eroding slopes expose fresh rock and limit the extent of soil cover and chemical weathering. Consequently, the background As flux is relatively low and As point sources, such as the Bullendale mine, present a significant contribution to the downstream As flux. In contrast, the bedrock at the Blackwater mine has undergone deep chemical weathering, resulting in an increased background mobilisation of As. Thus, the Prohibition mill site discharge, for example, contributes only about 10% to the downstream As flux. This information is relevant to site management decisions because the amount of natural background metalloid mobilisation determines whether site remediation will influence downstream metalloid chemistry on a regional scale.

Trends and variability of temperature extremes in Southern New Zealand

2010-03-13T08:05:13.269Z

The purpose of this research was to create the longest possible, homogeneous, historical daily temperature dataset for Southern New Zealand, analyse the changes in extreme temperatures and investigate atmospheric circulation patterns that contributed to these changes. Daily minimum and maximum temperature data for Southern New Zealand were captured from paper records and extended to include all available archival data from the region. This dataset was digitised and contains temperatures from 26 stations that began operation sometime in the period between 1852 and 1953. Stations include the Chatham and Campbell islands. Adjustments for inhomogeneities in the dataset were made using a frequency distribution matching method. Dunedin has a record dating from 1852, the longest in the Southern Hemisphere south of 40�S latitude. Reconstruction of a homogeneous record for Dunedin was made by taking into account site changes from contemporaneous modem data logger measurements and from an analysis of overlapping period data. Temperatures showed no clear pattern of change in Southern New Zealand from the mid 1800s through to the early 1900s with the exception of a brief cold period that occurred around 1900. However, from the 1940s through to the 1970s both minimum and maximum extreme temperatures showed strong warming. These trends were duplicated over the shorter length period of record for other regions, especially in Eastern Canterbury. The warming trend was maintained over the period 1979 - 2003, but only in the colder ends of minimum and maximum distributions. Temperatures have become less cold due to the recent compression of the temperature distribution. There was a marked decrease in cold days at stations in the south and offshore islands. Atmospheric circulation pattems, and in particular ENSO, were shown to affect extreme temperatures recorded in Southern New Zealand. Anomalous southwesterlies associated with El Nino events produce cooler temperatures and increase the numbers of cold extreme temperatures, while anomalous northeasterlies typical of La Nina increase the numbers of warm extreme temperatures. Monthly frequencies of extreme temperatures were primarily affected by anomalous south/north meridional airflows to increase cold/warm extreme temperature frequencies. Zonal airflows have a lesser, but topographically influenced effect. Record hot and cold temperatures in Southern New Zealand were a product of the interaction between advective northerly and southerly airflows respectively, and local climatic effects caused by topography.

Notes and questions, Italy - war oral history programme

2010-03-13T08:03:43.442Z

The squadron commander decided that we must get some plonk and relax. We relaxed with a great little party, then settled down in dirty, rotten, wet, cold weather under some olive trees, waiting for the next attack on Cassino. Rae Familton, 20 and 18 Armoured Regiments, in Megan Hutching (ed.), A Fai...

Paleoclimatic significance of magnetic properties on the Red Clay underlying the loess and paleosols in China

2010-03-13T08:03:34.412Z

14 page(s)The Red Clay unit of northern China is a widespread Miocene–Pliocene (7.2–2.5 Ma) aeolian deposit that underlies much of the Quaternary loess–paleosol sequence in the central Loess Plateau. It comprises a sequence of highly developed soils and interbedded layers of less weathered loess-like material, here referred to as reddish loess. In common with the loess–paleosol alternations of the overlying Quaternary deposits, the soil–reddish loess alternations are interpreted to represent climatic fluctuations, in this case between warm-humid and relatively dry-cool conditions. However, while magnetic susceptibility variations in the Quaternary deposits provide a good proxy for pedogenic intensity, in the Red Clay the relationship is less clear and magnetic susceptibility data are in conflict with other measures of pedogenesis. In an attempt to resolve this issue, we have investigated a Red Clay section and overlying loess–paleosol sequence at Xifeng and have supplemented these data with samples from the Red Clay at Lingtai. Our study indicates that the Red Clay and loess–paleosol sequence have a common magnetic mineralogy comprising magnetite, maghemite and hematite (and possibly goethite), and that both sequences show a good correlation between magnetic susceptibility and the magnitude of the superparamagnetic (SP) component. This implies that susceptibility enhancement in the Red Clay is strongly related to the magnitude of the SP content, a component that is widely recognised as having a pedogenic origin in Quaternary deposits. Further support for a correlation between pedogenesis and magnetic susceptibility in the Red Clay is provided by a good correlation between magnetic susceptibility and the Rb:Sr ratio, an independent weathering index. However, differences in the magnetic mineralogy of the two units are also evident. The minimum magnetic susceptibility of the Red Clay is less than half the value of the overlying Quaternary deposits at locations such as Xifeng and Lingtai, while the maximum SP content is (relatively) larger than for the Quaternary deposits. While we cannot discount the possibility that the former difference is a reflection of different parent materials for the two units, climate may also be a contributory factor in explaining these differences. Precipitation is a major control on magnetic enhancement in paleosols [Maher and Thompson (1995) Quat. Res. 44, 383–391; Liu et al. (1995) Palaeogeogr. Palaeoclimatol. Palaeoecol. 113, 243–248], but soil anoxia and iron oxide dissolution occur if moisture exceeds some critical level. Soil moisture is therefore a critical factor in determining whether the correlation between pedogenesis and magnetic susceptibility in loess deposits is positive (central Loess Plateau, China; magnetic enhancement), negative (Alaska; Siberia; magnetic destruction) or uncertain (Pakistan; Argentina; New Zealand; cycles of enhancement and destruction). While our results indicate a generally positive correlation between pedogenesis and magnetic susceptibility in the Red Clay, they also imply that a more thorough paleoclimatic interpretation can only be achieved using complementary, but independent techniques. More work is required to deconvolve the climatic record of the Red Clay, but the reward may be the extension of the record of paleomonsoon evolution back into the Pliocene and late Miocene.

A Remarkable Dawn....

2010-03-13T08:02:57.303Z

Where the hell have I been for the past two weeks??!! Got focussed on work and voila - two weeks since my last posting on Flickr - sorry about that folks. Weather down here has been absolute rubbish for photography recently - got a couple of shots I am working on so will keep you posted. This one is from last spring on the d2x - I have another one from a couple of months ago from the 5dmkii - I'll put it up for you to compare in the next few days!! Most of these flickr shots are BIGGER on our website. You can also view more of our New Zealand landscape photography there :) My gradual decline towards senility is also charted on my blog - The Photo Autocracy

A storm brewing in the East

2010-03-13T08:02:39.263Z

Been away! Will take me a few days to get sorted after the trip, but promise will get back to my dear Flickr Friends asap :)) Hope you are having a nice week.

the weather improves

2010-03-13T08:02:37.323Z

It's amazing how quick the weather and lighting can change. The below image was shot just a matter of two hours earlier. (p.s. this is Lake Rotoiti in Nelson Lakes National Park. There's a gazillion photos of this jetty on Flickr!)

foggy dew on Elizabeth Street

2010-03-13T08:02:36.703Z

I took this photo some time back when the fog was in. Did not post it than as I had inadvertently left a pole, that appears to be growing out of the woman's head. I thought that would be a bad thing, but have now changed my mind and don't find it a problem as these people were very nice. They thought I wanted some help in taking a photo of myself but after the initial confusion we got it right. I am off to Taranaki for a few days, so bye bye for now everyone, back some time next week.foggy weather appear to be better when viewed larger on White_MG_0630-2

Foggy morning, Northland, New Zealand.

2010-03-13T08:02:35.183Z

Foggy morning, Northland, New Zealand. WRE005

Franz Josef Glacier.

2010-03-13T08:02:34.713Z

Franz Josef Glacier. The Franz Josef Glacier is located in Westland National Park on the West Coast of New Zealand's South Island. It descends from the Southern Alps to just 240 metres above sea level

Eglinton Valley Panorama

2010-03-13T08:02:28.523Z

Panoramic view down the Eglinton Valley near sunset. Some bad weather had already started to roll in, but the setting sun was providing some brilliant light on the mountain peaks. Evidence of the giant glacier that carved out the valley are evident all over the mountains. The giant scrapes can be clearly seen on the peaks as they rise swiftly and steeply from the valley floor. Driving from Te Anau, you pass through the Eglinton Valley on your way to Milford Sound. What is perhaps difficult to grasp at the time is just how much more amazing the scenery gets are you descend further into the mountains, especially the view as you emerge from the other side of Homer Tunnel (about 30kms down the road from this point). Do like Sabotarr did, view it large and zoom on in! Or view on black

Lake Wakatipu Sunset

2010-03-13T08:02:27.404Z

When wandering Queenstown with a camera, it is easy to become somewhat enamoured with The Remarkables. You find yourself becoming quite tunnel visioned as they continue to draw the gaze of your lens, over and over. So many beautiful sights can pass you by as you remain transfixed on that one mountain range. Stunning as it is, it often becomes a distraction. Today I walked from Queenstown to Frankton. The weather hasn't been that good and I wasn't expecting much, nor was much being delivered. However, for a brief moment on the way back, when I thought all the good light was lost, the last rays of the sun felt it necessary to make themselves known. The Remarkables remained dull, blocked out by cloud, but when I looked down the lake, towards Cecil and Walter peaks, something special was going on. What you see here is the result. Side Note: There have been many sunsets where I've seen The Remarkables lit up in a stunningly red tone. This hasn't happened while I've been here, and I'm going blame the cloud that has served only to diffuse the light as it sets. Today, the sun managed to briefly peak out from that cloud before it disappeared behind the mountains. That light was blocked from reaching the dominant mountains of the area, but turned Cecil Peak and Walter Peak into something that resembled more of a painting than an actual vista. Heed my advice: when in Queenstown, don't get mezmorized by the alpha-mountains. They won't beat you up and steal your lunch money, but they will cost you some special shots.

Whatipu Reflections

2010-03-13T08:02:24.443Z

When I first arrived in NZ July 2008 this was my first port of call for Auckland West Coast beach photography. A year and bit on I decided to go back as our weather here finally decided to be sunny for a change. Nothing has changed with this West Coast setting. The Maori descendent feeling really still makes the hairs on your neck stand up (Whatipu is steeped in Maori History). Again like last time I was the only one here this evening, apart from the end when others came for final sundown. A must place to see if you are ever in the Waitakere region.

damn, the rivers vertical!

2010-03-13T08:02:20.959Z

yes- i got soaked to the bone. and yip the lens looked like my bathrooms mirror after i have a shower- i was constantly trying to wipe the moisture off and after a second it would be dripping! have a look here: View On Black

NZ Fjordland

2010-03-13T08:02:18.633Z

Milford Sound To see the context of this picture, visit www.ariadnetrue.co.uk and the bLog at www.ariadnetrue.co.uk/atblog.html

New Zealand Guide (Cover)

2010-03-13T08:02:15.243Z

New zealand guide (Spanish-english) Chapter 3, the weather (Auckland)

Theres definitely something in the clouds!

2010-03-13T08:02:13.904Z

The wonderful Nor'West Arch over Canterbury, New Zealand.

new zealand

2010-03-13T08:02:07.314Z

on one of the days of our trip we rode the gondola up this mountain. from there you can go up even further to ride the luge and of course take some photos. as usual the weather was awesome

Thunder Over Ruahine

2010-03-13T08:02:06.524Z

Storm clouds roll in over the Ruahine Forest Park Shot yesterday during a long drive home from Napier to New Plymouth.

Flight of angels

2010-03-13T08:01:52.044Z

One of those "just mucking around" shots with slower exposures, both my daughters (in full dress up mode today) lined up perfectly with their bounces on the trampoline to really accentuate the motion effect. I did a bit of darkening around them and a touch of cloning to remove some of the background distractions but fortunately it was quite dark behind them \ dark day anyway. The tramploine safety net has provided some texture which I couldnt do much about and has given it a different look but also I think shown up the motion a little more Shot: Single RAW 1/15th sec f22 ISO400 85mm Gee this is my 5th straight shot without the ocean, :-) but :-( too, the constant and strongish onshore winds have made my favourite coast not so great lately and spare time hasnt been good either but looks like things are about to improve finally. Can't believe its been gloomy weather all weekend and 7pm Sunday night its now blue sky and no clouds!!!!

road to Arthur's Pass

2010-03-13T08:01:35.304Z

everything looked dandy, a strong Nor'wester at the start of the day turned into custard and shortly before Castle Hill... bad weather packed in

6.41am | 16.2.2010

2010-03-13T08:01:13.215Z

Red sky at night, shepherds delight. Red sky in the morning, shepherds warning. This usually relates to the weather but today in Wellington, New Zealand the weather was, warm, calm & fine & instead it related to the police finding the body of missing teenager Olivia Rutherford in the Wellington harbour near the CBD. Inquiry head Detective Senior Sergeant Paul Borrell said the death was "an absolute tragedy" but there were no suspicious circumstances. Her teachers describe her as "happy & cheerful" Very sad. RIP Olivia.

6.40am | 16.2.2010

2010-03-13T08:01:13.145Z

Fog

2010-03-13T08:01:07.375Z

Greyscale version of www.flickr.com/photos/rick0r/4307501292/ Winner of the Gameplanet Summer 2010 photo competition

seaside, boats, houses, and general shrubbery

2010-03-13T08:00:50.505Z

Up some steps and a steep path and between grass and shrubby plants I found this view of Island Bay, this is where Wellington faces the Cook Strait, and here the weather can be very interesting. Big view here 2967_68_69-2

kitesurfers

2010-03-13T08:00:18.476Z

bunked school with the kids today.............making the most of the beach weather before the cooler weather settles. lots of kitsurfers out at Eastend beach.

P2270102

2010-03-13T07:55:41.612Z

One of the hazards of riding on the city - Palmerston North - streets is the amount of glass and other obstacles that lie in wait to puncture your tyres. I have to admit that this sumer on the Masi I have encountered the least amount of punctures considering the amount of miles I've been consuming. This sumer on the fixie I've clocked up an admirable 5000k. The weather has been reasonable and the road from Ashhurst to Palmy is easily ridden.

Kaikoura Sunset

2010-03-13T07:55:32.702Z

I'm back from a beautiful few days up in North Canterbury including a couple here at the wonderful Kaikoura. It's a place known for its sea-life, whales, dolphins, seals etc -fish are especially abundant here because a deepsea current surfaces close to the coast. We didn't go out on a whale-watching tour (where they almost guarantee you will see a whale) but we did watch lots of Dusky dolphins playing just off a beach. We were lucky with our weather, it was hot and the sea was calm as you can see here. This is a view of the Kaikoura peninsula one gorgeous evening. More photos will be coming soon when I've had time to process them. Bigger

Mirror lakes, Milford Sound, New Zealand

2010-03-13T07:55:28.010Z

A visit in the Fjordland, South Island, New Zealand, is really worthwile. Even when the weather isn't so sunny. February 2010. Mirror lakes, on the road to Milford Sound.

The Chasm, Milford Sound, New Zealand

2010-03-13T07:55:27.932Z

A visit in the Fjordland, South Island, New Zealand, is really worthwile. Even when the weather isn't so sunny. February 2010. Mirror lakes, on the road to Milford Sound.

Chute d'eau en vu, Milford Sound, Nouvelle-Zélande

2010-03-13T07:55:27.862Z

A visit in the Fjordland, South Island, New Zealand, is really worthwile. Even when the weather isn't so sunny. February 2010. A waterfall in the Milford Sound, during the small cruise.

Milford Sound and Mitre Peak, New Zealand

2010-03-13T07:55:27.782Z

A visit in the Fjordland, South Island, New Zealand, is really worthwile. Even when the weather isn't so sunny. February 2010. Milford Sound and the famouns Mitre Peak.

Canon EF 17-40 4L USM for Sale (Wellington)

2010-03-13T07:55:15.212Z

For sale is an excellent condition Canon EF 17-40 4L USM lens. As new. Date Code: UX0613 Lens purchased July 2009 so is still under the one year warranty. Has been carefully looked after. Hoya Pro1 UV filter purchased same day as the lens and has been on it since. No scratch or dust. Hard to tell it's a used lens. Great as a walk around lens with its popular range 17-40 which well covers both landscape and portrait. Works well with both full-frame and 1.6x bodies with the EF mount. It could also be mounted on a SLR film body such as the Canon 5 and it will work just as perfect as on a DSLR. Lens comes with: - Original box, - 2 lens hoods, one original EW-83E and one after-market EW83J for Canon 17-55 (both works well on this lens) - Lens Case LP1319 - User Guide - Purchase receipt for warranty Basically everything you would get when buying brand new. Inspection welcome. Nothing else would make you feel more secure so bring your camera and try it out or you can use my if you don't mind. Give me a txt if you are interested on 021-1018212 Product Features 17-40mm ultra-wide-angle zoom lens with f/4 maximum aperture for Canon SLR cameras 3 aspherical lens elements and super UD glass element create superior optics in all conditions Powerful ring-type ultra-sonic monitor (USM) produces fast and silent autofocusing Focuses as close as 11 inches; supports screw-in 77mm filters or up to 3 gel filters Weather-resistant construction; measures 3.3 inches in diameter Technical Details Angle of view (Horizontal, Vertical, Diagonal): 84 to 34 degrees, 53 to 19 degrees, 74 to 29 degrees Lens construction: 12 elements in 9 groups Number of diaphragm blades: 7 Minimum aperture: 22 Closest focusing distance: 0.92 feet Maximum magnification: 0.24x (at 40mm) AF actuator: Ring USM Filter diameter: 77 millimeters Maximum diameter by length: 83.5 by 96.8 inches Weight: 17.6 ounces Magnification with Extension Tube EF 12 II: 0.83 to 0.32 Magnification with Extension Tube EF 25 II: 1.02 to 0.40 Lens hood: EW-83E Hard case: Not available Soft case: LP1319 GF Holder III (Hood III): NC GF Holder IV (Hood IV): 0

Rangitoto Ferry Balmy Day

2010-03-13T07:55:07.552Z

The windy drizzly overcast weather made for a lonely thoughtful melancholy day. Only the smart ones were on the observation deck. Auckland, New Zealand May 2008

Paradise and Beyond

2010-03-13T07:55:07.492Z

A couple of weeks ago, I did a climb up Mt Alfred in fairly murky weather to help check out the proposed course route for the Cure Kids Great Adventure Race . On the weekend I took part as a volunteer in the actual race which started from Paradise with a climb up Mt Alfred, a bike ride around the base of Mt Alfred and a run along the shore of Diamond Lake before finishing at Paradise. This view is taken from the summit of Mt Alfred looking west up the Dart Valley. The weather was absolutely stunning and Mt Alfred gives you one of the best views in the region for minimal effort (still 1000m vertical climb, but not hard going)

Delicious weather

2010-03-13T07:53:03.965Z

A herd in stormy weather. (Le Troupeau en March par un Temps Orageuse).

2010-03-13T07:52:40.725Z

Weather house

2010-03-13T07:50:57.917Z

The weather peasant, "Das schadet nit".

2010-03-13T07:44:42.206Z

The weather peasant, "Es ist kalt weter".

2010-03-13T07:44:42.115Z

Wintery weather

2010-03-13T07:43:57.367Z

3/4 view of full length portrait of Maud Herd wearing long striped suit with fur stole and muff standing on path

Bruce's Lagoon (near Masterton)

2010-03-13T07:43:32.346Z

5 men in bush (wearing wet-weather apparel) in densely covered ground

Buildings in Central Wellington

2010-03-13T07:42:31.858Z

Exterior views of the South British Insurance Company, Colonial Bank of New Zealand and the Atheneum in Lambton Quay.

Levuka, Fiji

2010-03-13T07:41:52.888Z

Road with town shops. Two 2 storey buildings with verandahs and two other buildings, opposite is a pile of timber which young children and an adult are sitting on. Main building (2 storey) has sign "Office of the Fiji Times" and beside it is a single storey with sign "W. Ledingham & Co.". Background is a hill with coconut trees.

A herd in stormy weather

2010-03-13T07:41:05.409Z

Taranaki (The heavens declare the glory of God), New Plymouth, 14 May 1986

2010-03-13T07:34:26.637Z

Corner and upper part of a weather-board building with what appears to be a hemisphere on its roof (an observatory?). To the far right is a distant Mt Taranaki. A sign reading "The heavens declare the glory of God" is attached over the window.

Detail of corner of remains of Paremata Redoubt - to show 6 different ingredients used in its construction ....

2010-03-13T07:33:59.368Z

1. Beach boulders of greywacke. 2. Blocks of friable argillite. 3. Builders' bricks. 4. Angular lumps of greywacke (fresh & weathered). 5. Angular lumps of argillite. 6. Concrete in interstices. Archaeological Excursion to Porirua Harbour and Paekakariki - Number 9 (of 9).

Cliff Road, Palmerston North : 17th April 1921

2010-03-13T07:33:22.728Z

View of rockface : bottom section well weathered

Dr JA Thompson and Rock Formation

2010-03-13T07:32:47.969Z

On Quail Island, Lyttleton Harbour Rhyolite lava weathering upwards into subsoil and soil. Note tiny (5 inch wide) vol. dyke on left. On right Dr JA Thomson, Director of Dominion Museum & palaeontologist and geologist shows scale. View of Mr Thomson stand by rockface.

[Levuka, office of the Fiji Times]

2010-03-13T07:26:08.237Z

Wintery weather

2010-03-13T07:22:38.162Z

Full length portrait of Maud Herd wearing long striped suit with fur stove and muff standing on path

New Zealand Scenery:

2010-03-13T07:21:35.803Z

Close-up view of a weathering rock surface.

H.E.L.P. for landfill design in Chile

2010-03-13T07:14:03.612Z

Leachate, the liquid that leaches through solid waste in a landfill, can potentially contaminate groundwater and surface waters. Therefore, leachate management in landfills is crucial to safeguard the environment and public health. Leachate management is a growing concern in developing countries in which environmental protection has traditionally been secondary to economic progress. An example of such a country is Chile, which has recently embarked in the design and construction of several new l...

Artificial surfaces for recreation

2010-03-13T07:14:02.082Z

Edited by J. O. Taylor A report of the proceedings of a Block Course held at Lincoln College, Canterbury, May 11-14 1981. The course was designed to study and evaluate the range of artificial surfacing material currently available for indoor and outdoor recreational facilities. This bulletin includes the full text of the following papers presented: R. J. Jones, All weather surfaces for sport and recreation. R. J. Jones, The role of asphalt in sporting surfaces. P. C. Osborne, Supreme Court. J. W. Bolton, Some considerations for alternative surfaces for outdoor recreation. G. B. Clayton, Indoor and outdoor sports surfaces. G. W. Lucking, Notes on planning of parks and children’s playgrounds. P. W. McOscar, The Pioneer Sports Stadium. Demden Industries Ltd., Artificial ice. W. B. Davis, Natural versus artificial turf. Kevin Fogarty, Crushed limestone all weather softball diamonds. D. E. Pearson, Local Authority Budgeting principles for capital works. How far to go with the user-pay principle. D. Cuseil, Design principles of squash courts. Sponsored by The N.Z. Institute of Park and Recreation Administration (Inc).

Mt Cook climbers await rescue

2010-03-13T07:12:55.433Z

Two tourists are spending a night out on Mt Cook/Aoraki in poor weather tonight.

hazy shade of summer

2010-03-13T07:11:37.985Z

sunset in Mount Cook National Park, New Zealand

Association of ground hardness with injuries in rugby union

2010-03-13T07:11:24.858Z

Background: Ground hardness is considered one of the possible risk factors associated with rugby injuries. Objectives: To examine the contribution of ground hardness, rainfall and evapotranspiration to the incidence of injury, and to investigate seasonal injury bias throughout one full season of rugby union. Methods: A prospective epidemiological study of rugby injuries was performed on 271 players from rugby union teams involved in the premier grade rugby competition in Dunedin, New Zealand. Ground hardness was measured before each match over 20 rounds with an industrial penetrometer, and local weather information was collected through the National Institute of Weather and Atmospheric Research and the Otago Regional Council. Poisson mixed models were used to describe injury incidence as a function of ground hardness throughout the season. Results: The overall injury incidence during the season was 52 injuries per 1000 match player-hours (95% CI 42 to 65). Although injury incidence decreased gradually by round with a rate ratio of 0.98 (95% CI 0.96 to 0.99) (p = 0.036), and the hardness of match grounds decreased significantly over the season (0.16 MPa/round, 95% CI 0.12 to 0.21, p<0.001), a non-significant association was demonstrated between injury incidence and ground hardness. Injury incidence was not associated with a combination of ground hardness, rainfall and evapotranspiration on the day of the match or cumulative rainfall and evapotranspiration before each match. Conclusions: Seasonal change in ground hardness and an early-season bias of injuries was demonstrated. Although the contribution of ground hardness to injury incidence was not statistically significant, match round and injury incidence were highly correlated, confirming a seasonal bias, which may confound the relationship of injury to ground condition.

Climate swings and roundabouts

2010-03-13T07:11:14.605Z

Earth receives more solar radiation per unit area at the equator than at the poles. The resulting imbalance in heat energy results in a vigorous fluid circulation in both the atmosphere and oceans, redistributing the heat around the planet. Heat is transferred via the atmosphere, which mixes globally on a one-year timeframe, and via ocean circulation, which mixes globally on a thousand-year timeframe. Natural climate change, therefore, needs to be considered over timeframes of at least several thousand years. The longest useful series of instrumental weather measurements, from Europe, is only c. 200 years long, so researchers into past climate change must look to long term geological records which, fortunately, Zealandia has in abundance.

Dust transportation and deposition in a superhumid environment, West Coast, South Island, New Zealand

2010-03-13T07:11:05.576Z

Modelling herbicide movement from farm to catchment using the swat model

2010-03-13T07:11:02.786Z

[Abstract]Water quality in Australia’s northern grains farming areas often exceeds water quality trigger values for suspended sediments, nutrients and some herbicides (CBWC, 1999). While there are many land uses in these areas that contribute to the resultant water quality, of particular concern for the grains farming industry is the widespread detection in rivers of chemicals used by their industry, namely atrazine and metolachlor. A comparison of Hodgson Creek catchment (South East Queensland, Australia) herbicide data with national water quality guidelines shows that trigger values are frequently exceeded. That water quality trigger values are exceeded is expected for a highly modified catchment such as Hodgson Creek, and the Australian New Zealand Environment and Conservation Council (ANZECC) (2000) guidelines make provision that in such catchments, locally derived targets should be set. Natural resource managers therefore require skills in linking planned management with their ability to set or meet targets. The opportunity suggested itself for using catchment modelling to set realistic targets for water quality based on the adoption of best management farming practices. This study investigated the suitability of the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) to fulfil this modelling role in an Australian context of land use management. To test the suitability of SWAT to fulfil this role, the study aimed to determine the feasibility of using the model to explicitly depict farm management practices at a paddock scale to estimate resultant catchment water quality outcomes. SWAT operates as two distinct sub-models. A hydrologic response unit (HRU) (the paddock scale model) generates runoff and constituents, and the output of many HRU are summed and routed through a stream network. The method for calibration of SWAT proposed in the user manual (Neitsch et al., 2001) is to calibrate against streamflow before calibrating sediment and then herbicides. The logic of testing in a process dependent order is sensible, however the method proposed by Neitsch et al. (2001) assumes that the HRU processes are reliable and calibration only need consider catchment scale processes. A review of the literature suggested that there had been limited testing of HRU process in studies where SWAT had been applied. Data available for model testing came from both paddock and catchment studies. The effects of cultivation management practices on runoff and erosion have been well characterised for the study area by Freebairn and Wockner (1996). Atrazine dissipation in soil and loss in runoff was available from a study of a commercial farm in the Hodgson Creek catchment (Rattray et al, 2007). An ambient and event based water quality monitoring for suspended sediments and herbicides provided data for the Hodgson Creek catchment for the period 1999 to 2004 (Rattray, unpublished data). The model required minimal calibration to achieve good predictions of crop yields and surface cover for winter crops. However, testing of summer cropping component revealed structural problems in SWAT associated with the end of a calendar year. Testing also revealed that perennial pastures and trees are modelled with unrealistic fluctuations in biomass and leaf area index. The model was able to represent hydrology well across a range of scales (1-50,000 ha). Catchment scale runoff data was well matched for a range of tillage treatments. The model was found to be able to attain a good prediction of monthly runoff at the catchment scale. This is consistent with the finding of most other SWAT studies. The model was able to represent average annual erosion reasonably well using the Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) when tested at the HRU scale (1 ha) against a range of tillage management data. When tested at the catchment scale the model was found to be able to match average annual sediment loads for the catchment however annual variability in sediment loads was poorly matched. Testing of the herbicide model for SWAT found that model compared poorly with paddock scale trial data. The reason for poor model performance can be attributed to an inadequate representation of processes and model output was unrealistic compared to our understanding of herbicide transport processes. When the model was tested at a catchment scale it was found to compare very poorly with catchment scale observations. This can be explained in part by the deficiencies of the HRU herbicide model, but is also due in part to difficulties in parameterisation of spatial and temporal inputs at the catchment scale. While SWAT provides a model with detailed physical processes, the capacity to apply the model is let down by an ability to practically determine the spatial and temporal extent of the farming practices (i.e. where and when are tillage and herbicides applied in the catchment). The challenge to applying SWAT is that farming practices in Australia vary markedly from year to year. SWAT requires the user to input crop practices in as a fixed rotation while Australia’s highly variable climate with unreliable seasonal weather patterns results in opportunistic farming practices. Hence this is a major limitation in the models ability to predict catchment outcomes, particularly for herbicides where off site losses are highly dependant on application timing. In attempting to validate herbicide losses at the whole of catchment scale it became apparent that uncertainty in the temporal variation of farm operations within the catchment poses a major limitation to accurately reproducing observations at the catchment outlet. It is concluded that that there is limited usefulness of SWAT for investigating the impacts of land management on catchment scale herbicide transport for Australian conditions.

Holocene record of trans-Tasman dust transport: quantifying dust emissions from eastern Australia using geocheical proxies

2010-03-13T07:10:52.836Z

The transport of dust from the arid and semi-arid source regions of central and eastern Australia and its subsequent deposition in New Zealand is investigated using geochemical proxies of contemporary and geologic (Holocene) records of dust export. Australian dusts are characterized using a geochemical fingerprinting technique that allows their provenance to be established. Certain elements were found to be affected by pollution, mineral sorting, weathering/solubility, or method constraints and were not useful for provenancing dusts. The relative abundance of 20 other elements were found to reflect the chemistry of source area sediments and can be used to provenance long-range Australian dust deposited in New Zealand. This is achieved by matching the trace element chemistry of dusts believed to have undergone long-range trans-Tasman transport with those of potential Australian source areas, allowing the source area of the dust to be established at geologic-catchment scale - a spatial resolution not previously achieved. To account for dust from multiple source areas being transported during trans-Tasman dust transport events, and the contamination of long-range Australian dust deposited in New Zealand by local material, a mixing model was developed to determine the relative contribution of up to three source areas in contributing dust to the deposited sample. The application of this model allowed the first continuous records of dust emissions from eastern Australian to be constructed in New Zealand. In addition, this model also allowed Australian dust deposition rates in New Zealand to be linked directly to changes in source area conditions for the first time. The variability in, and controls on contemporary rates of Australian dust transport over New Zealand were established using an 11 year record of weekly atmospheric concentrations of the radio-nuclide 210Pb from New Zealand. Lead-210 is the daughter product of 222Rn, a gas which escapes into the atmosphere from continental crust. Consequently, concentrations of 222Rn (and by analogy 210Pb) are high over Australia, while they are very low in oceanic settings such as New Zealand. Lead-210 is extremely particle reactive, so once formed in the atmosphere, attaches immediately to aerosols implying it could be used as a dust tracer. Lead-210 activity was measured on dusts collected from New Zealand that had previously been determined to be at least partly of Australian origin using the trace element provenance model. In addition, 210Pb activity was also measured on the source sediments of these samples (from both New Zealand and Australia), also established using the trace element model. Results showed that 210Pb activity in the dust samples was orders of magnitude higher than in source sediments. This is because dust scavenges 210Pb from the atmosphere, thereby showing that 210Pb is a highly effective proxy measure of dust. Lead-210 activity in the long-range dusts collected from New Zealand was found to be related to the percentage of Australia material in a linear fashion. As a result, atmospheric 210Pb concentration data from New Zealand was converted into the first high resolution, decadal record of Australian dust flux. Clear seasonality was apparent, with dust flux highest in autumn-winter following summer river flows in dust source which results in sediment being unavailable for aeolian transport. Inter-annual variability in dust concentrations also occurred and this was postulated to be associated with the El Niño – Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon and its relationship to the hydro-meteorology of dust source areas in Australia. Consequently, it was concluded that the condition and availability of sediment within dust source areas is a major control on Australian dust emission rates. A Holocene record of Australian dust deposition in New Zealand was constructed from a peat core extracted from an alpine ombrotrophic rain-fed mire in Central Otago, New Zealand. The dust content of the core was determined by combusting the organic component, leaving the mineral dust. Dust samples through the core were analysed by ICP-MS and their provenance was established. This showed that dust in the core was primarily of Australian origin. Four phases of significant Australian dust deposition were identified in the ~8000 year old core; 1) a period of low dust deposition (0.142 g m-2 yr-1) from 7000 to 5000 B.P corresponding to a lacusterine phase in Lake Eyre, the most important Australian dust source; 2) a marked increase in dust deposition after 5000 B.P (0.577 g m-2 yr-1) coincident with Lake Eyre entering an ephemeral playa stage, and at the same time as global proxies suggest enhanced ENSO variability; 3) a peak in the deposition of Australian dust between 2500-1700 B.P (1.558 g m-2 yr-1) corresponding with a period of heightened ENSO variability; and 4) a return to lower dust deposition after 700 B.P (0.2984 g m-2 yr-1). The dust deposition record in the core is therefore an excellent proxy of climate variability and associated environmental change, with high dust deposition occurring during periods of marked climate instability. In particular, Australian dust was found to serve as an excellent proxy for ENSO intensity as it is a significant control on climate variability in the region. The dust transport and deposition rates measured by this study show that Australia has been a significnat source of dust in the Southern Hemisphere throughout the mid to late Holocene. Average contemporary Australian dust concentrations measured in New Zealand of 5.3 ?g m-3 are comparable to dust concentrations downwind of other major global dust sources such as the Sahara measured at Miami, Florida. In addition, Australian dust deposition rates in the peat core from New Zealand were also comparable to rates of long-range dust deposition in many other settings, such as the deposition of North African dust in the European Alps. As a result, Australian dust transport is likely to play a significant role in bio-geophysical systems in the region, such as soil formation, with Australian dust found to contribute between 50-100% of mineral content in some New Zealand settings.

High-Wire Dancers: Middle-Class Pakeha and Dutch Childhoods in New Zealand

2010-03-13T07:10:32.656Z

The Ministry of Social Development, Building Research Capacity in the Social Sciences Doctoral Research Award, The New Zealand-Netherlands Foundation, The Anthropology Department,University of Auckland.In contemporary New Zealand discourses the 1950s, 1960s and the early 1970s are seen as the era of the ‘Golden Weather’. This time came to an end when social change on an unprecedented scale took place from the end of the 1960s onwards. During the 1980s and 1990s the changes became very rapid due to transformations as part of the neoliberal reforms. Neoliberalism established new ways of governing the self through discourses of personal reflection, flexibility and choice as well notions of uncertainty, instability and risk. Risk discourses can be found at different junctures in New Zealand’s history, but contemporary discourses surrounding the self and childhood have shifted risk discourses in new ways. This has led to new regimes of rationality and practices of childhood and an increased governance of children and their families. This research documents the contexts and the interrelationships which influenced the new regimes of rationality and governance of childhoods in New Zealand. It also discusses the way a range of contradictory and conflictual cultural repertoires are negotiated and reproduced in the middle classes. In the last decades Pakeha and Dutch middle-class families in New Zealand have faced the prospect of declining fortunes. They have therefore adopted a cultural logic of childrearing which stresses the concerted cultivation of children. These regimes of concerted cultivation include risk discourses which affect everyday relationships and practices. This more global middle-class regime coexists with a local regime based on the New Zealand narrative of the time of the ‘Golden Weather’. Within this local repertoire a ‘typical’ New Zealand childhood is seen as safe and quite relaxed. This perceived childhood space is filled with beaches and other activities associated with nature which give children the opportunity and freedom to explore and develop a distinct Kiwi self. This local figuration is in contradiction with the often hectic pace of concerted cultivation and the anxieties surrounding risk discourses. Dutch middle-class parents in New Zealand also use concerted cultivation and they have adopted some of their host country’s figurations surrounding childhood and the outdoors. However, there is a difference in emphasis as Dutch parental narratives of self are more focussed on relationships with people rather than nature.

The causes of nest failure and effects of inbreeding depression in a historically small population of New Zealand Stewart Island robins

2010-03-13T07:10:11.167Z

Inbreeding depression is one of the factors that can increase the risk of extinction of small populations, and therefore understanding its effects is currently an important issue in conservation biology. Until recently, few studies on inbreeding depression were carried out in wild populations. These recent studies have highlighted the variability in detecting inbreeding depression among natural populations and the multitude of factors that can influence its expression. Many of the factors affecting inbreeding depression in wild populations remain largely unexplored and most of the recent studies in this area have tended to focus on incidents of inbreeding in populations with a history of large population size. The aim of this study is to investigate the relative importance inbreeding depression has had on individual fitness parameters in a population of New Zealand's Stewart Island robins Petroica australis rakiura introduced to Ulva Island. This island population has historically gone through several population bottlenecks. Four main factors that potentially influence the rate of inbreeding and the extent of inbreeding depression, were investigated: environmental variability, life history stage, genetic load and dispersal. Generalized Linear Mixed Modelling was first used to determine how weather affected nest survival. Weather effects were then incorporated into models containing demographic factors to control for environmental variability, and finally parental, maternal and paternal inbreeding co-efficients (=f) were added to models to determine the relative importance of inbreeding depression. Interactions between inbreeding depression and environmental factors were explored. Three different life history stages were compared to determine the differences in inbreeding depression at each stage as well as cumulative effects over time. The genetic load of the population was estimated using lethal equivalents allowing for standardised comparison of inbreeding depression with other species. The likelihood of inbreeding in the population was also explored by investigating the factors affecting dispersal patterns and evaluating evidence for inbreeding avoidance. Inbreeding depression was found to be mild in the robin population. Weather did not have strong effects on nest survival or interactions with inbreeding. Female age was the only factor interacting with inbreeding, with younger inbred females experiencing significantly reduced offspring juvenile survival. Parental and paternal f did not significantly affect brood survival at any life history stage, however, maternal f showed significant effects on nest juvenile survival with the strongest effect occurring when survival was examined cumulatively over all life history stages. The Stewart Island robin had a relatively low lethal equivalent value compared to the closely related North Island robin and other avian species. This difference was associated with the Stewart Island robin having a low genetic load, most likely due to historical genetic purging during periods of population bottleneck. The Ulva Island robin population did not appear to be avoiding inbreeding through dispersal. Dispersal distance was most strongly influenced by the location of the natal nest of the dispersing offspring. In conclusion, the genetic history of the population was likely to have had the strongest impact on the severity of inbreeding depression in the Ulva Island robin population. The results of the thesis highlight the need to examine a number of factors to be able to explain variability in inbreeding depression among populations.

Noise in early childhood education centres: the effects on the children and their teachers : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand

2010-03-13T07:05:58.902Z

Although the effects of noise on children’s learning in school classrooms is well documented, there is very little on the effects of noise on preschool children. There are strict legal requirements for the daily noise exposure an adult worker can received in the workplace but nothing to control the noise children can receive in school and early education. There is also little or no data on how sound affects a child, compared to an adult. The early years of life are critical for the development of speech, hearing and auditory processes, as well as being the most vulnerable time for middle ear infections. This work sets out to determine the typical noise levels in early childhood centres and the effects on a range of children and their teachers. Reverberation times in most centres were found to well exceed the 0.6 seconds prescribed by the Australasian standard for schools and learning spaces. Very high levels of noise were recorded in a number of centres with a significant number of children and staff members, exceeding the maximum daily sound exposure of 100% permitted for workers in industry. A range of special needs children were identified as being particularly at-risk to noise, with the most adverse outcomes reported for those experiencing sensory integration disorder. Yet, even though high levels of noise were recorded, the majority of respondents in a survey of teachers rated the lack of sufficient space for the number of children present as the main issue, and inclement weather as the greatest environmental condition contributing to noise (by confining children indoors, especially over long periods of time). Hearing tests on the children were not permitted under the strict human ethics criteria to which this study had to conform, but simple hearing tests on a small group of teachers, revealed that hearing loss could be a serious occupational health issue. The legal issues of noise control and management in early childhood education have been addressed in this thesis, current legal frameworks reviewed, and recommendations presented for future consideration.

Physical activity and obesity in children: measurement, associations, and recommendations

2010-03-13T07:05:54.472Z

Widespread increases in the prevalence of childhood obesity have raised the prospect of serious public health consequences in many countries. New Zealand is no exception; according to the most recent national estimates, approximately one in three children is overweight or obese. As a consequence, an understanding of the specific risk factors that predict this condition in children is becoming increasingly important. It is generally accepted that the promotion of physical activity is a key strategy for reducing the risk of childhood obesity. However, there is limited information describing physical activity and its relationship with body fatness in young New Zealanders. The overall aim of this thesis was to gain insight into the associations between excess fatness and physical activity in New Zealand children from a diverse range of socio-demographic groups. Three related studies were conducted to achieve this aim: a large descriptive survey of obesity and physical activity patterns in primary-aged children, and two preceding studies which develop the methodology for objective assessment of physical activity in this population. The first study provided the only validation data for the NL-2000 multiday memory (MDM) pedometer in children. In a sample of 85 participants aged 5-7 and 9-11 years, the NL-2000 offered similar accuracy and better precision than the widely used SW-200 pedometer (NL-2000: mean bias = -8.5 ± 13.3%; SW-200: mean bias = -8.6 ± 14.7%). The second study investigated reactivity to wearing pedometers over four 24-hour testing periods in 62 children aged 5-11 years. The sample was divided into two groups: one was given a full explanation of the function of the pedometer, while the other received no information prior to testing. The absence of significant differences in step counts between the first and last test periods indicated that there was no evidence of reactivity to this device for either preparation procedure. The central study presented in this thesis was the measurement of physical activity, body composition, and dietary patterns in 1,226 children aged 5-12 years, from which four chapters (4-7) were derived. The sample was ethnically diverse, with 46.8% European, 33.1% Polynesian, 15.9% Asian, and 4.1% from other ethnicities. Physical activity levels over three weekdays and two weekend days were assessed using NL 2000 pedometers. Percentage body fat (%BF) was determined using hand-to-foot bioelectrical impedance analysis with a prediction equation previously developed for New Zealand children. Waist and hip girths, height, and weight were measured using standard anthropometric techniques. Parent proxy questionnaires were used to assess demographic and lifestyle factors and pedometer compliance. The first reported analyses of this dataset (Chapter 4) examined the effect of weather conditions on children’s activity levels. In boys, a 10ºC rise in ambient temperature was associated with a 10.5% increase in weekday steps and a 26.4% increase in weekend steps. Equivalent temperature changes affected girls’ step counts on weekdays only (16.2% increase). Precipitation also had a substantial impact, with decreases in weekday and weekend step counts during moderate rainfall ranging from 8.3% to 16.3% across all sex, age, and socioeconomic (SES) groups. The aim of Chapter 5 was to understand the relationship between children’s step counts and their body mass index (BMI), waist circumference (WC), and %BF. Mean step counts for this sample were 16,133 ± 3,864 (boys) and 14,124 ± 3,286 (girls) on weekdays, and 12,702 ± 5,048 (boys) and 11,158 ± 4,309 (girls) on weekends. Significant associations were detected between steps.day-1 and both WC and %BF, but not between steps.day-1 and BMI. The findings in Chapter 6 extended these results by estimating the number of steps required to reduce the risk of excess adiposity in children (16,000 and 13,000 steps.day-1 for boys and girls, respectively). Finally, the study described in Chapter 7 examined the associations between excess adiposity and a series of demographic and lifestyle variables, providing the first assessment of body fat correlates in young New Zealanders. Our results indicated that children aged 11-12 years were 15.4 times more likely to be overfat (boys, %BF ≥ 25%; girls, %BF ≥ 30%) than those aged 5-6 years. In addition, the odds of overfat were 1.8 times greater in Asian children than in European children, and 2.7 times greater in the low SES group when compared with the high SES group. Three modifiable behaviours related to fat status were also identified: low physical activity, skipping breakfast, and insufficient sleep on weekdays. Clustering of these risk factors resulted in a cumulative increase in the prevalence of overfat.

A New Technique for Measuring Runup Variation Using Sub-Aerial Video Imagery

2010-03-13T07:05:45.072Z

Video monitoring of beaches is becoming the preferred method for observing changes to nearshore morphology. Consequently this work investigates a new technique for predicting the probability of inundation that is based on measuring runup variation using video. Runup is defined as the water-level elevation maxima on the foreshore relative to the still water level and the waterline is defined as the position where the MWL intersects the beach face. Tairua, and Pauanui Beaches, on the north east coast of the North Island of New Zealand, were used as the field site in this study and represent two very different beaches with the same incoming wave and meteorological conditions. Tairua is most frequently in an intermediate beach state, whereas Pauanui is usually flatter in nature. In order to rectify runup observations, an estimate of the runup elevation was needed (Z). This was estimated by measuring the variation of the waterline over a tidal cycle from time-averaged video images during a storm event and provided beach morphology statistics (i.e. beach slope (α) and beach intercept (b)) used in the rectification process where Z=aX+b. The maximum swash excursions were digitized from time-stacks, and rectified to provide run-up timeseries with duration 20 minutes. Field calibrations revealed a videoed waterline that was seaward of the surveyed waterline. Quantification of this error gave a vertical offset of 0.33m at Tairua and 0.25m at Pauanui. At Tairua, incident wave energy was dominant in the swash zone, and the runup distributions followed a Rayleigh distribution. At Pauanui, the flatter beach, the runup distributions were approximately bimodal due to the dominance of infragravity energy in the swash signal. The slope of the beach was a major control on the runup elevation; runup at Pauanui was directly affected by the deepwater wave height and the tide, while at Tairua there was no correlation. Overall, the results of the study indicate realistic runup measurements, over a wide range of time scales and, importantly, during storm events. However, comparisons of videoed runup and empirical runup formulae revealed larger deviations as the beach steepness increased. Furthur tests need to be carried out to see if this is a limitation of this technique, used to measure runup. The runup statistics are consistently higher at Tairua and suggests that swash runs up higher on steeper beaches. However, because of the characteristics of flatter beaches (such as high water tables and low drainage efficiencies) the impact of extreme runup elevations on such beaches are more critical in regards to erosion and/ or inundation. The coastal environment is of great importance to Māori. Damage to the coast and coastal waahi tapu (places of spiritual importance) caused by erosion and inundation, adversely affects the spiritual and cultural well-being of Māori. For this reason, a chapter was dedicated to investigating the practices used by Māori to protect and preserve the coasts in accordance with tikanga Māori (Māori protocols). Mimicking nature was and still is a practice used by Māori to restore the beaches after erosive events, and includes replanting native dune plants and using natural materials on the beaches to stabilize the dunes. Tapu and rahui (the power and influence of the gods) were imposed on communities to prohibit and prevent people from free access to either food resources or to a particular place, in order to protect people and/ or resources. Interpretations of Māori oral histories provide insights into past local hazards and inform about the safety and viability of certain activities within an area. Environmental indicators were used to identify and forecast extreme weather conditions locally. Māori knowledge of past hazards, and the coastal environment as a whole, is a valuable resource and provides a unique source of expertise that can contribute to current coastal hazards management plans in New Zealand and provide insights about the areas that may again be impacted by natural hazards.

Towards a Better Understanding of Coastal Cliff Erosion in Waitemata Group Rock; Auckland, New Zealand.

2010-03-13T07:05:41.322Z

The soft sedimentary deposits of the Waitemata Group which outcrop on the eastern coastline of the Auckland region are a coastal cliff erosion hazard. The determination of the rate that these cliffs erode for hazard zonation purposes still requires research. A database has been collated of a range of structural, geological, geomorphic and climate parameters from 16 representative cliff sites in order to statistically assess what parameters influence cliff erosion and why erosion rates vary within the relatively uniform geology. Four different lithological units have been defined: sandstone beds of turbidites; sandstone beds of densites (contain rip-up clasts); sand to gravel beds of debrites; and siltstone beds. Cliff rock has very weak to weak intact rock strength; apertures of 0.1 to 15 mm; infill types are soft clay and grit, and hard calcite and iron; spacing of discontinuities are smaller in siltstone beds (≥ 5 mm), and up to 5 m in sandstone and debrite beds; bedding and fault planes are continuous, joints are non-continuous; block size is dictated by bed thickness and non-continuous joints. Shore platform widths were used to determine long-term erosion rates which range from 1.2 to 53.0 mm y-1. Platform morphologies are either sloping or horizontal or are a combination of both. Higher platform benches found at some sites are considered to be the result of a higher period of sea-level or are high-tide benches. Intact and rock mass strength increases northwards. Cliff heights are 8 to 38 m; cliff angles are 51 to 79 . Conditions for sporadic planar and wedge failure were determined at some sites; frittered siltstone and low durability sandstone allow smaller-scale, continual erosion. Castor Bay, Army Bay, Waiwera Beach and Leigh Marine Reserve have the lowest rock mass quality. Musick Point, Narrowneck Beach and Waiake Bay have good rock mass quality. A conceptual model for coastal cliff erosion has been developed for Waitemata Group coastal cliffs, based on the dominant processes that act on the cliffs determined from statistical analysis (student t-test, correlation and regression) and field observations. The primary factor for cliff erosion is bed dip, whereby seaward dipping beds have higher erosion rates than landward dipping beds. The secondary factors for cliff erosion include: the intact and rock mass strength of the rock; the rock mass quality; strength of the siltstone beds; strength and structure of the sandstone beds; and orientation of the bedding planes with respect to the cliff face. Shear stresses are enhanced when beds dip seaward and thus shear failure along continuous surfaces is achievable. When beds dip landward the influence of shear stresses along bedding planes, and their contribution to the removal of individual blocks of rock, is severely inhibited resulting in reduced rates of erosion. There is no relationship between cliff height and erosion rates and cliff heights are mainly controlled by the pre-existing landscape. Cliff angle is controlled by the proportion of sandstone and siltstone (whereby lower cliff angles are more siltstone-dominated), rock mass strength and weathering. Erosion rates do vary in Waitemata Group rock of the Auckland region because of the variation in structural and geomorphic conditions of the cliff, most strongly controlled by the dip angle of bedding planes.

Risk analysis associated with flank failure from Putauaki, Bay of Plenty, New Zealand

2010-03-13T07:05:40.062Z

Volcanoes are dynamic evolving structures, with life cycles that are punctuated by episodes of flank instability. Putauaki (Mount Edgecumbe) is a stratovolcano located onshore in the Bay of Plenty, New Zealand. The aim of this study was to assess the stability of Putauaki and analyse the risk associated with volcanic collapse. To achieve this objective, a multidisciplinary approach was used, incorporating geomorphological and geological mapping, rock mass classification, laboratory testing to identify geotechnical properties of materials representative of the volcano, stability modelling, and analysis of landslide run-out zones. Putauaki comprises two predominant features including the larger and younger Main Cone (the summit lying 820 m a.s.l., slope angles up to 36 ), and smaller and older Main Dome (the summit lying 420 m a.s.l., slope angle of 24 ). Both features show little evidence of erosion or surface water. Rock mass description defined six lithotechnical units including indurated andesite, indurated dacite, scoriaceous andesite, altered andesite (all categorised as hard rocks), and block and ash flow and Matahina Ignimbrite (both categorised as soft rocks). The uniaxial compressive strength (UCS) of indurated andesite and indurated dacite was 60 4 MPa and 44.7 0.9 MPa respectively, correlating with moderately strong rock. Discontinuities of the indurated units were widely spaced, showed medium persistence and wide aperture, and were slightly weathered. Infill comprised predominantly loosely packed, very strong, coarse gravel. UCS of scoriaceous andesite and altered andesite was 25 5 MPa and 15 1 MPa respectively, allowing categorisation as very weak rock. Discontinuities of scoriaceous andesite were widely spaced, showed high persistence and wide aperture, and were moderately weathered. Discontinuities of the altered andesite were moderately spaced, showed low persistence and wide aperture, and were highly weathered. Infill of scoriaceous and altered andesite was loosely packed, moist, weak to very weak medium gravel. The block and ash flow was a poorly sorted, loosely packed, sandy, gravely and cobble rich matrix supported deposit. The Matahina Ignimbrite was a very weak, discontinuity-poor deposit. Shear box testing indicated cohesion and friction angle of 0 MPa and 42.1 (block and ash flow) and 1.4 x 10-3 MPa and 41.7 (Matahina Ignimbrite) respectively. These values are similar to published values. Correlation of each lithotechnical unit to its respective rock mass description site allowed approximate boundaries of each unit to be mapped. Each unit's mass strength was combined with measured bulk densities and incorporated into two dimensional slope profiles using the stability modelling package GalenaTM. Ten slope profiles of Putauaki were constructed. Failure surfaces for each slope profile were defined using the Bishop simplified multiple analysis method. Four slope profiles showed the potential for small scale failure (less than 0.1 km2 of material). The remaining six slope profiles showed the potential for large scale failure (greater than 0.1 km2 of material). Stability of these six slope profiles was investigated further in relation to earthquake force, watertable elevation, and a disturbance factor of the rock mass (D). Conditions of failure graphs for profile 6a showed that at low D (less than 0.4), earthquake forces and watertable elevation must be unrealistically high for the region (greater than 0.33 g; greater than 15% watertable elevation) in order produce a factor of safety less than 1. The remaining five slope profiles showed potential to be unstable under realistic earthquake forces and watertable elevations. Two of these profiles were unable to achieve stability at D greater than 0.8 (profile 4) and D greater than 0.9 (profile 5). A D value of 0.6 (intermediate between 0.4 and 0.8) is argued to most realistically represent Putauaki. The fact that Putauaki has not undergone large scale failure to date supports the conclusion that the constructed models overestimate the influence of those factors which promote slope instability. Maximum and minimum landslide run-out zones were constructed for the slope profiles exhibiting the potential for large scale failure. Definition of the position and extent of maximum and minimum run-out zones assumed H/L (fall height to run-out length) ratios of 0.09 and 0.18 respectively, as well as the 'credible flow path' concept. Identified impacts of landslides sourced from Putauaki include inundation of Kawerau Township, Tarawera River, forestry operations, road networks, and power supplies. Based on these impacts, the risk posed by landslides from each slope profile was categorised as ranging from relatively low to relatively high. Landslides sourced from the south-west flanks pose a relatively low risk due to their prerequisite of unrealistically high watertable elevations and earthquake forces. Landslides sourced from the north-west flanks pose a relatively high risk as minimum run-out will inundate north-east parts of Kawerau Township. Landslides sourced from the eastern flanks pose a moderate risk due to their run-out zones avoiding Kawerau Township.

Shore Platform observation at Tatapouri and Mahia Peninsula, New Zealand

2010-03-13T07:05:38.532Z

Measuring the shore platform width might be an effective way to measure the rate of coastal retreat. The processes controlling shore platforms are a highly debated topic throughout the coastal science community. Some researchers believe that marine processes control them and other researchers believe that physical weathering is responsible. This study determined the relationship between rock mass classification systems and shore platform widths as a diagnostic tool to predict the rate of recession. Testing took place along the Mahia Peninsula and Tatapouri on the East Coast of New Zealand. A Garmin eTrex hand-held GPS unit was used to map both the cliff base position and the edge boundary of the shore platform. Data analysis for Mahia Peninsula showed a linear relationship with a r2 value of 68% with a negative regression line. The data for Tatapouri showed that there was no linear relationship, but has an r2 value of 68% when a polynomial fit to the 2nd order was apply to the data (appendix). The estimated rate of erosion, ranges from 0.61 to 17.8 0.06 mm y-1 for Mahia Peninsula and 1.32 to 16.45 0.08 mm y-1 for Tatapouri.

Winter Leaf Yellowing in 'Hass' Avocado

2010-03-13T07:05:37.582Z

The New Zealand avocado industry is worth $39.7 million in exports of 'Hass' avocados. Crop yields grew steadily from 1996 to 2001 to reach an average of 8.86 tonnes/ha. Since then however, crop yields have remained steady. To increase returns to growers, crop yields must increase. Avocado leaves in New Zealand become yellow in winter and it is hypothesised that chilling, followed by photoinhibition, is leading to photooxidation. Leaf yellowing leads to reduced photosynthetic capacity and early leaf abscission, at a time when carbon fixation and carbohydrate reserves are needed to support developing flowers, subsequent fruit set and vegetative flush, in addition to the existing mature crop. The focus of this research was to determine the underlying causes of yellowing in 'Hass' avocado leaves during winter. It is suspected that it is a result of the creation of free-radical oxygen that causes photooxidation of leaf components under excess light during low temperature conditions, such as experienced on clear winter mornings in the Bay of Plenty. An orchard in Katikati, in the Bay of Plenty, New Zealand was selected has it had a history of leaf yellowing. Two open flow, differential gas exchange measurement systems, The CIRAS-1 and the CMS-400 were used to monitor leaf photosynthetic performance over the course of the 2006 winter, with particular focus on the month of August. Chlorophyll a fluorescence was measured with a Walz Mini-PAM, leaf colour with a Minolta Chroma meter CR-200b and chlorophyll content with Minolta SPAD chlorophyll meter (in addition to traditional extraction techniques). There was conclusive evidence that the cold nights resulted in decreased net photosynthesis over the winter, with the depression starting in May and ending around the middle of August, dates that coincide closely with the period when days with mean temperatures less than 10 C occurred. The decrease in photosynthesis appears to be due to a direct effect on the carbon reduction pathway and in unusual in that full recovery seems to occur at the same time during the day. No photodamage of significance was found and the avocado seems to be highly protected against high light when photosynthesis is inhibited. This investigation found that leaf yellowing is not caused by photodamage following depressed photosynthesis. A new hypothesis is proposed which suggests that leaf yellowing is produced by the re-allocation of nitrogen from leaves during cold weather during flowering. It is suggested that the chilled leaves are seen as unproductive, old or shaded leaves by the plant and nutrient resources are re-allocated away from these leaves. A foliar application of 1% low biuret urea and 0.5% magnesium sulphate is currently used by avocado growers to restore leaf colour in leaves that have become yellow over winter. An experiment was carried out on yellowed leaves on 23rd August 2006 to determine the effectiveness of the treatment. This study concluded that the treatment was able to restore some leaf colour, but had no effect on leaf photosynthetic function.

An Investigation of visitor behaviour in recreation and tourism settings: a case study of natural hazard management at the Glaciers, Westland National Park, New Zealand.

2010-03-13T07:05:08.323Z

Visitor non-compliance with protective recommendations is a major problem faced by recreational managers within natural environments. Although many studies have been conducted on noncompliant visitor behaviour within natural resource areas, few attempts have been made to gain an understanding of the behaviour, or to understand the decision making process. This dissertation seeks to address this gap by exploring salient motivations behind noncompliant behaviour within a natural recreation setting. The study was conducted over the summer of 2007-2008 within the popular tourist attractions of Fox and Franz Josef glaciers, Westland National park, New Zealand. The Department of Conservation has a legal and increasingly a moral obligation to provide a level of service and ensure a high standard of visitor safety within lands it administers. However, despite its efforts, management actions are criticised as being ‘over cautious’, and consequently a large number of visitors choose to ignore hazard warnings communicated by management and cross safety barriers, placing themselves and others at considerable risk. Previous studies at the glaciers have identified a number of causes for visitor non-compliance, including situational factors and the adequacy of current visitor management procedures. Through a quantitative measure, and qualitative interview responses, study findings show that visitor compliance with protective recommendations was strongly influenced by a number of situational factors including the proximity of track end points from the glacier terminus; the visibility of other visitors beyond the roped barriers; modest hazard perceptions of visitors; estimated visitor age; time of day and weather conditions. Based on visitor interview responses, motives of non-compliance were further explored by classifying behaviour according to Gramann and Vander Stoep’s (1987) typologies of normative violations. It is identified, using Ajzen’s (1985; 1991) theory of planned behaviour, that non-compliance with protective recommendations at the glaciers is motivated by, (1) a ‘belief’ that the situation or resource encouraged it; (2), through a release of ‘social pressure’, because everyone else was going over; and (3), a ‘perceived facilitation of the behaviour’, in that there were no obvious consequences to self or others. Implications for management to control noncompliant behaviour are discussed in detail.

A bioeconomic analysis of marine reserves for Paua (Abalone) management at Stewart Island, New Zealand

2010-03-13T07:04:55.953Z

Marine reserves have increasingly been recognised for their potential to address the pervasive problem of unsustainable harvest of fisheries worldwide. Biologists advocate the benefits of increased spawning biomass, larger modal sizes and greater densities of fish within marine reserves, and the possibility of spillover to adjacent fishable areas. Bioeconomic studies, however, find that pay-offs from stand-alone marine reserves rarely compete with sustainable yield management schemes, but that they can be beneficial when stocks are heavily exploited. Most of these bioeconomic models are analytical and deterministic in nature, and therefore ignore the redistribution of effort in response to closure and the inherent uncertainty of the marine environment. We present a bioeconomic analysis of a network of no-take areas around Stewart Island in New Zealand applied to the shellfish species paua (abalone) that incorporates both predicted redistribution and reduction in effort, as well as stochastic recruitment. A nested logit model is applied to spatially recorded catch and effort data by the Ministry of Fisheries between 1998 and 2003 to capture the two level decision-making process of divers. On any given day, divers decide whether to go diving at all, and if so, which of the 16 statistical areas around Stewart Island to visit. Weather conditions, spatially varying levels of catch per unit of effort and distance are used as explanatory variables to select areas for closure according to the ’least economic impact’ in terms of loss of diving trips. An age-structured biological model is developed with parameters specifically applied to paua stocks around Stewart Island. Virgin paua biomass as of 1974 is estimated on the basis of growth, survival, post-larval recruitment and egg production in the absence of fishing. Historic catch rates are then applied to find overall and area-specific levels of exploitation rates, spawning biomass, egg production, legal biomass and numbers of paua. In a final step, the economic model is linked to the biological model to simulate the imposition of no-take areas when taking account of the initial disproportional shift of harvest to fished areas in the first year, and the increase in overall pressure on legal biomass in the years thereafter. We contribute to the marine reserve debate by showing that in the very long run, the overall yield under closure of a relatively small area approaches and even slightly surpasses the yield under no closure for an assumed spillover gradient of 40% despite the redistribution of effort. The most important benefits of marine reserves emerge when stochastic recruitment is included in the recruitment function. In practice, predictions about the stock status and the impact of different harvest levels become much more difficult when acknowledging the inherent variability of the marine environment. The likelihood of stock collapse depends on the assumed value of two recruitment parameters, which highlights the effects of parameter uncertainty and emphasizes the role of marine reserves for population persistence. We also show that under uncertainty average yields under a management regime of a network of no-take areas in addition to the quota system can equal yields under no closure for an assumed spillover gradient of 40%, despite the increased pressure on areas adjacent to the closed areas. Our findings have significant implications for the management of the paua fishery at Stewart Island. For a heterogeneously abundant species, such as paua, spatial management in addition to quota limits could be vital in ensuring the long-term sustainability of the fishery given the inherent variability of the marine environment.

Ecological interactions between the trematode parasite Maritrema novaezealandensis (Microphallidae) and its intermediate hosts in the New Zealand intertidal soft-sediment community

2010-03-13T07:04:55.883Z

Most, if not all, animals will at some stage in their lives encounter parasites. Some of the most widespread and abundant parasites belong to the Class Trematoda. Trematodes often have a substantial negative impact on individual intermediate host ecology. In this thesis, I investigate ecological and evolutionary consequences of the interaction between the microphallid trematode, Maritrema novaezealandensis, and its intermediate snail and crustacean hosts. Parasites often show a heterogeneous spatial distribution pattern in natural animal host populations. In this study, factors determining the spatial distribution of larval trematodes in Zeacumantus subcarinatus were investigated at two spatial scales (within and among bays). The distribution of shorebird definitive hosts explained a significant amount of the variation in the distribution of trematodes among bays. However, within a bay, other factors override the effect of bird distribution. The influence of larval trematodes on reproduction, survival and population density of Z. subcarinatus was investigated using laboratory and field studies. In the laboratory, it was found that larval trematodes induce castration and mortality of Z. subcarinatus. The field study revealed that the local prevalence of trematodes had a significant negative effect on population density of Z. subcarinatus. Through castration, trematodes act as strong selective agents on snail host life history. The effect of trematodes on life history characteristics (reproductive effort, juvenile growth, size at maturity and susceptibility to trematode infections) were investigated among natural populations of Z subcarinatus. Reproductive effort was not higher for uninfected females from populations where the risk of becoming infected was high. However, offspring from those populations were significantly larger, and laboratory-reared juveniles grew significantly faster than conspecifics from other populations. In addition, size at maturity was negatively correlated with trematode prevalence across snail populations. Z. subcarinatus thus adapts to a high local risk of trematode infection by reaching maturity early, thereby increasing the chance of reproducing. The influence of M. novaezealandensis on the survial of the amphipod host, Paracalliope novizealandiae was examined using experimental infections and field observations. The experimental infections demonstrated that parasite-induced mortality was intensity-dependent. The number of M. novaezealandensis per amphipod was too low to significantly induce host mortality in the field. However, the transmission strategy of this parasite allows it to affect host populations during weather conditions ideal for trematode transmission. Trematode strategies in the second intermediate host are important to the understanding of host-parasite co-evolution and the evolution of parasite life cycles. In this study, potential density-dependent effects at the metacercarial stage on size and fecundity of in vitro adult M. novaezealandensis was examined in both experimentally infected P. novizealandiae and naturally infected Macrophthalmus hirtipes. For this purpose, a method to excyst and cultivate M. novaezealandensis metacercariae to an egg producing stage, was developed. Naturally infected M. hirtipes also harboured larval stages of three other helminths. Crowding effects in the two crustacean hosts were expressed as a decreased volume and smaller egg production of in vitro adult M. novaezealandensis. In addition, interspecific interactions among parasite species were observed in crab hosts. The work in this thesis provides evidence that M. novaezealandensis significantly and negatively affect intermediate host ecology. The heterogeneous distribution of trematodes causes differential effects among host populations with subsequent effects on the life history of snail hosts. In addition, this study demonstrates that parasites interact within their second intermediate host with possible implications for the way parasites exploit their hosts.

Phenology of hazelnut big bud mites in Canterbury and implications for management

2010-03-13T07:04:52.163Z

Eriophyoid big bud mites are key pests of hazelnuts throughout the world, although little is known of the identity and impact of the species on New Zealand hazelnut crops. The key objectives of this study were to determine the species of mite present on New Zealand crops, explore a method of monitoring mite emergence from overwintering big buds, determine the phenology of mites in relation to tree phenology and weather, and identify the optimum timing for control measures. The presence of both Phytoptus avellanae (Nalepa 1889) (Acari: Phytoptidae) and Cecidophyopsis vermiformis (Nalepa 1889) (Acari: Eriophyidae) was confirmed, the latter species being a new record for New Zealand. Preliminary diagnostic DNA sequences were determined for both species. A sticky band technique was developed to monitor mite emergence from overwintering big buds, and mite emergence was found to occur between early and late spring. Mite emergence and movement occurred when daily temperatures were greater than 15 degrees C and when mean temperatures were greater than 9 degrees C, with mite emergence increasing with temperature. It proved difficult to relate the phenology of hazelnut to mite emergence, however, the development of new buds during mite emergence was a crucial factor in the infestation of new buds. An accumulated heat sum model (DD), started at Julian date 152 and using a lower threshold temperature of 6 degrees C, predicted the onset of emergence on two cultivars and at two sites as occurring at approximately 172 DD. A regression model based on leaf number, bud height, bud width, DD and Julian date provided a more satisfactory prediction of percent accumulated mite emergence. It is recommended both peak mite emergence and the appearance of hazelnut buds should be used to optimise the time to apply control measures. Therefore, a control should be applied before buds measure 0.5 x 0.5 mm (width x height), are enclosed within the axil, and have a rounded tip, or, when 50% accumulated mite emergence has occurred, which ever occurs first. A preliminary field experiment tested the application of sulphur (40 g/10 litres of 800 g/kg No Fungus Super Sulphur) at 2, 50 and 80% accumulated mite emergence. The greatest reduction in mite numbers was achieved with an application at approximately 50% emergence. Considerable variation in mite emergence occurred between years, therefore optimum timing of controls would need to be determined by monitoring mites, new buds and weather conditions each year. Field collection of mites also identified the presence of Typhlodromus doreenae Schicha (Acari: Phytoseiidae) which would warrant further study for inclusion in an integrated mite control programme.

Measuring and modelling of volcanic pollutants from White Island and Ruapehu volcanoes: assessment of related hazard in the North Island

2010-03-13T07:04:50.577Z

White Island and Ruapehu are currently the most active volcanoes in New Zealand. During non-eruptive periods, intense quiescent degassing through fumaroles can occur. The current project studies the quiescent degassing plumes, including aerosol sampling on White Island and dispersion modelling of SO₂ and PM₁₀ from White Island and Ruapehu volcanoes. Aerosol sampling from fumaroles at the crater floor on White Island volcano was carried out on 9 February and 6 April 2005. The exposed filters were analysed for various anions and cations and the particle mass concentration and molar concentration determined. Major elemental constituents were sodium and chlorine (Na⁺: 413 µg m⁻³, Cl⁻: 1520 µg m⁻³), which show best correlation at both sampling sessions. Other ions detected, with little correlation, are Ca²⁺, PO₄³⁻ and to a certain extent Mg²⁺. Other constituents found, which cannot correlate explicitly to other ions, are K⁺, NH₄⁺, NO₃⁻, and SO₄²⁻. SEM study of one exposed filter was performed and mainly NaCl particles could be distinguished due to their well-defined cubic shape. The Air Pollution Model (TAPM) was used for dispersion modelling of SO₂ (models 1-4) and PM₁₀ (models 5 and 6) from White Island and Ruapehu volcanoes. Annual modelling was performed using different parameters of emission rate, exit temperature and exit velocity. The resulting plume dispersions show relatively low concentrations at ground level ≤10 m), particularly for the models of PM₁₀ dispersion. TAPM calculated the highest SO₂ ground level concentrations with model 4, where the NES values of 350 and 570 µg m⁻³ were exceeded several times. The data was then used for detailed hazard assessment of urban population in the North Island. The meteorological data from annual modelling was used for model evaluation and compared with observation data from different weather stations by statistical calculations. Overall, TAPM performed well with most good and very good results. To evaluate SO₂ dispersion modelling, airborne plume measurements were carried out on 22 November 2006 by plume traverses at 3, 10 and 20 km. Although there is some variation, the calculated correlation coefficients indicate good model results for two plume traverses at 3 and 20 km and one plume traverse at 10 km. The meteorological data was also used for model evaluation, and the results indicate good model performance. TAPM is therefore suggested for future studies when more observation data are available to verify the calculated model data.

Spatial complexity and microclimatic responses of epiphyte communities and their invertebrate fauna in the canopy of northern rata (Metrosideros robusta A. Cunn.: Myrtaceae) on the West Coast of the South Island, New Zealand

2010-03-13T07:04:38.463Z

Rain forest canopies are renowned for their very high biodiversity and the critical role they play in key ecological processes and their influence on global climate. Despite that New Zealand supports one of the most diverse and extensive epiphyte flora of any temperate forest system, few studies have investigated epiphyte communities and their invertebrate fauna along with factors that influence their distribution and composition. This thesis represents the first comprehensive study of entire epiphyte communities and their resident invertebrate fauna in the canopy of New Zealand’s indigenous forests. The aim of this study was to determine spatial patterns of epiphyte and invertebrate species richness, abundance and community composition in relation to abiotic variables, and in particular, the responses of these communities to elevated temperature and rainfall. This study was carried out in coastal lowland podocarp-broadleaved forests at two sites on the West Coast of the South Island of New Zealand. Samples from 120 mat-forming epiphyte assemblages located on inner canopy branches of 40 northern rata (Metrosideros robusta) trees were studied to characterise the component flora and fauna. Additionally, biomass, branch and tree characteristics and community responses to treatments designed to elevate temperature and rainfall to simulate predicted climate change were measured. This investigation revealed astonishing diversity and functional complexity of epiphyte and invertebrate life in this ecosystem. The 30.6 kg (dry weight) of epiphyte material collected contained a total of 567 species, 170 epiphyte and 397 invertebrate (excluding immature specimens and mites) species, including at least 10 species new to science and many undescribed species Epiphyte communities were found to be dominated by non-vascular plants (80 % of the total species richness), particularly liverworts and invertebrate communities were dominated with respect to abundance (~ 80 % of the total individuals) by Acari, Collembola and Hymenoptera (primarily ants) and functionally by scavengers and ants. Epiphyte and invertebrate communities were highly variable with respect to spatial patterning of species richness, abundance and composition across sites, among trees within sites and among branches within trees. Overall, a highly significant proportion, > 75 %, of the variance could be attributed to differences at the branch level, but these differences could not be explained by the environmental factors measured. There were no consistent relationships between the spatial pattern of epiphytes and invertebrates, or between vascular and non-vascular plants. However, there were significant positive correlations between epiphyte biomass and invertebrate species richness (r = 0.472; p < 0.0001) and abundance (r = -0.395; p < 0.0001), as well as non-living epiphyte biomass and scavenger species richness (r = 0.4; p < 0.0001). Microclimatic measurements taken on epiphyte mats were also highly variable with respect to temperature and relative humidity at similar physical locations within the same tree as well as across trees within sites. There was also considerable variation in the intensity and frequency of climatic extremes, although potentially harmful climatic conditions were experienced by all the epiphyte mats for which weather variables were measured. Negative correlations existed between both epiphyte and invertebrate community composition and increased temperatures expressed as cumulative degree days above 5˚C. However, variability was such that there was no direct evidence that increased temperature and rainfall treatments had an effect on invertebrate species richness, abundance or diversity. Northern rata host trees harbour an astonishingly diverse and complex canopy flora and fauna that is characterised by high spatial variability. Such variability highlights that to determine species distribution and community dynamics in canopy habitats in response to disturbance caused either by climate change or invasive species the structure of entire communities at different taxonomic and spatial scales, along with their responses to microclimatic factors, need to be studied. If such complexities are not taken into account, inappropriate interpretation may result in poor decisions concerning the conservation status, vulnerability and subsequent management of such unique ecosystems.

An all-hazards vulnerability assessment of Arthur's Pass township, South Island, New Zealand

2010-03-13T07:04:36.944Z

Arthur’s Pass township, located close to the Main Divide of the central Southern Alps, is highly exposed to natural hazards and has been affected by hazard events since it was founded in 1906. The village is a small alpine township, with a permanent resident population of approximately 54. Its location within the Arthur’s Pass National Park and on the main road between the east and west coasts of the South Island makes it popular with tourists, trampers, climbers and skiers, which can expand the local population to up to 500 people. Its position on the Bealey River floodplain within a highly dynamic tectonic and geomorphic environment makes it vulnerable to earthquakes, landslides, rockfalls, debris flows, heavy rain and snow, river flooding and riverbed erosion. Previous investigations on natural hazards in the area are limited to the Otira Gorge and State Highway 73, with little focus on hazards affecting the village area. Natural hazard events are persistent and frequent in the Arthur’s Pass region and the village is susceptible to being isolated from external resources during and after a disaster, making it necessary for the village to be self-sufficient during a large-scale disaster. The hazards were identified and analysed using aerial photographs and satellite images, historical data, supported by in-field reconnaissance at various times of the year to record seasonal changes. Hazard mapping used the same methods to illustrate the spatial and volumetric hazard changes over a range of time scales; >2% annual probability of occurrence (0-50 years recurrence interval), 2%-0.2% annual probability of occurrence (50-500 years recurrence interval) and <0.2% annual probability of occurrence (500+ years recurrence interval). The hazard maps show that that most hazards are not restricted to a specific temporal or spatial scale, and that they are often interdependent. It is difficult to determine the precise effects that climate change and global warming will have on natural hazards, but they are expected to increase the unpredictability of hazard events and alter weather patterns significantly in the long-term. A visitor questionnaire undertaken in the village indicated that many visitors do not regard the hazards as severe enough to represent a legitimate threat; hence the public perceptions of natural hazards are affecting the vulnerability of the village. Additionally, many people do not feel confident that they would know what to do if a disaster did occur in the village. This level of awareness can be improved by providing more information to visitors and displaying details on emergency procedures. The village does not currently have an emergency plan that specifies particular preparedness and response procedures; it relies heavily on a plan adapted from Mt. Cook/Aoraki village. Current emergency management in the village could be improved by the production of an emergency plan specifically for the region, the use of education schemes and information sessions, and the installation of warning signs. The provision of this detailed hazard investigation and hazard maps is intended to assist emergency managers to identify, prioritise, mitigate the hazards to reduce the vulnerability of the village to natural hazards in the short- and long-terms.

Physical Rock Weathering Along the Victoria Land Coast, Antarctica

2010-03-13T07:04:25.634Z

The purpose of this research was to investigate the physical weathering of rock along the Victoria Land Coast, Antarctica. It was designed to contribute to the Latitudinal Gradient Project, a joint initiative between the New Zealand, Italian and United States Antarctic Programmes. The Latitudinal Gradient Project aims to improve our understanding of the ecosystems of the Dry Valleys and ice-free areas of the Ross Sea Region and, by using latitude as a proxy measure, identify how they might be affected by future climate change. The approach taken for this research was to use information on rock (from one rock group) temperature and moisture conditions gathered from three field locations to inform laboratory simulations. The laboratory simulations would then be used to investigate the weathering of small rock blocks and aggregates. Two temperature cycles approximating those experienced during summer and spring/autumn were identified and simulations undertaken in a specially adapted freezer. Three levels of moisture were applied: no moisture, half saturation and full saturation. Results of the laboratory simulations indicated that although rocks responded in different ways to different processes, granular disintegration took place even in the absence of additional moisture and did not require crossings of the 0 OC isotherm, nor were high levels of moisture required for across zero temperature cycling to produce weathering effects. A model that related weathering to latitude was developed and changes in climate explored. It was found that the weathering effect of summer and spring/autumn cycles was different and depended on rock characteristics rather than latitude. Increasing the ratio of summer to spring/autumn temperature cycles by 10% indicated that weathering could decrease or remain the same depending on the particular rock. Changes in temperature were found to be more important than changes in moisture. A weathering index that related local climate and rock properties to weathering was also developed and this highlighted the difficulties of using laboratory results to predict field rates of weathering. There were some surprising results from the field, including the presence of much more moisture on the surface of the rock, primarily from blowing snow, than had been predicted for this dry environment. This occurred even in the presence of negative rock surface temperatures. In addition, winter rock surface temperatures can fluctuate up to 25 OC, getting as warm as -10 OC. Macro-climate and changes in air temperature in response to foehn and katabatic winds were the drivers for these fluctuations.

Actor Alone: Solo Performance in New Zealand

2010-03-13T07:04:21.044Z

This thesis explores solo performance in New Zealand. That solo performance has been widely used in New Zealand's relatively brief theatre history is usually ascribed to the economy, manoeuvrability and adaptability of the form - common reasons for the popularity of solo performance elsewhere as well. But this thesis considers solo performance as a kind of theatre that has been suited to New Zealand in a distinctive way. In particular, I argue that solo performance has emerged on the margins of mainstream theatre in New Zealand as a means of actively engaging with a sense of isolation that typifies the post-colonial New Zealand experience. The ability of the solo performance to move between remote rural settlements and urban centres has connected these New Zealand communities in a way that is unusual for theatre in New Zealand. Furthermore, a solo performer speaking directly to an audience about the experience of living in New Zealand allows for an intimate interaction with a traditionally stoic and laconic masculine society. In this thesis, I make a case for three solo performances where it is possible to see, in the representation of a search for what it means to be a New Zealander, a theatrical contribution to nation-building: The End of the Golden Weather (1959), Coaltown Blues (1984) and Michael James Manaia (1991). However, in a subsequent chapter, I look at solo performances in New Zealand that might better be understood within global movements such as feminism and multiculturalism. I argue that this shift has depleted the power that the form once held to comment upon New Zealand identity and to assist in the search for national identity. I conclude the thesis by considering how ongoing theatre practice may be informed by the experience of solo performance in New Zealand.

Paleoclimatic significance of magnetic properties on the Red Clay underlying the loess and paleosols in China

2010-03-13T07:03:31.375Z

The Red Clay unit of northern China is a widespread Miocene–Pliocene (7.2–2.5 Ma) aeolian deposit that underlies much of the Quaternary loess–paleosol sequence in the central Loess Plateau. It comprises a sequence of highly developed soils and interbedded layers of less weathered loess-like material, here referred to as reddish loess. In common with the loess–paleosol alternations of the overlying Quaternary deposits, the soil–reddish loess alternations are interpreted to represent climatic fluctuations, in this case between warm-humid and relatively dry-cool conditions. However, while magnetic susceptibility variations in the Quaternary deposits provide a good proxy for pedogenic intensity, in the Red Clay the relationship is less clear and magnetic susceptibility data are in conflict with other measures of pedogenesis. In an attempt to resolve this issue, we have investigated a Red Clay section and overlying loess–paleosol sequence at Xifeng and have supplemented these data with samples from the Red Clay at Lingtai. Our study indicates that the Red Clay and loess–paleosol sequence have a common magnetic mineralogy comprising magnetite, maghemite and hematite (and possibly goethite), and that both sequences show a good correlation between magnetic susceptibility and the magnitude of the superparamagnetic (SP) component. This implies that susceptibility enhancement in the Red Clay is strongly related to the magnitude of the SP content, a component that is widely recognised as having a pedogenic origin in Quaternary deposits. Further support for a correlation between pedogenesis and magnetic susceptibility in the Red Clay is provided by a good correlation between magnetic susceptibility and the Rb:Sr ratio, an independent weathering index. However, differences in the magnetic mineralogy of the two units are also evident. The minimum magnetic susceptibility of the Red Clay is less than half the value of the overlying Quaternary deposits at locations such as Xifeng and Lingtai, while the maximum SP content is (relatively) larger than for the Quaternary deposits. While we cannot discount the possibility that the former difference is a reflection of different parent materials for the two units, climate may also be a contributory factor in explaining these differences. Precipitation is a major control on magnetic enhancement in paleosols [Maher and Thompson (1995) Quat. Res. 44, 383–391; Liu et al. (1995) Palaeogeogr. Palaeoclimatol. Palaeoecol. 113, 243–248], but soil anoxia and iron oxide dissolution occur if moisture exceeds some critical level. Soil moisture is therefore a critical factor in determining whether the correlation between pedogenesis and magnetic susceptibility in loess deposits is positive (central Loess Plateau, China; magnetic enhancement), negative (Alaska; Siberia; magnetic destruction) or uncertain (Pakistan; Argentina; New Zealand; cycles of enhancement and destruction). While our results indicate a generally positive correlation between pedogenesis and magnetic susceptibility in the Red Clay, they also imply that a more thorough paleoclimatic interpretation can only be achieved using complementary, but independent techniques. More work is required to deconvolve the climatic record of the Red Clay, but the reward may be the extension of the record of paleomonsoon evolution back into the Pliocene and late Miocene.

Coal Seam Modelling and Mine Plalnning Using Results of a 3D Seismic Reflection Survey - An Example from Huntly Coalfield, New Zealand

2010-03-13T07:03:17.765Z

Geological hazards such as faulting, basement ridges, and zones of "thin" « 6m) coal have a major impact on mining economics of underground operations at Huntly Coalfield. Experience has shown that drillhole-based investigations do not yield sufficiently detailed models of the coal seam to allow management of the planning risks associated with these hazards. Consequently, operational performance is affected by unplanned costs associated with lower productivity , loss of coal reserves, and expensive strata control remedies in problematic ground conditions. Huntly Coalfield is a challenging environment for acquisition of good quality seismic reflection data due to the very thick (l0-85m) weathering layer. Since 1994, successful acquisition of 2D and 3D data has bef:n achieved through a combination of careful testing of technical parameters and experimental trials prior to committing to production recording. High resolution seismic reflection (HRSR) is proving to be an investigations technique which results in accurate and reliable models of the coal seam and associated structures such as normal faults and paleo-topography of the surface on which the coal seam rests. The HRSR technique has been applied and developed in the Okowhao Sector where Huntly East Mine is developing and extracting coal reserves. Results of a recent 3D survey demonstrate that this technique is capable of revolutionising risk management in mine planning for underground mines in structurally complicated coal deposits.

Modelling herbicide movement from farm to catchment using the swat model

2010-03-13T07:03:12.335Z

Dwelling on the Weather. "A Break in the Weather" by John Jenkins. [review]

2010-03-13T07:02:49.195Z

With "A Break in the Weather", John Jenkins offers us an example of a verse novel. At a mere ninety-six pages, this verse novella manages to compress a great deal of information into its 252 octaves. Towards the novella's end, Bruce offers an almost Aristotelian summation of the work of art as 'a sense of being brought to a complete and adequate expression'. For all its various shortcomings, "A Break in the Weather" successfully achieves just so much.Australia Council, La Trobe University, National Library of Australia, Holding Redlich, Arts Victoria

Case-control study of risk factors for fatal and non-fatal injury in crashes of rotary-wing aircraft

2010-03-13T07:02:14.136Z

Introduction: There have been few studies of the risk factors for fatal injury in air crashes of rotary-wing aircraft, and none of risk factors for all serious injury (fatal and non-fatal) in these aircraft. The aim of the study was to identify the potentially modifiable risk factors for injury in civil rotary-wing aircraft crashes in New Zealand. Method: We analyzed records from all reported civil rotary-wing aircraft crashes in New Zealand between 1988 and 1994. Air crash data from the official databases were merged with nationwide injury records and information obtained from Coroner's files. Crashes where the pilot-in-command was fatally injured were compared with crashes where the pilot-incommand was not fatally injured on 50 variables, covering pilot, aircraft, environmental, and operational characteristics. A second analysis compared crashes where the pilot-in-command was seriously injured (either fatally or non-fatally) with crashes where the pilot-in-command was not hospitalized with an injury. A series of multivariate logistic regression analyses were conducted to estimate the odds associated with each of the factors identified by the univariate analyses. Results: The most significant risk factors for all serious injury were: (a) not obtaining a weather briefing, (b) off-airport location of the crash site, (c) flights carried out for air transport purposes, and (d) non-solo flights. Other risk factors, significant for fatal injury only, included post-crash fire and the nature of the crash terrain. Factors within the control of the pilot, environmental, and flight characteristics are the key determinants of the injury outcome of civil rotary-wing aircraft crashes.

New Zealand oceans governance:calming turbulent waters?

2010-03-13T07:02:04.036Z

In March 2000, New Zealand began the development of a national oceans policy. The oceans policy has weathered a number of challenges, most notably the dispute between Maori and the Crown over title to coastal land and water. This dispute stalled the development process in mid 2003 until work recommenced in November 2005. This paper analyses developments in New Zealand oceans governance, identifying the interaction between state, community and market as important influences that can help explain complexities of policy development, lack of sectoral integration and a change in policy direction.

New Zealand oceans governance:calming turbulent waters?

2010-03-13T07:02:03.417Z

Macquarie Island, Australia

2010-03-13T07:01:58.657Z

Located in the Southern Ocean 1500 km SSE of Tasmania, Macquarie Island is a remote and isolated island located roughly half-way between Australia and the Antarctic continent. This sub-Antarctic island is only 34 km long and up to 5 km wide with a land area of 12.785 ha. Because it is situated in the path of the 'Furious Fifties', the winds that circle the high southern latitudes, on average there are over 300 days of precipitation a year. Macquarie Island lies just north of the Antarctic Convergence zone where cold Antarctic waters mix with relatively wanner northern water. This results in a rough ocean, cold mists, sea-fogs and strong average wind speeds. Steep rocky beaches rise sharply to an undulating plateau roughly 100-300 m above sea level, with the highest point heing Mt Hamilton (433 m). These extreme sub-Antarctic environmental conditions are key factors in the overall distribution and abundance of island flora and fauna. Macqueric Island is home to an abundant and diverse array of wildlife. Approximately, 3.5 million seabirds arrive annually to breed and moult. Most of these visiting seabirds are penguins including 850,000 endemic royal penguins, over 100,000 breeding pairs of king penguins, 5000 breeding pairs of gentoo penguins and rockhopper penguins. Other seabirds include the endemic king cormorant, skuas and four albatross species. Of particular importance are the 15 pairs of the endangered wandering albatross. Four species of seal breed on Macquarie Island, including Antarctic fur seals. sub-Antarctic fur seals, New Zealand fur seals and one-seventh of the world's population of elephant seals (80,000) (PWS, 2003), The limited land mass in the Southern Ocean makes this a particularly important location for birds, seals and sub-Antarctic vegetation. Macquarie Island is also one of the earliest sites occupied by Europeans in Australia. Sites of historical interest from fur seal, elephant seal and penguin oil gathering work gangs are scattered around much of the island and since 1948 there has been a permanent scientific base staffed by Australian National Antarctic Research Expeditions (ANARE), now known as the Australian Antarctic Program (AAP). In addition, the Tasmanian Parks and Wildlife Service (PWS) operate year-round research and management programs. The station occupies a low flat isthmus at the north of the island. The: only access is by sea usually with inflatable rubber craft such as zodiacs. There are no jetties Of landing facilities for ships. Helicopters gain access from ships anchored off the northern eastern coast. From 1987 to 2004, just over 5000 tourists visited the island with commercial tour operators. Tourists arrive on expedition-style ships, typically ice-strengthened or ice breakers, with usually no more than 100 passengers. The nature-based experience is supported by a high level of onboard interpretation from lecturers and expedition staff Visitation is strictly controlled and, in some cases, severe weather docs not allow tourists to disembark. The island is often included as a stop over in a longer expedition to Antarctica or to the New Zealand sub-Antarctic islands. This chapter begins by outlining the management process including the reasons for its World Heritage Area status. The numbers and types of tourists and permitted activities are then discussed. Tourist impacts and issues revolving around tourism supply and demand are then introduced. The chapter concludes by arguing that the harsh environment and the physical challenge of getting to the island enhance the intensity of the experience surrounding this type of cold-water tourism. Tourism is undertaken in a very controlled manner and at present numbers do not Seem to adversely impact the ecology of the island. The only host community consists of researchers and field staff and these people play a role in educating tourists and in the planning and management of the island.

Phytogeographical analysis of Tasmanian alpine floras

2010-03-13T07:01:58.212Z

List of vascular plant species were obtained from twenty-eight, disjunct, high altitude, treeless areas in Tasmania. These list pertained to vegetation dominated by the austral-montane element of the flora which is found both above and below the usually indistinct, and often absent, Tasmanian upper slope treeline. A polythetic, agglomerative classification of the Tasmanian and four Australian mainland alpine floras resulted in five groups: the mainland mountains, the eastern Tasmanian mountains, a group extending north-south through the centre of Tasmania, western Tasmanian quartzite mountains, and western Tasmanian mountains formed from more weatherable parent material. The Tasmanian floras form a continuum closely related to mean annual precipitation and surface geology, but not strongly related to continentality. Tasmanian endemism increases strongly from east to west, and similarity values with the mainland mountain floras and the New Zealand flora show the reverse pattern. It is suggested that the variation in and between the alpine floras of Tasmania and mainland Australia may be largely related to edaphic conditions

Social enterprise in the public sector. MetService: Thinking beyond the weather

2010-03-13T07:01:29.567Z

Purpose - This paper considers the role of government in fostering entrepreneurial activity and economic development, thereby balancing social and economic objectives. Design/methodology/approach – Case studies on state-owned enterprises in New Zealand, one of which is examined in detail, are analysed and compared. Triangulated data from interviews, texts, and personal observation were collected and analysed in two separate phases, examining effective pathways for social enterprise in the public sector and related themes. Findings – Findings suggest the role of government is not limited to policy-making. Examination of activity which aims to balance social and economic objectives identifies several factors which have contributed to successful and entrepreneurial operations within SOEs. Research limitations/implications – Although limited to a single case, this paper reveals the nature and importance of entrepreneurial activity within government organisations. Practical implications – Deregulation as an alternative to privatisation is examined and evaluated. Originality/value – Evidence is provided to support entrepreneurship within the public sector as a strong foundation for balancing both social and economic objectives.

Sun protection messages, vitamin D and skin cancer: out of the frying pan and into the fire?

2010-03-13T07:01:27.217Z

Vitamin D (defined in this article as serum 25-hydroxy-vitamin D) is largely obtained through the effect of sunlight on the skin. Vitamin D plays an undeniably important role in maintenance of bone health, preventing the development of rickets and osteomalacia. However, there has been increasing recent media attention given to research findings that suggest other possible benefits of vitamin D, such as prevention of certain cancers or multiple sclerosis.1,2 In the first 6 months of 2006, seven of 124 daily updates on "cancer-related news" (6%) monitored by The Cancer Council Australia featured at least one item on the importance of sun exposure for obtaining sufficient vitamin D to prevent chronic diseases. Given that the primary source of health information for most Australians is the media,3 such reports have the potential to change attitudes and behaviours to sun exposure. Some commentators have compared doctors with sherpas who need to guide their patients through an increasingly complex medical world.4 The "vitamin D story", in which sun exposure appears to both cause cancer and prevent cancer, is one example where health consumers will need the guidance of health professionals in making an informed decision. Since the 1980s, the "Slip! Slop! Slap!" and then the "SunSmart" campaigns have sought to reduce population exposure to sunlight with the ultimate aim of reducing the burden of skin cancer in Australia.5 The challenge, given current levels of evidence, is to provide a public health message that ensures skin cancer risk is minimised while taking a precautionary approach to the possible harms of insufficient circulating levels of vitamin D. Several agencies have initiated conferences and meetings within the past 2 years, resulting in articles recommending changes to current sun-protection messages,6-8 and this year, the first issue of the journal Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology was wholly devoted to ultraviolet (UV) radiation exposure guidance. In Australia, a position statement on the risks and benefits of sun exposure was approved in 2005 by the Australian and New Zealand Bone and Mineral Society, Osteoporosis Australia, the Australasian College of Dermatologists and The Cancer Council Australia. The statement’s intention is to guide health professionals in giving information to the public on sun-protection behaviour. Four recommendations were made, and are summarised in the Box.9 Given the uncertainty about whether the subgroups within the population with the highest prevalence of vitamin D deficiency (the frail and elderly, people who cover themselves with clothing for cultural or religious reasons, those with dark skin pigmentation, those with mental illnesses) would benefit from a relaxation of sun-protection messages, each recommendation should be a starting point for further research. For example, considering the first recommendation (Box), the few studies available to date mostly indicate that, while most people are aware of the UV index, very few adjust their sun-protection behaviour accordingly.10-13 We need to determine ways to ensure that the UV index is routinely reported in weather forecasts in both summer and winter, and to increase public understanding of the implications of the UV index for sun-exposure behaviour. Additionally, it is likely that the association between the UV index and vitamin D production is not linear, and this needs to be explored in greater detail.14 Will the second recommendation (Box) lead to a more relaxed attitude towards sun protection in summer in southern states? Basal cell carcinomas and squamous cell carcinomas most commonly occur on the habitually sun-exposed skin sites.15 While these skin cancers are rarely fatal, their treatment can require surgical or destructive intervention and cause considerable morbidity.16 An unintended consequence of the second recommendation might be to increase incidental sun exposure of the arms and face and hence the incidence of skin cancer. Thus, the way this recommendation should be translated into a public health message needs careful consideration. For the third recommendation (Box), previous research has shown that people find it difficult to correctly assess their personal risk for skin cancer,17,18 and clinicians may need to help patients identify their risk. With regard to the fourth recommendation (Box), even though there is mandatory fortification of margarine in Australia, this is unlikely to achieve sufficient oral intake of vitamin D, especially among those most in need, and further supplementation may be necessary.19 The acceptability and effect of fortification and supplementation among at-risk groups still requires testing, and other food sources suitable for fortification need to be identified. At present, these complex recommendations are not being widely promoted to the general public, and further evidence on how to best communicate them is required, particularly in light of the media interest. Anecdotal evidence from the Queensland Cancer Fund suggests that the number of callers to their Helpline seeking advice about correct sun-protection behaviour is increasing. Further, unpublished data from a population-based survey conducted by the Queensland Cancer Fund in 2004 indicates that 837 of 5611 participants (15%) agreed with the statement, "If I regularly protect myself from the sun, I am in danger of not getting enough vitamin D".20 These people were more likely to deliberately sunbathe than those who did not agree with this statement (odds ratio, 1.65; 95% CI, 1.30–2.09).20 Assuming that the association between various chronic diseases and vitamin D can be unequivocally established, and that the appropriate vitamin D level and the UV radiation dose required to obtain it can be quantified — which is by no means certain — it still may not be possible to provide a single message about "healthy" sun exposure appropriate for the whole of Australia, a continent that spans more than 35 degrees of latitude. It has been estimated that only 6–12 minutes of winter sun exposure three to four times a week may be sufficient to produce "healthy" levels of vitamin D in Brisbane, compared with 51 minutes in Melbourne.21 Many factors in addition to latitude (age, skin type, sun-exposure habits, other skin cancer risk factors, photoprotection, body mass index, food choices, amount of physical exercise, liver and renal health, environmental conditions such as smog, season, ozone) contribute to either people’s risk of skin cancer or their ability to synthesise vitamin D, or both. More research is needed to better understand the photobiology of vitamin D formation in the skin, and the precise effect of UV radiation on vitamin D synthesis within various subgroups of the population. We don’t yet know the minimum amount of sunlight needed to maintain healthy bones (let alone prevent internal cancers or chronic diseases, if indeed these benefits can be realised), nor whether these effects may not be better obtained through supplements. It is unlikely that the daily requirement for vitamin D could be obtained from foods fortified with vitamin D alone.22 A meta-analysis of randomised trials of vitamin D supplementation found that daily doses of 700–800 IU (17.5–20.0 μg) reduced the incidence of fractures, but lower doses did not.23 Even after the answers to these fundamental research questions are known, translating these complex messages to the Australian public effectively will remain a challenge. In the interim, the effect of current campaigns and media reports about vitamin D on sun-protective behaviours and sunburn rates should be monitored carefully, sun-safe practices should be encouraged and supplements used where necessary until we increase our basic understanding of the relationships between chronic disease, vitamin D and sunlight. Sun exposure is the primary cause of skin cancer. If sun exposure and sunburn were to increase as a result of concern about the requirement for vitamin D, several decades of effective public health promotion to reduce the incidence of the most common cancer in Australia would be jeopardised.

The Lake Tekapo experiment (LTEX): An investigation of atmospheric boundary layer processes in complex terrain

2010-03-13T07:01:11.948Z

A research program on atmospheric boundary layer processes and local wind regimes in complex terrain was conducted in the vicinity of Lake Tekapo in the southern Alps of New Zealand, during two 1-month field campaigns in 1997 and 1999. The effects of the interaction of thermal and dynamic forcing were of specific interest, with a particular focus on the interaction of thermal forcing of differing scales. The rationale and objectives of the field and modeling program are described, along with the methodology used to achieve them. Specific research aims include improved knowledge of the role of surface forcing associated with varying energy balances across heterogeneous terrain, thermal influences on boundary layer and local wind development, and dynamic influences of the terrain through channeling effects. Data were collected using a network of surface meteorological and energy balance stations, radiosonde and pilot balloon soundings, tethered balloon and kite-based systems, sodar, and an instrumented light aircraft. These data are being used to investigate the energetics of surface heat fluxes, the effects of localized heating/cooling and advective processes on atmospheric boundary layer development, and dynamic channeling. A complementary program of numerical modeling includes application of the Regional Atmospheric Modeling System (RAMS) to case studies characterizing typical boundary layer structures and airflow patterns observed around Lake Tekapo. Some initial results derived from the special observation periods are used to illustrate progress made to date. In spite of the difficulties involved in obtaining good data and undertaking modeling experiments in such complex terrain, initial results show that surface thermal heterogeneity has a significant influence on local atmospheric structure and wind fields in the vicinity of the lake. This influence occurs particularly in the morning. However, dynamic channeling effects and the larger-scale thermal effect of the mountain region frequently override these more local features later in the day.

craaaaaazy weather today, one minute im grace jones walking inthe rain the next minute sun is shining weather is sweet

2010-03-13T07:01:10.437Z

Awesome Forces (Te Papa exhibition)

2010-03-13T06:51:55.049Z

How the forces of nature shape New Zealand. The story of New Zealand's dramatic landscape and the part that earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and the weather play in its shaping.

Black beech (Nothofagus solandri) or tawairauriki

2010-03-13T06:51:54.989Z

Walking through a beech forest on a sunny day with dappled sunlight filtering through the canopy overhead, underfoot you will feel a deep, soft carpet of little brown, yellow, and red leaves. Around you the mossy, black, velvety trunks rise up, and the scent of honeydew, mouldering logs, and leaf litter is everywhere. In hot summers, clouds of pollen shower down from these trees, inspiring James K Baxter to write his Poem in the Matukituki Valley. But in bad weather, this same openness makes the...

Paua surfboard by Brian O'Connor

2010-03-13T06:51:54.059Z

This is one of only two paua surfboards in New Zealand. Brian O'Connor made them both. The surfboard in Te Papa is his second - the first hangs in his Kaikoura shop, Southern Paua Ltd. Its fame has spread, and many people go into the shop just to see it. Southern Paua makes and sells paua shell souvenirs. O'Connor established the business in Riverton, Southland in 1987. In 1998 he moved it to Kaikoura - an area with stunning scenery, great weather and good surf that was becoming popula...

Evans Bay by James Nairn

2010-03-13T06:51:49.319Z

Evans Bay is one of many impressions of Wellington Harbour painted by James Nairn. Like most of Nairn's landscape paintings, Evans Bay was painted outdoors or en plein air . Though this technique was unusual in New Zealand at the time, many European artists, especially the Impressionists, favoured painting outside, directly in front of the subject, in order to capture the momentary effects of changing light and weather. In the 1880s Nairn was associated with the ‘Glasgow Boys', a group...

Captain Cook's arrival at Ship Cove, Queen Charlotte Sound

2010-03-13T06:51:48.879Z

Robert Anderson, surgeon on the Resolution during the third voyage of Captain James Cook, made this entry in his journal on 13 February 1777, the day after his ship's arrival at Ship Cove in Queen Charlotte Sound. ‘The wind gentle and variable with very fine weather. The people employ'd in fixing tents by a rivulet which runs into the largest cove here and which has formerly been occup for the same purpose by Captn Cook and Captn Furneaux; others were sent to cut grass for the live sto...

Morning Glory: Interview with Jack White of The Dead Weather I

2010-03-13T06:51:04.040Z

Charlotte talks to Jack White of The Dead Weather, who will be playing at The Powerstation on the 17th of March.

95bFM Historical Society: Ep 32: Jennifer Weather-Centre

2010-03-13T06:50:47.841Z

Jennifer Weather-Centre 1993 to 2000 Jennifer, oh Jenny... Drawn to 95bFM by a psychic flash, she became a breakfast show shining star across three + different hosts, utilising a saucer and a flagpole to report on Auckland's weather. Jennifer Weather-Centre was one of the most effervescent voices on 95bFM throughout the 1990s, and in this episode gives her perspective on the hosts she worked with and the music she associates with them.

95bFM Historical Society: Episode 14: Rick Huntington

2010-03-13T06:50:36.470Z

At the age of 8, Rick built a fully-operational radio station that broadcasted from his treehouse to his family house. For the last 25 years, Rick has been in charge of every technical and sonic aspect of 95bFM, ensuring the quality of the sound which comes out of your speakers, sometimes even defying death by hanging upside-down from the 14th floor of city buildings holding a transmitter. He is also Rick Breeze, and did indeed build a scientific weather centre on the roof of his house.

Mt Taranaki, New Zealand.

2010-03-13T06:45:54.268Z

Mount Taranaki or Mount Egmont is a dormant stratovolcano in the Taranaki region on the west coast of New Zealand's North Island. The 2518-metre-high mountain is one of the most symmetrical volcanic cones in the world. There is a secondary cone, Fanthams Peak, on the south side.

Mt Taranaki

2010-03-13T06:45:54.106Z

When visiting that part of the world, I always take a trip out to Lake Mangamahoe in Taranaki to see what delights the mountain can deliver to me - heavily dependent on the weather and the light. With this one, I was pretty happy with the result. View Large And On Black

Tukituki Valley

2010-03-13T06:45:53.796Z

Tukituki Valley, Hawkes Bay, New Zealand. NPE048

Going The Extra Mile

2010-03-13T06:45:51.016Z

I had to work hard for this one! Lake Mangamahoe & Mount Taranaki/Egmont I'd wanted to shoot a sunset from this location on my favorite bush walk/running track for a while. Since the inclement weather finally decided to clear I took the opportunity to go and grab this image. The trouble is I got distracted by the pretty scenery on the way to the lake and found the access road gate locked! I ended up having to hoof it 2km on my mountan bike flat out, run another 1km with my pack full of gear and then climb 200 steps to get to this spot in the nick of time! In other news, apparently my knee is fine now! I often run around this lake. Its a great circuit about 5km (3 miles) in length. Going Anticlockwise around this image; the first half comprises 3 steep hill climbs along a hiking track and brisk downward slopes. The middle section is a run along this amazing ridge top and a steep decent down stairs cut in the hillside. The second half is a gravel forestry road, hugging the lake shore, that returns you to the start.

6.42am | 16.2.2010

2010-03-13T06:45:45.746Z

NZ Brown Snail

2010-03-13T06:45:45.666Z

The Brown Garden snail is very common in NZ gardens. It was orginally brought from Europe with the early settlers. These snails are very active at night, or during wet weather, feeding on most garden plants

Viper's Bugloss (not borage at all!) at Molesworth

2010-03-13T06:45:38.466Z

Have you ever had borage honey? It's a beautifully delicate honey, without any specific healing properties (unlike Manuka honey) - but the very best on hot buttered toast! The road through Molesworth Station is only opened from December to April each year (weather and fire risk permitting). It's a few hours of gravel road in the high country between North Canterbury and Marlborough. Stunning country - so big and variable and what skies! not to mention those mountains...

New house in Birchville near Upper Hutt

2010-03-13T06:45:17.537Z

Ca 1950 My parents new house, built with a rehab loan. Builder’s name was Mordecai – a very good firm. House I think would be rimu weather boards and concrete tile roof File reference: HW08-CE129 Private Collection

Corsair Bay

2010-03-13T06:45:11.437Z

26 October 1953 Labour Day 1953. It’s too cold for swimming that’s why we are wearing our coats. It was a family ritual that we started our beach visits between Labour Day and Easter regardless of the weather. File Reference: HWC08-LYT-035 Heritage Week 2008 Competition Entry

Wolseley

2010-03-13T06:41:55.891Z

A west coast car at Hokitiki. Note spare tyre, no number plates in those days, also small windscreen. (No wet weather gear. File Reference: HWC09-HO-017 Heritage Week 2009 Photo Hunt Entry 2009 Beca Heritage Week’s ‘Doves & Defences’ - Discover Christchurch in Peace and Conflict

Peaks

2010-03-13T06:40:21.183Z

Shrowded in cloud, the two main peaks of The Remarkables (known as Double Cone) in Queenstown, New Zealand. After a significant hike and a couple of close enocounters with some mountain bikers, rain moved in from the mountains. It is amazing just how quickly the weather can change in alipne areas like this. Heed my advice: Take warm clothing, even when it looks fine.

Weather finally eases problems for firefighters

2010-03-13T06:35:59.569Z

The "weather gods" have finally smiled on firefighters battling an enormous blaze in forest land 30km northwest of Dunedin, a fire official says.

Life is a Journey..

2010-03-13T06:35:57.629Z

Last weekend I was there, kayaking! At New Years Iwas there, tramping... I guess a bit of my heart is always there. Marlborough Sounds, lovely maze of waterways in the north of South Island... Foto taken from Queen Charlotte walkway.

Keep Your Head above Water

2010-03-13T06:33:59.351Z

All-weather poster for displaying around geothermal pools to help prevent amoebic meningitis.

The Waikato Weather Bomb: Understanding the impact

2010-03-13T06:33:40.931Z

A survey and evaluation of the economic impact, social perceptions and preparedness relating to a heavy rainfall and flooding event that occurred on the Coromandel Peninsula in June 2002.

Quantification of the Flood and Erosion Reduction Benefits, and Costs, of Climate Change Mitigation Measures in New Zealand

2010-03-13T06:33:28.527Z

This technical report looks at how certain climate change mitigation measures can lead to changes in erosion, flooding and water yield. Because of New Zealand’s rugged terrain, tectonic instability, short steep river catchments and weather patterns, there are high rates of natural and induced erosion and frequent large changes in the volume of water in rivers and streams. These can lead to physical and economic losses; and may be reduced through afforestation or reversion in certain environmen...

A Monitoring and Reporting Strategy for the Dairying and Clean Streams Accord

2010-03-13T06:33:18.422Z

Many factors affect water quality and aquatic life in waterways, such as weather, soil type, and other land uses. This makes it difficult to find out how the environment benefits from the actions taken under the Accord. Another difficulty is the timescale over which improvements might be seen. To date, the environmental impacts of implementing Accord targets have not been measured. In the process of developing a Dairying and Clean Streams Accord monitoring and reporting strategy, many issues wer...

PM 10 (particulate matter)

2010-03-13T06:32:51.672Z

Particulate matter (PM) is a collective term used to describe very small solid or liquid particles in the air, such as dust, smoke or fog. Most PM 10 in New Zealand comes from burning solid fuels (ie, coal and wood) for home heating. This, along with the more frequent settled weather conditions during winter, is why most peak PM 10 levels occur during this time of year. Exhaust emissions from vehicles are another significant source of PM 10 in cities like Auckland. Industry, as well as natural...

Art in the Park

2010-03-13T06:32:44.503Z

Art in the Park was held on the 14th of February 2010 in the beautiful grounds next to Thompson House. Organised by the Horowhenua Art Society, the annual event showcased the work of local artists, along with one or two from out of the district.. The weather had been miserable the day before but on the Sunday it cleared to a great sunny day. Tents...

27 Sheehan Street, Shannon

2010-03-13T06:32:35.683Z

This 2 bedroom house on 1179m2 of land was for sale in TradeMe in January 2010 for $141,000. It was described: City council rates $903.00 Horizon rates $134.40 Freehold Zoned Rural with a large section if you want to graze a sheep and have some chickens for fresh eggs.. This is a home built in 1914 and is on town supply water and has a septic tank. It has been recently repiled. Roof on rear of pitch replaced. New Kent Fire with cook top installed (permitted) 4 yrs ago. Curtains, drapes and carpet squares all 4 years old and reflect the era of this property. A German lamp is in the lounge. Restored German Walnut Carved Corbels are in the archway(approx.160 yrs). Brass door knobs put on interior for added features. 2 Tongue and groove doors on interior. Rimu tongue and groove flooring. Lined but in need of some plastering and paint. There is a sleepout/study/craft-room which is partially lined and has a caravan plug for power. A warm cottage with cladding on exterior and weather boards are still underneath. A country cottage garden has been nurtured with 4 existing fruit trees on this section. A fountain existing in the rear courtyard. A sun shade is also included. Shannon is approx.10 mins from Foxton Beach and Levin . Palmerston North is Approx. 20 mins away .Wellington is approx. an hour down the line. Nestled under the Tararuas ,from this property you can see and hear the steam train or visit the local Nature Park or River.There are many busses to take the college kids in any direction. The worker train goes twice a day from Palmerston North to wellington 5 days a week from Shannon. There is a library in Shannon also which offers a lot of services for the community. Shannon offers great friendly community feeling.

1916 06 May Clement Wragge in Levin

2010-03-13T06:32:34.673Z

URGENT NOTICE Century Hall LEVIN. TUESDAY, MAY 9th, at 8 p.m. CLEMENT WRAGGE The Famous Astronomer will give his startling new masterpiece- "THE ETERNAL UNIVERSE AND THE WAR." Splendidly illustrated. WEDNESDAY, MAY 10th, To Farmers WEATHER, LOCAL CLIMATE AND COMING SEASONS (Charming Pictures). PRICES 2s and 1s. Radium is extra afterwards. FARMERS !! - Clement Wragge can increase your banking accounts. Listen to him !

1916 03 May Stiles & Matheson Waterproof Coats, Levin

2010-03-13T06:32:34.553Z

The Finest Waterproof Coats on the Market ! OUR FAMOUS "MACLOGN" Coats Top the Tree ! The MACLOGN Riding Coat is a New Zealand production - THERE-FORE RELIABLE. It is made to withstand all weathers and is theideal line for Hard Wear. IT CARRIES TWO GUARANTEES: THE MAKERS AND OURS. Price 42s Nett. Absolutely nothing to beat it at the price. Every man around thisdistrict should possess a MACLOGN COAT. Buy one now and be preparedfor any change in the weather. ANOTHER OF OUR SPECIAL LINES ! DUCKBRAND TAN OIL RIDING COAT (guaranteed waterproof). Alsomade in New Zealand. It has an additional advantage as ir remainssoft and pliable to the last. Price 31s Nett Cash.Over 2000 of these famous coats sold in less than three seasons. MEN ARE INVITED TO CALL ! STYLES & MATHESON, Ltd.,LEVIN & FOXTON.

Chapter 8 - Hawera

2010-03-13T06:31:55.884Z

I accepted the position with the Guardian Trust and worked under the guidance of Len Newall who was to retire a year later and this meant Heather and I had to find somewhere to live.. Len contacted me and said that a farm of 66 acres on the outskirts of Hawera was being auctioned and he thought it might suit us. I had owned the Hunterville property for 5 years. I paid £10,000 for it as a going concern. I had put in £4,000 and the State Advances bridged the gap. My equity had grown to about £8,000. The property to be auctioned was the Goodson Estate property and I bought it for £200 per acre. The Guardian Trust lent the balance to complete the purchase, but I also had the input from the sale of the herd to Joe Buhler, who was to be my 50/50% milker at Hawera. Photo above : The Hawera Farm 1962. When I told Heather that I had bought the Goodson Estate property she exclaimed “What! £200 per acre”. I assured her that one day I would get £300 an acre and she made me promise if I was offered £300 that I would take it and sell the property. Just short of six years later Joe Buhler offered £300 an acre so I sold to him. Early in 2008 Joe bought 13 acres and a 66 years old house opposite the cow shed for $680,000, i.e. $52,000 per acre. When I went to Hawera it was on the understanding that I would understudy Len Newall for a year receiving about half the salary that I would get when on my own. Len Newall was the contractor supervising the 50 odd farms under the control of the Guardian Trust. To my eyes Len was on a PR exercise, he was quite frail and appeared to be satisfied with the status quo. A glaring example of that was in regard to the JJ Patterson farms. The farm houses had not been painted for 14 years and he passed that buck on to me. Also he was on first name terms with the six female beneficiaries of that estate and was happier giving them maximum dividends at the expense of the farm improvements. The majority of the Patterson Estate farms were Maori leaseholds but they all had compensation for improvements. As some of the other farms were being managed or share milked by beneficiaries of the deceased owners, unless I could see glaring examples of mis-management, I tended to be the friendly inspector offering advice where I thought it would be appreciated. There were about 10 farms in this category. With the 39% sharemilkers which all the JJ Patterson milkers were, they did not own the milking herd but were paid half the value of the calves at weaning, also half the proceeds of the pigs. My involvement was to see all stock were adequately fed and kept healthy, ensuring veterinary treatment for any lame or unhealthy looking stock; keeping an eye on milk test results for bacterial infections and sudden fluctuations in milk yield which could forewarn of bloat or metabolic infections. The 39% sharemilkers and the sheep farmers all had to fill out monthly returns showing stock on hand, additions, losses, and sales with room for comment about production and health. If the 39% man owned a tractor he was paid a percentage of the running expenses. The 50/50 milkers owned the herd and plant but did not get reimbursed for the use of their tractors and implements. The milking plant was owned and maintained by the farm owner as was the water supply and cost of conversion to tanker collection. The 50/50% man shared the fertilizer cost unless it was specified differently. The owner paid for the fertilizer for the 39% milker. An innovation I liked to introduce as an incentive to the 50/50% agreements when new contracts were being drawn up was to offer an extra 5% or 10% if the production exceeded the previous best figure. Or else offer to supply an extra ton of fertilizer for every 1,000lbs. of butter fat above best years. The Hawera Office Manager Campbell, did not like that, but the Palmerston North manager approved of the incentives for the milkers on the three farms under his administration. Campbell openly said Taranaki farmers were little better than French peasants which did not help when he was dealing with them. In my view it was no way to boost their morale or to make them feel proud to work for the Guardian Trust. Campbell was a Public Trust employee before he came to the Guardian Trust and he did not leave that skin flint attitude behind. Contrary to the expectations of the Guardian Trust Head Office, he did not mix socially with the business people or farmers of the district. As the JJ Patterson farms were all on 39% the Guardian Trust, as executors, was responsible for the maintenance and, if possible, the improvement of the herds and it fell to me to buy young bulls to mate with the heifers on the dry stock farms. To look after the heifers, i.e., drenching for stomach worms and spraying to get rid of lice, I used to get all the sharemilkers to come to the Winks Road dry stock farm. I felt that they appreciated the camaraderie of the boss working with them. Previously this had been done with hired labour. The same approach was used with the haymaking, but the feeding out on the dry stock farm was done by the two adjacent sharemilkers. In retrospect, I made a mistake in having a new walk through shed built on Farm 17, agreeing with Campbell that production per cow was higher from a walk through shed. Another brain storm Campbell had that caused dissention between ourselves and the beneficiaries of the Wilson Estate, a larger than average farm on the Skeet Road adjacent to the Kapuni River, was the building of an imposing gate entrance of split boulders when the money should have been spent on maintenance of farm buildings. My Hawera farm had a town milk quota i.e. it was supplying milk in cans to the local Town Milk Processing plant where it was pasteurized and bottled before being distributed by vendors around Hawera. My herd at Hunterville had been on town supply which meant the milk there was picked up by a distributor who put the 2 x 20 gallons of milk on the carrier of his Buick car and delivered it door to door around the township. The treatment and bottling produced a better quality product but there was no treatment station at Hunterville and if I was short of milk I used to go to Palmerston North Treatment Station to get sufficient milk for the customers. Arthur Taplin’s eldest son Dick had set himself up as a cartage contractor and was the first person that I knew of who pulled a trailer behind the truck and we hired him to shift the herd. He was able to take the whole milking herd in one trip from Hunterville to Hawera. He also took the 2 ton tractor but I did not use it much on the Hawera farm except to pull out boxthorn and to roll the silage stack and to pull the wheel tractors and trailer loads of silage out of the boggy silage pit before we had the floor concreted . Boxthorn was a disaster on rubber tyres but it could not puncture steel tracks. The majority of the paddock and road boundaries were boxthorn hedges which had to be cut by mechanical cutter. I also loaded farm implements onto the trailer (the left over of the Maxwell truck) behind the B250 tractor and drove it through to Hawera. I got there in the course of one day. Our neighbours the Chisholms wanted to buy the Hunterville farm but I sold it to Allister Lambert. We sold the 200 ewes to Murray Pillet from Marton. After they were trucked out the neighbour, Charlie Chisholm came over and said that two of his ewes were in my mob. The Chisholm’s had 350 acres next door and had farmed there for 30 years, they had wanted to buy my farm but the bank would not finance them so I put the accusation about the stealing of his sheep in the sour grapes basket. He could have come forward when the sheep were in the yards as their dwelling overlooked our yards. I sold the young dairy stock at $6. a head, but shifted the dairy cows to Hawera as my appointed share milker had agreed to buy them. When the Swiss family named Buhler arrived in New Zealand the family comprised of the father and mother and six boys and two girls ranging from 12 years up to 28 years of age. Marie, the elder daughter, was the only one able to speak English. They were very good people with strong family ties. The Buhlers started as 39% sharemilkers on the Patterson Estate some three years before I met them. After two years on Farm 19 of the J J Patterson Estate, son Robert and daughter Marie were able to take on 50/50 sharemilking on a farm south of Hawera. All the income earned by the children went into their father’s bank account and he distributed funds to where they were most needed. A year later when we moved to Hawera, Joe, the Buhler’s second son, was our 50/50 sharemilker. Joe lived in our back bedroom and ate with us. Both of our boys were pre-school and Joe noted that I contributed to family life by doing some chores. In typical European style he had never made a bed, polished his shoes or dried a dish. One day when I was drying the dishes he said his sisters should marry New Zealand boys but he and his brothers should marry Swiss girls. Shortly afterwards Robert went back to Switzerland and found a Swiss bride and Joe’s younger brother John helped Marie with the milking. Only two of the five boys married New Zealand girls. When we sold the farm to Joe he got John to milk the cows and he went to Switzerland and met and married Bertha. The farm had three road frontages giving three acres of berm that Joe top dressed and grazed intensively or made hay from it. Joe now has 300 acres that has been bought in 10 pieces. The last was 24 acres which is opposite the homestead. He paid $51,000 an acre for this land, which is a big step up from the $40,000 for the first 66 acres. The farm estate (Goodson Estate) had been administered by the Public Trust and as I was the new Guardian Trust farm supervisor, I took great delight in tidying it up and adding improvements such as new conventional fencing, new hay barn, adding a vat stand to the milking shed as we went on to tanker collections, repiling and painting the homestead and felling the over mature trees so that we could look out of the master bedroom window straight across country and see Mt Egmont and the flare from the Kapuni oil well. We had town supply water as Hawera water supply lines ran along the road boundary and we drew our water for house and farm from that. The homestead was an imposing structure of at least 2,500 sq. ft. but it had been sadly neglected. Firstly it had to be replied, this was made easier and cheaper by cutting a hole in the floor of a bedroom in the centre of the house. There was a saucer shaped depression under the centre of the house and it was easier to work outwards from this depression. The old kitchen on the south side of the house became the boys’ playroom as we added a new kitchen area beside a new bay window. This area became the dining area on the east side so we got the early morning sun, and we created a fabulous living room, kitchen and dining area with an open fire and built in oak roller desk. The Guardian Trust administered 54 farms from the Hawera Office, 50 dairy farms and four sheep farms. Some of the dairy farms were leased to beneficiaries and did not require intense supervision. The extent of my territory was from Mokau on the north coast of Taranaki, south to Shannon and to Ohakune in the central North Island and west of the Tararua and Ruahine Ranges. Initially I did not come south of the Rangitikei River but the Manawatu farm supervisor for the Guardian Trust, Bill Nelmes, had two farms under his care. This became three when a farmer died suddenly and his farm and estate came under the Guardian Trust umbrella when a farmer died suddenly and his farm and estate came under the Guardian Trust. Bill did not enjoy his involvement with them and I was asked to include them in my portfolio. By leaving Hawera very early in the morning and putting in a 12 hour day, I could visit all these farms in one day. The Waugh Estate at Rongotea and the Waring-Taylor Estate farm at Shannon. Jim Campbell, the Hawera Office Manager who was Public Trust trained and still had that difference, did not approve of me including them in my portfolio but he could not stop me as I was a contractor and tendered a price for each farm each year. At over £12,000 per annum, I was getting more income than the manager’s salary. I was not used to such a salary, in fact it was a big step up from the Public Service salary and one year’s income was almost the cost of the farm, but I had to supply my own car and pay running expenses. I tried to visit each farm regularly, especially if it was a sheep farm or a dairy farm with a 39% milker, certainly until I had assessed the quality of the manager or sharemilker. The good ones did not need the intense supervision that the poor ones did and I spent much time encouraging the poor performers to improve or to move on. The sharemilker on the Waugh Estate at Rongotea was the son of the deceased owner and he was satisfied that he could equal his father’s production figures of about 25,000lbs. of butterfat but he was slow to appreciate that his mother was also entitled to an income, she was living in a comparatively new home at the road side and no doubt had been left a life interest and income from the Estate. For a replacement I contacted Allan Wallbank, a younger man with a young family. Allan said he would produce 35,000 lbs. of butterfat but would need a new home. The three farms were administered by the Palmerston North office, where the manager, Brian Schofield, had a far better personality than the Hawera manager. When I asked for a new house for the Waugh Estate we did the homework and found there were 8,000 in a Capital Account. In 10 weeks we had a new three-bedroom Keith Hay house costing £6,800 on site. Allan produced 36,000 lbs of butterfat in the first year, rising to 45,000 lbs in the third year. Allan then moved to a leased dairy farm near Foxton which was owned by Mrs. Rennie who promised to reimburse Allan for any improvements. He built a new up-to-date piggery, but Mrs. Rennie was not satisfied and did not reimburse him so he was left $10,000 out of pocket. At the time I left the Guardian Trust and bought a sheep farm near Shannon, Alan left Mrs. Rennie and bought a sheep farm at Kaitieke, north of Raetehi. I did not meet up with him again for 20 years when he came to Ashford Park to acquire a couple of race horses of a particular blood line. The other farm administered by the Guardian Trust at Shannon, was the Waring-Taylor Estate – the original family were early Wellington settlers – had a 39% sharemilker named Waghorn. He was getting 39% of the milk payout and 50% of the pig proceeds. I was not at all happy with the paucity of the pig payment and the suspicion the allocated fertilizer was going to friends who had the farm next door. It was no surprise to me when the Police rang to say they were taking him for stealing four bales of wool. He was convicted so I sacked him on the spot and milked the cows myself until I found a replacement, Tantrum, who worked to the end of the season. At the end of the season I took the wages man, Tantrum, and his family to Taranaki and brought Jim Parkes and his family down from Taranaki to Shannon. This suited them very well as they had a son who became a resident of the Kimberley Centre. The biggest estate was that of J J Patterson which at one time had seven farms at Waitoa in the Waikato and 21 farms in Taranaki. Some of these ‘farms’ were small properties usually leased but not big enough to carry a herd, but there were 10 herds in the Taranaki cluster including two at Tongaporutu which is on the coast south of Awakino and north of Mount Messenger. In South Taranaki we also ran a dry stock farm where we grazed the replacement stock from May to May. My arrival at the Guardian Trust coincided with the change over to tanker collection which meant installing vats at the milking shed, making the cans and horse drawn wagons redundant. Because no whey was available to return to the farm piggeries the pigs became redundant. Up to that time all herds were on whole milk supply except for the two herds at Tongaporutu (south of Mokau) which separated the milk and sent the cream to Waitara. I closed down the Tongaporutu sheds because we would have been heavily penalized for carting the whole milk over Mt Messenger. The whole milk went to Waitara and, in more recent years, to Hawera. Closing down those two milking sheds gave a very strong sheep unit with quality ground to fatten surplus stock. It was the only sheep farm in the J J Patterson portfolio. It was close to 4,000 acres. J J Patterson was the great grandfather of Olympian Rod Wardell. J J had six daughters but no sons. After I left the Guardian Trust in 1965 Jim Wardell (Rod’s father) took over the sheep farm and farmed it until his health let him down and he retired to Hamilton where he died in 2007. One day when coming back from a bull sale at Mahaenui I thought I would go and look at the hoggets in the valley behind the front hills of the Tongaporutu property. On the way I came upon a whitebait trap taking up the full width of a small stream. I had nothing to put the whitebait in so I left them till I came back when I decided I would go barefooted and carry the little critters in my gum boots and put the trap back in place. J J Patterson’s Will precluded any capital expenditure, justified I suppose because most of the farms (Farms 15,16,17,18,19,21, 25 and 28) were West Coast Leases, but had compensation for improvements. Times were changing on the farms whereas in the past the hay was cut loose, swept into the stack site and lifted on to the stack using a horse pulled lifting attachment and then thatched. But with no need for horses once the milk was not being taken to the factory by horse-drawn wagons fewer horses were available for hay making. The thatching was not very good unless there was an expert team available. There were no hay barns on the farms but there was a way around that. I had six to twelve poles delivered to each farm under the guise of heavy fence strainers before the end of the accounting year and then in the next year delivered all the beams and purlins “for yard repairs” and then roofing iron “for shed repairs”. I physically helped the sharemilkers to put up the frames in the Spring. They then put baled hay within the framework so that the roofing timber was put on while standing on the hay. No risk and No wages – but each farm got a hay barn and all tax deductible and not listed as capital expenditure. There had been a minimum of maintenance on the Patterson farms in recent years as the Trust had aimed to pay the six daughters £5,000 each per annum. None of the houses had been painted for 14 years. Len Newell advised me to catch up on maintenance if there was a good year. Fortunately that appeared in my first year. There was record spring production, all the silage was in October then the rain stopped. I was so confident of the Taranaki weather I encouraged the sharemilkers to feed the silage to keep the production up to support my spending spree which included painting and renovating houses, materials for hay barns, converting milking sheds for tanker collection, upgrading tanker tracks and cattle stops at the road entrance. The dry weather continued so there was no hay for the coming winter. I tendered for a whole farm (120 acres) just south of Eltham. It had not been grazed since the winter so the crop was very heavy. There were four tenders above £1,200, mine at £1,218 won the day and we could at least partly fill the hay barns for the winter feed supply. Lou Styger, a friend of Joe Buhler, mowed and baled the hay and Dick Taplin, the eldest son of my boss in 1944, carted it to the farms, mainly Patterson Estate farms, as the Guardian Trust was responsible for their hay. All that development and improvement gave me great satisfaction but when the accounts were done there was only £1,700 for each beneficiary. Of course I got the blame but the Guardian Trust had something to answer for. The deputy chairman of the Guardian Trust Board based in Auckland made bi-annual visits and should have seen the deferred maintenance and I believe that the Trust should have held back up to £1,000 a year to insure against a poor season. Anyway, the beneficiaries were after the new supervisor and called a meeting in Hawera. The six daughters attended and also four of their sons from the South Island who came and looked around the farms the day before and two North Island sons Jim Wardell and Phil Wickham. The latter two I had met during the year and they were aware of the deferred maintenance and changing farming pattern. As I walked into the meeting two of the South Islanders came across the room and welcomed me like a long lost brother – they were the Allison brothers who had been with me at Lincoln College. I put my case to the meeting and was endorsed by the sons, and the Guardian Trust administration got a bollicking. The Allison boys flew a four-seater plane up from the south and next day wanted to fly to Tongaporutu but the cloud was down on the saddle between Stratford and Ruapehu. I was glad when they turned back. Now with more local knowledge they could have flown along the coast around Mt Egmont. Because of the distances that I covered I was taking flying lessons but that experience changed my mind and I stuck with the car, doing 60,000 kms per year. To do that mileage meant early starts, I would have breakfast with the farm manager at Tongaporutu. On one occasion breakfast wasn’t ready so I went over to the milking shed. When I opened the door I had to use it to push a cream can out of the way. When I got into the shed Bill, the sharemilker, was over vigorously scrubbing the vat and the land girl was likewise scouring the cups. I noticed through the summer weight blouse the land girl was wearing that the top hook of her bra was fastened to the bottom eye. The milkers generally wore overalls when milking but obviously they had been discarded, such was the heat of the moment, and the reason for the cream can against the door. Bill, the sharemilker, got a 50/50 job just north of Bulls and used to do a stint in the evenings at one of the hotels in Bulls. One evening four of the locals went to a Lions Club meeting in Feilding. As they were being delivered to their respective homes they noticed Bill’s car parked upon the side of the road. They turned around and shone a torch through the windows. The chap who lived up the road said “That’s my wife”. They opened the front door of the car and took all the clothes leaving the two nude lovers to work out how they were going to get home. Bill went off with the woman and Bill’s wife milked the cows for the remainder of the season. After Len Newall left the Guardian Trust I took over the contract. I rendered an account for my services to each farm based on time required to supervise the on farm management, the time spent buying and selling stock, the mileage required to service the farm and, possibly, some extra to reimburse me for attending dairy and sheep farming conferences. This account was about £12,000 a year, which was more than the office manager earned. When I added the three Manawatu farms to my portfolio I was only given 10 more days a year to my work load because I would visit all three farms in a day. Campbell’s attitude towards me changed as I had rapport with the Palmerston North manager. Another incident fueled the dislike. It involved me accepting the Trusteeship of a Family Trust. One of our neighbours at Hunterville was a returned soldier who drew a ballot block adjacent to our farm. His wife, Valerie went to Wanganui Girls’ College with my wife. Robin was a progressive farmer and embarked on pasture development. I was a very interested bystander and helped him by using my tractor to take the half sacks of grass seed and clover to strategic points on the farm from where it could be spread. At the time that Robin left the 600 acres at Hunterville to go to 4,000 acres at Purangi 40kms east of Waitara, I was moving to Hawera. Robin asked me to be trustee for his family trust. I took that as a great honour, but Campbell thought it should have been the Guardian Trust. Robin had met Campbell and did not like what he saw. Campbell considered me as a traitor, which I was, but Campbell did not fill the bill for Robin and his family. After years on the sheep station Robin bought a dairy farm near Stratford where his second son Tom, built up a very strong unit. After Robin died suddenly, Tom cashed in his share and bought a dairy farm just north of Ashburton. Recently I was talking with Valeria who is still on the Stratford farm. She said that Hannah Wright had been working for Tom. Hannah is the daughter of Brian who is the son of Ken who had the Roxburgh farm. Upon reading a lengthy article in the Sunday Star Times on 24 August 2008, on the inside workings of the Trustee Companies, I woke up to the thinking which has been their modus operandi for 50 years. If the office charged out the supervision fees they could charge a percentage of the estate fees plus normal and abnormal accounting fees. There were instances of beneficiaries suing the Trustee Company for malfeasance and the Trustee Company taking their legal fees out of that estate’s coffers. When setting my fees I would temper the fleece to the shorn sheep. Where a farm was struggling to operate in the black ink I would reduce my fee until I could get a more profitable return. Such generosity was not written into the ethics of the Trustee Companies and certainly not in the Public Trust. I’ve learned: That it isn’t enough to be forgiven by others. Sometimes you have to learn to forgive yourself.

Chapter 5 - From Head Office Public Service to the Wide Open Spaces of Santoft

2010-03-13T06:31:55.345Z

After graduating from Lincoln in 1948, In 1949 I was selected to join the Head Office of the Lands and Survey Department in Wellington. It was a new position and I was not following in anyone’s footsteps.. I was to set up a statistical record because someone in the Department had a bee in his bonnet over how to value property and it was believed that productive valuation was the way to go. It meant the valuers had to do a budget on each farm and the farm was to be considered to be managed by an average efficient farmer, whoever that might be. But there were so many different circumstances in assessing that person it was virtually impossible to get an even line over different farms under such different conditions. After the war and up until 1948, properties had been required to be valued for the Land Sales Act on a productive basis and this had not been a successful even-handed basis of valuing. While we were at Lincoln this was pointed out to us and we were told that the only true value had to be comparative sales. However, in my early days at Head Office I was sent around New Zealand gathering up prices of farm produce and farm equipment and putting this into statistical form, or, should I say, attempting to do it, because my heart was not in the work and I did not feel inclined to spend a lot of money in setting up a lot of stationery. I understand my successor, Ed (Hoot) Gibson, did so and gained some kudos for doing so. I was not being accepted into the thinking of the Department. There were three other men perhaps with some farming experience, and they spent their days drawing up contracts to be used by the Field Officers when dealing with the contractors who were working on the large-scale farm developments on the Central Plateau. I thought they were almost childish in their approach and I said they were wasting their time. The contracts could be abbreviated just saying that a workmanlike job, or a lamb-proof fence, or a cultivation up to acceptable standards had been done. But no, they had pages and pages of this stuff. I asked if they did not trust their field officers, The reply was that they did, so I said they should insist that good people were employed and that they should be given their heads. I had the philosophy that with a bad contractor one did not want an agreement and with a good one an agreement was not needed. They were not very impressed with me and I did see on an Inspector’s report that this man (meaning me) would not make a top public servant. Well, if one had any ambition there would be no desire to be a top public servant. My mind takes me back to when I first went to the Valuation Department. Jack Frost the Records Clerk told me that he thought I was pretty good office boy and he said that if I had been a Catholic he would help me get to the top. But, of course, I was not a Catholic and I could see at that point I did not want to be a public servant. The person who succeeded me as office boy was Wellington educated and when he went to collect the mail it was like a reunion on the steps of the GPO. I was often sent over to hurry him up. It was at this time I met Marie Snelling. She worked next door in an Office Equipment Head office. I could not make a lasting impression though we corresponded for years. Marie married Stan Painter, a top tennis player While working in the Head Office of Lands and Survey I learned that the Government had bought 10,000 acres from the Duncan family. A block called “Santoft”. It was on the coast out from Lake Alice or, for those not familiar with Lake Alice, it was out from Marton between the Rangitikei and Turakina Rivers. The people in the office were saying that it had the potential to have more farms than those being administered by the Wanganui Office or the Palmerston North office which were equi-distant from this new block. I pricked up my ears and said why not establish a separate sub-office there which I would be happy to run. It would need a sub-imprest bank account. I would have the cheque book; I could supervise the staff and plan the development. Eventually my idea was adopted. It was proposed that accommodation would be placed on the block but I would have to eat with the manager. It sounded very interesting to me. To provide me with transport I was allocated one of the first Land Rovers which were produced after the war for domestic use. I moved up to Santoft. An ex-army hut was brought on to the place for my sleeping accommodation and another one provided for my office. Photo above: The near Land Rover was the one I took to Santoft in August 1949. Peter Hammond was the manager and his son Maurice was the assistant manager. Peter Hammond had been married before, so had his present wife and between them they had twenty-one offspring. At one Christmas party his wife Millie, called Peter outside saying your kids and my kids are fighting our kids and I believe it was very willing. I also understand that Archie was getting stroppy and alcohol would affect him. Peter stood Archie on a fruit box under a tree and had him strung on the tree by a rope around his neck. Almost unbelievable, but I was told at the time that it was a fact. I soon discovered that all of the fourteen staff on the place was related to Peter, or to Millie. Millie was a Bostock when she first married I set myself up in the office and then got out on the station. It was 10,500 acres and carried 16,000 ewes, 2000 cattle, 1000 cows. The ewes were bought as five-year-old ewes from the Wairarapa. Generally at the rate of 7000 a year and they lasted two years there, with some of them lasting a third year. The cattle were all Hereford and the steer calves were sold off and the heifer calves were kept for replacements, until they were drafted up and the surplus sold as yearlings. We followed on from what the Duncan family had been doing and applied 1500 tons lime a year, 500 tons of superphosphate, and the powers that be said that I should be at the gate and sign for each truck load of fertilizer that came in. This was impractical as there were three road frontages and the trucks could come in anyone of them at any time depending on which way the wind was blowing or whether the land in that particular area could carry the trucks as some of it was quite swampy. There were sand dunes along the coast and behind them there were swampy areas and very shallow lakes and that kept the water table high. That actually reflected right back over the station and one of my first observations was that this land should not go into private ownership but remain as leasehold land so that the Government could control the water level. Because, if someone over drained a normally wet section, it could lower the water table of the surrounding land. As it turned out this is exactly what happened! There were 1000 acres both sides of Nottingly Creek that ran through the station, the land was dry and rabbit infested and when the Lands and Survey Department, in conjunction with the Forestry Department, planted that area in pine trees it was decided the area behind the sand dunes would be drained into the sand dunes and also planed with pines. One of the jobs we had to organize was the planting of Marram Grass along the moving sand and then over sowing it with wild lupin. When the sand stabilized pine trees were planted. The Forest Department wanted to plant more pine trees so the wet areas behind the dunes were drained and that has had a disastrous affect upon all the sand country right back to the town of Bulls. I found that whatever I suggested no-one would go along with it and the same applied to the stock policy. When we drafted the lambs off at the end of November we got 8,800 lambs in the first draft, whereas I believed we could have got 15,000 lambs. The first draft weighed 38lbs, and we could have gone down to 35 lbs. and got 15,000 lambs. When the lambs were taken away from the ewes, the next morning the ewes would gather round the gate looking for their lambs so we brought those ewes out, culled them for their mouths and, if necessary the culls were sold off to the Works. I said that we should then be able to replace those lambs with store lambs and get two drafts away. But, oh no, that was just too radical for anybody on the Lands and Survey farm and certainly Hammond, the manager, did not want to go along with it as it meant more work and also would deprive him of grass for his cattle going into the winter. When I went to Santoft the manager was earning £8.0.0d a week and I soon found out that he was dealing in cattle. I told him that in the government one cannot have two jobs; one must be a sole employee of Lands and Survey. Hammond said he could not live on the income so I got him an increase in wages to £13 0.0d per week and that was on a par with what Bill Chisholm was getting and he was the manager of Molesworth and was the top manager in the country. Besides his wage, Peter Hammond was also ‘found’ all the groceries and stores for the house and this included all the cigarettes which the store keeper sent out. I was told we had to accept that, because when it was said “found” everything was “found” for them except alcohol and clothes. Peter Hammond was virtually an alcoholic and he would spend three days on the booze with his step son, Albert Bostock, ferrying him from the Turakina Hotel, Whangahu Hotel, or a hotel in Marton. The next day he spent sobering up and then three days around the station with a certain number of the staff trotting along behind him acting on his bidding of moving stock and, as it turned out, moving his own stock. I soon became aware that there were black cattle on the station and the station only ran Hereford cattle. I acquired myself a horse and two dogs. One of the dogs was a descendant of the bitch pup that I bought when I went to Maringi in 1941. Neighbour, Don York, lent me a horse that had been broken in before but nobody could ride it. Sid Ashwell broke it in again and said that I could have it if I could ride it, which I did. I made a point of when I put the saddle on it I walked down the road before I tightened the girth. There was a little hill down the road and when I was in the hollow by the hill I then tightened the girth and then got on the horse and kicked it along. By the time it had got to the top it had settled down. I believe when I was away for the weekend the other shepherds on the station used to get it and try to ride it and I believe that it became quite a buck jumper. After I left Santoft they had to have the horse put down because no one else could ride it. That was a shame because to me it was really good horse. There is a lesson to be learned here. Sid Ashwell, the horse breaker, went up to a Taihape farm and one day he was leading a horse down a hill. Sid was wearing riding boots which do not have any cleats on them. He slipped on the dry grass and his feet went from under him. The horse kicked him in the head and killed him. It was a most unfortunate accident. There were no internal roads in the block but there were tracks. Tractors were the only vehicles and a Bren gun carrier that somebody had tried out for fun use. When I went there I was able to drive right through the station, but there were no metal roads. It was a pretty primitive access. The station did not own a tractor and the hay making was done by contract. There was another contractor who dug sand tussocks out of the swamp and laid them on the sand blows upon the ridges to stop the wind blowing the top cover away and that same contractor used to carry the marram grass out to be planted on the coastal dunes. So when I came with the Land Rover I was very mobile. As I was still into athletics I often took some of the staff to a Club night at Bulls or Marton but I never called into a hotel in spite of being vocally encouraged. Whenever I got my horse in to saddle it up apparently the telephone line was busy from the homestead down to the out station where the boss’s son, Maurice Hammond lived, and I soon became aware that there was a scatter of shepherds ahead of me and in the cold weather I could often see steam coming out of the patches of manuka which were in most paddocks. It turned out that ahead of me the shepherds were organized to chase the black cattle into the manuka and if the cattle had been given a bit of a hurry up they were quite happy to stay in the shade until I got out of the way. The government agreed to give Mrs. Hammond domestic assistance in the form of Margaret McConachie, a neighbour’s daughter, and Margaret kept me posted on what was going on. I became friendly with Norm Shelton and Stan Lawrenceson who were the staff at Hodder and Tolley’s. I had to keep in close contact with them because there were items such as gates and fencing material which had been booked up to them which did not come on to the station but went to Hammond’s relatives’ farms and town houses. Norm Shelton who was eventually to become the Member of Parliament for Rangitikei and the Minister of Commerce, told me I was too young to be mixed up in what was going on out on the station but I could not understand just what he meant One day Norm rang and asked where my staff was and I imagined they were all on the station, although I knew the 3-ton truck was off the station. He told me to go over to Bonnie Glen railway and have a look and sure enough they were unloading 100 black cattle. I had already been to Wellington to tell the Assistant Director of Land Development that Hammond was running cattle on his own account but they would not believe me. We had a stock supervisor who was in Palmerston North and he thought I was an upstart. He always addressed me as Wright, never Bill, or son, or Joe Bloggs. I suppose he thought he was autocratic but I thought he was just arrogant. Later that day the black cattle were driven down past my digs and on to the station, so I rang the manager of the Palmerston North Office and said Hammond had brought some black cattle onto the place. The next morning Beachman came out and tackled Hammond about this and told him that it had to stop. Hammond said he had the grazing rights of a property on Jurgen’s family farm and the cattle would not be coming on to the farm. He had to leave them here for a day or two because they were sore footed. Beachman did not tell me anything of this and he went back to town. I believe that Hammond emptied a bottle of whisky and then he came looking for that detective bastard. He stood in my office doorway and said that he had told me to keep my mouth shut and he would give me 100 quid any time I wanted it. I replied it would not matter if it was £1.0.0d or £1000.0.0d as far as I was concerned he was getting his money dishonestly and I did not want to be part of it. He said “I’ll hang you, you bastard”. He shouted out for the head shepherd, Tony, to get a rope and they would hang me. Tony just wasn’t about and Hammond went out to the stables and I went to my land rover and went into town to Hodder and Tolley’s and told them about this. As I went down the street from Hodder and Tolley’s, Hammond came out of the police station and shook his fist at me and said you f….g detective bastard. It appeared he was off to the hotel as usual, so I went back to the police station and said what was going on. I was told Hammond wanted me arrested for using a government vehicle for private purposes. That was because I was courting a Hunterville girl and at the weekends I used to take her up to Hunterville for the weekend there was no extra running involved because I was permitted to take the vehicle to Palmerston North or Wanganui as I had to work through those offices, but I sometimes went to Wanganui for the weekend early in my courting days. I used to eat with the staff in the big dining room. One morning Millie was putting chops into the pan when her son, Noel, came in. He complained to his mother that she was always bitching. Millie pulled the front of her dress, exposing her breast, and told him, that if he had eczema as badly as she had, and he was as sore, then he also would be bitchy. The chops still tasted alright and I didn’t get eczema. When 1500 tons of lime and 500 tons of super were delivered to the station I was supposed to receipt it immediately. This was impractical and I used to go into Wally Thompson, the carrier, each Friday and sign all the dockets. This was just a continuation of my philosophy that with a good carrier it is not necessary to police him, but have nothing to do with a bad bastard. Wally was a very genuine bloke. In those days it was not possible to buy a bottle of whiskey without also buying a dozen beer, so with Christmas coming I put my order in to be delivered to Wally’s depot. It was coming up to the end of November and a General Election was to be held. On election day it so happened that my sister Patricia, who was a Karitane nurse, was casing at the Vickers family who lived 5 kilometres north of Marton, I was 7 or 8 kilometres south of Marton . The Vickers invited me to visit with them on Election Night. My uncle, Tom Hayman, was standing for Parliament to represent Oamaru and he was up against Arnold Nordmeyer. It so happened that Norm Shelton, the Manager of Hodder and Tolley, was seeking election as the member for the district of Rangitikei. As the night wore on it appeared that Uncle Tom was going to unseat Nordmeyer and I said to my hosts that should Uncle Tom win I would supply a bottle of whisky and when it appeared positive that Uncle Tom would be elected I was told to go and find the bottle of whisky. So I went to Wally Thompson’s home and knocked on the door and the girl who boarded there answered. I asked if I could see Wally and she said he had gone to bed. I said what I wanted and he agreed to go down to the depot and I got the bottle of whiskey and he went back home. I went out to Vickers and, sure enough, Uncle Tom won it and we cleaned up the bottle of whisky no trouble. Next time I saw Wally he said to me that the girl who boarded with him wasn’t too happy at him being got out of bed although he didn’t mind. As she was quite new to the town and did not have a boy friend, it was suggested that I should invite her out and let her know I was not such a bad bloke after all. The young lady’s name was Heather Dalziell and I did invite her out. That was over the Christmas and we got to know each other better. Heather and I became engaged on the 4th of July 1950 and were married on the 11th November 1950. After 59 years we are still married and living together. It was in June 1950 when I had done a bit of riding around on my horse at the weekend probably when there had been a party in town and all the staff were nursing hangovers and I found quite a few black cattle, maybe 200 or 300 on the station. I reported it to Head Office of Lands and Survey and said that with these extra cattle coming on I thought it was time to call a halt because we were going into the winter and we should not be feeding someone else’s cattle and it was beginning to dawn on me that it was why Hammond didn’t want a second lot of lambs on the property because he was saving up feed in the autumn and winter for his cattle. After the episode with the police I rang Wellington. I said it was not good enough being abused, accused and threatened and asked that something be done about it. I was told that nothing could be done because if the Manager left they did not know what they could do. As no one is indispensable and there was nothing out of the ordinary about managing a farm like this I said I could do it myself. I was told that if I stayed Hammond had told the shepherds not to work for me so I was to be transferred. I refused to be transferred and I was going to clean the problem up before I left the district. I was told Hammond was indispensable, although his son was every bit as good as he was. In that case I said I would leave the Department, the fact that I was under bond would not stop me and so I left. Hammond was a great stockman, but he was an alcoholic, quite an elderly man and perhaps an overpowering sort of a man. Not of very big stature but very loud voice. I had telephoned Wellington from the Post Office in town. Afterwards I went around to the police station and was advised that I should not return to the Station considering the mood Hammond was in. I requested a police escort and we returned to the Station where I loaded up the land rover with all my belongings. I took the cheque book, office records and what have you. I could operate the cheque account, I could employ people but I could not sack anybody and I believe it was a loser’s situation typical of public servants. I delivered the cheque book back to the Palmerston office on the Monday morning and felt I was no longer a public servant, except there had to be a stock tally. Under the terms of the Rural Field Cadet’s course we were bonded to the State Advances Corporation for a term of seven years for a sum of £100.0.0d. I had been on the Course for 7 ½ years from January 1942 to July 1950, but the State Advances still claimed 100 pounds and under protest, Dad paid up. I had to go back to Santoft the following week because the cattle had to be mustered in and tallied, this I believe, was overdue. Also there were 500 steer calves which were to go to Rotorua and Ross Smith, who I had been to Lincoln with in 1946, was coming down to take delivery of them and he was going to accompany them on the train back to Rotorua. I met him off the Express and brought him out to Santoft. The cattle muster was done the day before and there were two field officers brought from Palmerston North and Wanganui to tally the stock. Ross and I went round the station in the land rover looking at the development work I had organized and the proposals for the roading. There was to be a road to go right through the station with two or three side roads. I had a preliminary scheme of sub-division giving 32 farms, 6 sheep farms on the drier sand hills near the homestead with 26 dairy farms of about 150 acres on the better ground. This development was carried out over the next three years. When we turned up at the yards one of the checking officers came up to us and said I had to go, if I stayed there Hammond would take all the staff away, they were not going to work with me. We went off and waited until the field officers came out and said that the tally was 100 per cent correct. I said what about those four black cows. The stock return shows that there were four cattle bought last year and I said they were Hereford bulls, but they said, the tally is 100 per cent correct. That’s unknown on a station this big and I said it has probably been always under counted, and those four black cows belong to Hammond. The ownership was not correct but I had finished with them so let it be. However, the RSA got to hear of this probably through Stan Lawrenceson and, I understand, Norm Shelton, who by this time was an MP. The RSA picked it up in the belief, and correctly so, that Returned soldiers were being done out of profit that could be used to reduce the price of the farms. They forced Hammond in to having a sale in late July early August and there were 800 head of cattle up for sale. He was stood down as Manager and his son Maurice became the temporary manager but then he went off to manage a big farm at Tangawai. The time coincided with the death of Mr. Willie Duncan. Mr. Duncan had no family so he was able to leave the individual farms that he owned to the managers. The one stipulation made was that the managers had to pay the relevant death duties for their properties. Before Hammond managed Santoft he lived on the Fordell Race Course which Duncan owned, and when he went to Santoft a son-in-law lived at Fordell. When Hammond left Santoft he returned to the Fordell property but had to sell the stock he had run at Santoft because of pressure from the Tax Department. The stock sale was held at Fordell at the end of the winter and cattle sold at a sale held two weeks later brought £10.00 a head more than he realized for his. Hammond had not been putting in an Income Tax Return. All his dealings had been through cash and when the cattle were advertised for sale at the Fordell Sale Yards the Income Tax Department looked this up and decided that they had to follow it up. It was in the name of Clayton Graham Hammond and the Department investigated Hammond’s trading over the years but could only make an estimate. Hammond was charged with £8,000.0.0d of unpaid tax and he was given eight years to pay it off at £1,000.0.0d per year. Had he been able to defer the sale of his cattle for another two weeks he would have made £10.0.0d a head more and this would have given him the £8,000.0.0d to pay the Tax Department. Over the years after I left Santoft I used to see Hammond a lot. I worked in the Wanganui district and often went to the Fordell sale and guessing that Hammond would be at the hotel I would go in after the sale to have a drink, not that I needed one, it was more of a tease. Hammond would be there and he would scream out that I was a f…ing detective bastard. It was all part of the fun as far as I was concerned. Over the years though they had their share of misfortune. One of the younger grandchildren was up a tree cutting off a limb for the Christmas tree and he fell out of the tree and hit his head on a piece of old coal range which was in the ground and suffered head injuries from which he died. I do not know if the Good Lord had anything to do with that. Archie Ellingham, who was a stock supervisor for the Lands and Survey, had a flat farm on Milson Line just out of Palmerston North. He was driving his little Ferguson tractor angle wise through a shallow ditch and it flipped backwards and he was killed. I do not know if there is a message there or not. There was a lot of dairy stock needed to stock Santoft two or three years after I left. When the sheds were built there were twenty-four dairy sheds and the stock was bought in the Waikato. I am given to understand that a chap Shannon who was a trader in the Manawatu used to bring a lot of dairy stock down and he drafted them up. The better ones he sold at Feilding and the rest were bought by Ellingham and they were distributed to the farmers on Santoft. Whenever Ellingham was questioned about this he said it is the same price as Shannon is getting for similar replacement stock at the sale in Feilding. I was never in a position to discuss this with Shannon as he was killed when his car hit a power pole on a bend on the Rangitikei Line near Newbury. It was really none of my business but it was something which upset me over the years the way innocent people were being ripped off by unscrupulous traders. I went down to the South Island to work for my father. He had my elder sister working for him until she left to be married in 1946 and he had two Rural Field Cadets working for him filling in their cropping year, they were Murray Findlater and Kerry Mayo who had been with me on Maringi. Kerry’s progress through the RFC scheme had been upset by war service.

Chapter 3 - William Raymond Wright

2010-03-13T06:31:49.685Z

I was born in Waimate on 16 November 1926, and christened at Waihao Downs Anglican church in 1946. Photo above: Pine Grove - Bill Wright's childhood home. I went to Waihao Downs Primary School for six years until 1936 and Kapua School for one year. I went on to Kapua was because there was a disagreement between the Committee and the teacher's wife, who was the sister of Arnold Nordmeyer. At the same time seven pupils also moved on to several different schools. My sister and I, Sally Ross, the two Millar girls and Dick Baynes went to Kapua. Trevor Turner went to Albury. Pat and I rode ponies five miles extra and went in the gig in the winter time. No doubt we felt pretty smart because Roy Tavendale's mother had taken him to and from school all his school days in the horse and gig.I cannot remember my mother ever taking us to school, however my father was doing contract agricultural work which depended on fine weather so when it rained he was able to take us to school. The journey to school from our farm house started with a hill of about half a mile but it was not too steep and then we crossed a mile of undulating country. Then there was a dog leg in the road and generally we would cut across the corner of Mr. Briggs' paddock. The main paddock in the way was a Lucerne paddock and if the Lucerne was nearly ready for cutting it was long and wet, but we all wore boots - in fact I wore boots all my days at primary school. Then there was the best part of half a mile of fairly steep down hill section to the school. If we were late and on foot we had to run most of the way. But we certainly did not run up the first hill. No doubt this built some stamina into us. We certainly were not couch potatoes and this may have had some reflection on my athletic ability when I went to secondary school. Although Waimate was a small community there were numerous social functions. The end of year school concert often had a mock court and at one of these Cecil Wright, who was well-known for working extended hours, was charged because the Wright children asked who that man who came for dinner on Sundays was. During the winter euchre and dance evenings were held in the local school. Occasionally a beer bottle was left behind in the school grounds and there was a scramble to get to school early the next day. The early birds collected the empty bottles which they traded in at the local store for a penny worth of aniseed balls or black balls or a penny bar of Nestlé's chocolate. These chocolate bars came with a coloured coupon which could be pasted into a booklet. I had a booklet of pheasants and another of Tutankhamen's tomb. At the Arno hall, which was near the Kapua School, we had annual concerts at which the local Maori community from Morven performed. Local people, with the help of artists from further afield, performed in a Nigger Minstrel Show. One of these performers was Jack Dawson, who eventually set up a business in Cable Car Lane in Wellington. When I was in Wellington Jack charged me six pence for a hair cut. Nigger Minstrel Show at Arno Hall about 1937 Cecil Wright and Rose Wright Right Hand side front row. Another artist was Alan Shrimpton who was a gifted singer and mimic. Alan had ridden his motorbike into a railway engine and had suffered horrendous head injuries. The local GP, Dr Pitts, used a stainless steel plate to cover the missing pieces of his skull. Alan worked for John Foley at Studholme Station. The two Foley boys went to boarding school and when they came home from school they invariable asked Alan how their father was treating him. Alan would reply in a board Irish brogue and if John over heard him he would tell Alan to shut up as he did not know whether it was himself or Alan speaking. Pupils at Waihao School - 1929 My first teacher was Jim McKay who stayed five years then transferred to Invercargill East. He was a good violinist and possessed many other talents, including drama, carpentry, surveying and architecture. His father surveyed the Heaphy Track. Jim McKay was a very practical man and while at Wahoo Downs' school he built a caravan. He had one child, Heather, and together with her parents she had endure the Murchison earthquake of 1929. Jim often told us of the shocking weather conditions on the West coast of New Zealand where he had lived all his life, except for attending Teachers' Training College for two years. Jim's father was James McKay was also a surveyor. In 1860 McKay senior, was appointed warden of the Collingwood Goldfields and there is a McKay Hut on the Heaphy Track. It is on record that James McKay favoured a road long the route of the Heaphy Track to give access from Golden Bay to the West Coast. After Jim McKay was pressured out of the Education Service he developed a manufacturing business where he made the widely acclaimed McKay space heaters and, later, made Belmac safety frames for tractors. Arnold Nordmeyer was the Labour Party candidate for Oamaru. In later years (1949) my Uncle Tom unseated him as the local MP. Nordmeyer was without an electorate for a term until he moved to Brooklyn and was re-elected. He became the leader of the Opposition. The Wright Children William (Bill) Patricia Euan Norma At primary school there was not much in the way of sports. Initially we tried to play football but there were only 14 pupils at the school and certainly for the first three or four years I was too small to be included. In the fourth year my sister Norma had her leg broken whilst playing rugby and that was the end of the rugby. Don Taylor, who was the teacher at that time, was a very good hockey player and he introduced us to hockey. There were two other primary schools that had hockey teams so there was a little bit of inter-school competition. After my time at primary school I went to secondary school in Waimate and had to travel by taxi. The headmaster was Malcolm Leadbetter who was the first New Zealander to be credited with running 100 yards in 10 seconds. He was quite keen on intelligent athletic activities at the school. Each week we went to Victoria Park for coaching in athletics. The park was on the other side of town and was an attractive venue with a grass surface. The headmaster impressed upon me was that one did not run full out from the word go. One paced oneself and kept enough stamina to sprint to the finish.The Houses at secondary school were named after previous Headmasters, Grant, Pitcaithly and Chisholm. I was in Grant House On the occasion of the House Sports I was running in the mile and as I ran passed the crowd of spectators, there was no grandstand as such. I was tucked in behind the field and I heard my name and that of Grant House being called, so I thumbed my nose at them because I thought that I knew what I was doing and did not need their advice. Round the back straight Leadbetter stopped the race, told us to get on and make a race of it and told me that he would see me in his study after assembly the following morning. Sure enough, next morning Headmaster Leadbetter repeated his request that I see him in his study. I obeyed and he said "You know what you are here for?", and I said "No. I don't. You told us to make a race of it and I did, I won the race and I felt I had fulfilled any obligation I had so far as my House was concerned". He said "You do not give the raspberry to the crowd." I said "I haven't given any raspberries to anybody." He said "You leave that behind at the school across the road". He pointed to the primary school that was opposite. I said "I did not go to that school; I had attended the Waihao Downs' primary school. He said "Don't you known what I mean" I replied "No, I to not understand about ‘giving the raspberry'". He said "It is this business of putting your thumb to your nose and playing the flute when you have not got a flute in your hands". "Oh" I said. He said "You won't forget this my boy", and he went into his little storeroom at the back of his study and brought out a bundle of canes. He laid into the back of his big armchair with these canes one by one, and then he said "These are not as good as the ones down in the staff room; I'll have to go down and get them." So he walked out and he left me standing there for forty minutes. He had actually gone and taken another lecture. He came back without a cane and just said "Get out." Of course, the fear of waiting for a mighty caning was sufficient to make me remember that incident right to this day. I ran second in the Cross Country and the following year I won it. That was the end of my Secondary School days and I went to work in Wellington. I met up with other ex-Waimate High School pupils who belonged to the Kiwi Athletic Club and they persuaded me to go along and join them. More as a good will gesture, because I had no reputation as a runner or any other athletic ability, I did join up and occasionally ran with them but without any great results. I considered my early years very mundane after I had read other autobiographies, but on further thought I do believe that there are incidents that warrant recording. My earliest recollections are of my father coming into the yard driving the Caterpillar 2-ton crawler tractor. Years later I was to find out that it was one of two that came to New Zealand at that time. The other one went to Seiferts at Shannon (more of that 40 years later). The Caterpillar 2-ton superseded the Holt 2-ton when Caterpillar bought the Holt Tractor Co., but there was very little difference in their appearance. This tractor had a caterpillar tread and could be turned around in its own length. We lived at the end of a two-mile section of unnamed road. The yard was about an acre in area, mostly in grass. Fronting it were the farm buildings, the granary cum shearing stand for sheep, stables for six draught horses, the cow bail and complementary separator room. This shed had a lean-to on the south wall that provided cover for the car and tractor (when it was home) and was the workshop and night pen at shearing time. The milking shed was a six-bail walk through with a Zealandia milking plant fitted to six sets of cups. At the north end of the yard was the fowl house and run and then the pig sty. There was an old man willow where the home kill (sheep, beast or pig) were hung before being cut up. There were no chillers or freezers so the bigger carcasses were shared with the neighbours. The pigs were salted or smoked and some of the beef was soaked in brine for corn beef. In our time I do not think the milking plant was used as the four to six cows were hand milked and grazed on pasture that was below the standard that we now expect for cows and, at the weekends, we grazed them on the road side. Water, or the lack of it, was a problem particularly over the summer as the creek would run dry and the water had to come from a pond in the creek that never dried up, but was not very inviting from a cleanliness perspective. It was this meager water supply that precluded us from having a flush toilet which were a rarity in the country areas in the 1930's Dad and Mum went to that farm in 1920 when they were 20 years old and newly married. They had paid 28 per acre for the 206 acres. I imagine things were pretty tough. Transport to Waimate would have been by motorbike and sidecar, though there was a general store selling groceries and a full range of farm merchandise at Waihao Downs, also the daily mail and newspaper were collected from there. The storekeeper was Percy Goodwin who had two daughters and a son John. John went on to great things in the horticultural world. He worked for the landscaper who set out the grounds of Massey College near Palmerston North, planting many of the English trees that bound the Tiritea stream. He was the first horticultural graduate from Massey. He then worked for Palmerston North Parks and Reserves until he was called up for war service. On his return, John took the position of curator of Pukekura Park in New Plymouth which was in a sad state and he turned it around developing the Bowl of Brooklands as well as introducing the lights. He then involved himself with developing Pukeiti rhododendron gardens. He was patron of the Rhododendron Society of New Zealand until he died in 2006. John worked for my father in the harvest field in the summer holidays from Massey. As a responsible employee he was given the job of driving the dray with one horse in the shafts and two horses in chains pulling from the front of the shafts. The dray was loaded with sheaves of either oats or wheat, picked up at random around the paddock and drawn up beside the stack where the horse driver (team master) would fork the sheaves on to the stack and the lowest rated worker (the crow) would place the sheaves in front of the stacker (usually my father) to place them in order to make a weather proof stack. Usually the empty dray was driven to the fartherest stooks and the load was built as the team moved towards the stack. Often the ground was steep, up to 40°slope with the stack on flat ground. One day they started loading going away from the stack, then with half a load of sheaves turned around to go back to the stack. The dray was top heavy with a narrow wheel base and the dray flipped over with the horse in the shafts kicking wildly because the harness would not allow him to get to his feet. One of the paddock men ran and called my Dad, who was probably out of sight and Dad called to blindfold the horse with a shirt. This calmed the horse allowing the harness to be undone. The dray was lying on its side as the spilled load prevented it from turning upside down. Even with the harness undone it was not easy for the horse to get too his feet. A few days later as the loaded dray approached the stack the shafter (the horse in the shafts) dropped to his knees and John wrapped his shirt around the horse's eyes assuring Dad that the horse would not get up or get entangled this time. Dad came and removed the shirt from over the eyes of the horse and agreed with John, as the horse was dead. After the crop was cut with the reaper and binder we hired two men to stook the sheaves i.e. to stand them with the butt end on the ground usually eight to a group leaning against each other until the sheaves were dry to stack them. When the sheaves were dry we would have two men loading the sheaves onto the dray or on to the sledge on very steep ground - about 45º. Dad would go to town on a Saturday night to engage two forkers for Monday. One particular time he asked Sonny (Peanut) Jacobs. The taxi driver, if he knew anybody. (Peanut was the father of Dinah Lee who was a very popular singer in later years.) Peanut did not know anybody off hand so Dad found two men elsewhere in the town and they had their own transport. These two men arrived out at the farm early on Monday morning to be followed by Peanut and two more men. Dad pointed out to Peanut that he did not ask him to get two men; he had only asked if he knew of two. Peanut insisted that Dad owed him ten shillings to which Dad countered by threatening to kick him off the farm if he did not go. That night Dad must have been retracing the events of the day in dreamtime, because he woke up to find Mum getting back into bed. About 1928 Mick Connell came to the farm and drove the team and did general farm work while dad was contracting around the district, as far as 20 miles from home. Mick Connell was an Irish immigrant, who, I gathered, was glad to get a job away from the strife in Northern Ireland. That strife I believe was between the Catholic and Protestant factions. Mick slept in a room attached to the gig shed near the house. He did not have any mod cons, no window even, just a sack over what used to be the window. Besides general farm work Mick drove the horses doing the top cultivation after Dad had done the ploughing. After Mick left us he went to Southland. He could not have been too hard done by as he kept in touch for many years. About this time two new threshing mill contractors started, both having come from Northern Ireland. I recollect that Mick was a bit concerned about their presence. One was Dan Small who later, about 1940, bought what had been the Wright farm at Willowbridge. The other was Jim Urquhart who married Beth Kirk, the daughter of the Waihao Downs Presbyterian Minister, so I presume he was also a Presbyterian. Dan Small was a Roman Catholic. There were quite a number of threshing mills operating in the district surrounding Waimate. Each gang consisted of a steam driven tractor engine wooden mill with broad, folding elevator, two huts on steel rimmed wheels and water joey (dray pulled by a single horse with 200 gallon galvanized tank with room for a few sacks of coal) that had to keep the water and coal up to the traction engine. My mother's father had two traction engines and two wooden mills and a chaff cutter (for cutting chaff for the working horses in the off season) for threshing grain. Chaff cutting was a big business as there were few tractors and plenty of horses. Tractors were still scarce in 1940. My father fitted a pulley on the two-ton and was cutting chaff on 1930. When Granfy sold the Willowbridge farm he left £1,700.00 on second mortgage. In 1935 the Mortgages and Leases Rehabilitation Act (MLR days) was enacted by Parliament and most of the second mortgages were wiped off. A very sore point with farmers forced off the farms by the Depression who could not make a sale without leaving a portion of the sale price on. There were many hardships as a result. Another hard luck tale was when the Labour Party came to power in 1935 there was £30 million in the Farmers' Union Bank account, it had been put there to top up farmers' income in the poor years. But the skinflint hierarchy would not distribute it and the Labour Government commandeered it, set up the Housing Corporation and started building State Houses. From a housing point of view an excellent idea (ask James Fletcher) but no satisfaction to the farming community. When dad went on his contracting excursions, he had the tractor on the front, then the roller with the harrows on top, the tandem Boothmac discs (on carrier wheels), then the four furrows Ransome plough (the plough and the tractor are both in the Waimate museum). Then a Ransome cultivator (grabber) was added. The P & D Duncan 15 coulter drill was another implement that had to be used when the cultivation was completed. In the 1930's we had a Buick car cut down to the equivalent of a half-ton truck to tow it to where it was needed. To cut the oats and wheat a drawbar was fitted and this allowed the tractor to be attached to the binder or reaper as it was often called. A man still had to sit on the binder to control how high the crop was cut, how long the sheaves were and how far the fans were involved in pulling the cut crop onto the platform. When the wheat was ripe the horse drawn binder had the pole taken out and a draw bar fitted. That reaper and binder with a six foot cut was replaced in 1944 with a purpose built binder with an eight foot cut. This coincided with better, taller bulkier crops which meant we had to add an extension to the rear of the platform, called a hustler, to ensure the larger and longer straw was carried up to the tying mechanism. The sheaves were bound into bundles of about 15kg and were stood up (stooked) and leant against each other to "season" or dry out until they were ready to be stacked or threshed by one of the threshing mill contractors. Usually all the down country wheat was threshed first. After the tractor came in September, Dad must have started contracting, but it was not long before there was a slump in the economy and some of dad's clients became tardy with their payments resulting in the current account with Dalgety's running above the sum agreed upon. The result was that Dalgety's manager Louis Gunn, acting under direction from head office in London, stated that they had funds badly invested in New Zealand and intended to reduce the obligation. The local management made some irrational decisions, for instance they persuaded Cyril Verity to plant a bigger area in mangels than his stock could eat, and then employed otherwise unemployable men to hoe them, with Cyril footing the bill. Most of the crop rotted as the district farmers had no money no matter how badly they wanted them. At that time the Dalgety account was about £700 in debit and when Mum's inheritance from her father's estate came to hand Dalgety's thought they should have that but my parents agreed not to give it to them, so Dalgety's set about selling them up. The horses were paraded in the sheep yards and sold, then the horse drawn implements were sold and the auctioneers and the prospective purchasers were moving onto the two-ton tractor and the associated implements with all eagerness, as no tractor had been sold at auction prior to this, but then the king hit. Dad put his hands in the air and said they could all go home as proceeds had cleared the account and he did not owe Dalgety's anything. From then on the farm account was run through Pyne Gould Guiness in my mother's name a/c Mrs. R Wright. It was years before I understood the significance of that. PGG acted as a bank and Dad used an order book as opposed to a bank cheque book and I believe that persisted for the rest of his life. Pynes as we got to know them ran a grocery shop as well as full farm hardware, fuel bowsers, stock agency and a Trust department and proved to be very friendly and client focused. Most of the cultivation was to grow extra feed for the sheep to tide them over between autumn growth and spring growth. The winter could be very severe often with spells of several days of heavy frosts, and also up to 18 inches of snow at which time there was no available grass. Oats were grown to feed the draught horses that did of the cultivation, or often only the lighter cultivation after dad did the ploughing and the first cut with the discs. In that climate the frosts broke down the clods and the horses had an easier job in the Spring to do the last cut with the discs, then harrow, before sowing the seed, be it turnips, swedes, oats for chaff, or wheat for a cash crop. Most of the local farmers grew one or two acres of mangels (mangolds) which were lifted from the paddock and stored under cover, usually straw, and were fed out when the grass was covered by heavy frost or by snow. Mangolds were superseded when hay baling was introduced and Chou moellier (a tall brassica) was added to the crop mix. To get to the clients the tractor was driven on the road, it had steel cleated tracks but there were no tar sealed roads so no damage was done, except the extra wear on the cleats. Dad's district covered 12 miles to the east, 10 miles to the west but only about four miles wide because of the Hunter Hills to the north and the Waitaki River to the south. He had a reputation for working long hours. He said there were enough hours of daylight and he did not need lights on the tractor. He kept a meticulous diary and the hours on the tractor were faithfully recorded. He claimed he worked the tractor for 2,000 hours per year besides doing his share of farm work on the home farm. Such was the pressure to satisfy his clients the first invoices after getting the two-ton were written on Boxing Day 1928. That invoice book should be in the Waimate Museum. I lent it to a Kevin Cromie as his grandfather featured regularly in it. My first paid job off my parent's farm was fleecoing at Bill Allen's farm which was about two miles north of Pinegrove. I walked across country and passed "pigeon rock" which is a limestone outcrop about 30 metres high standing out from a limestone bluff shaped like a giant sea shell and had pigeon nest holes around it. It is a geological outcrop which deserves publicity. I was 12 years old when I first fleecoed for two shearers. That is, picked up the newly shorn fleece, swept the board, skirted the fleece, i.e., took the stained wool from the edge of the spread out fleece, then rolled the fleece or put it in the press or a bin (slated side frame) adjacent to the press. If the shearer was catching a sheep before I had picked up the fleece he would call "Woolaway" and the other shearer might call "tar". I would say "That's alright", but he was calling for the Stockholm tar which was used to dress cut wounds. When the farmer came down to the shed he helped me press the wool, probably four bales a day. The shearers were very rough and they probably shore only 200 sheep a day. They were not very experienced and certainly pre-Godfrey Bowen days. Godfrey and his brother Ivan revolutionized shearing by giving demonstrations and organizing tuition through Wool Board Instruction Schools throughout New Zealand and overseas in wool producing countries. The work was made easier and the quality of the fleeces better by eliminating second cuts and breaking the fleece apart so that the different types of wool did not get mixed up. The farmer was Bill Allan, not a very energetic or good farmer. His pastures were infested with yarrow, a rhizome plant, with low productivity and a prolific seeder. The land was difficult to cultivate with horse drawn implements, but Bill insisted on growing wheat with the yarrow which made it very palatable to sheep. Yarrow seed was always added to seed mixes for over sowing bush burns. It was common knowledge that Bill got more for the yarrow seed than he did for the wheat that was bagged off the mill. Despite having two sons Bill sold out to Don Hulston who had been President of the Students' Association at Lincoln College during my time there. Before Don got a tractor I did some cultivation work for him. We used to grub up the yarrow with the stiff tined cultivator and the sheep ate the roots. The north boundary of the farm was the Waihao River and adjacent to the Black Hole, notorious for fatalities. In the early days a boy crashed through the ice and drowned. In my time I was never aware of ice forming on the river. Then about 1950 two intellectually handicapped children under care, drowned there. There was a big rock hanging out over a deep pool and the problem may have been diverse currents adjacent to the rock. I never swam there, preferring to watch the others. Don Hulston remained a bachelor and on the sale of his farm he bequeathed the proceeds to Lincoln College to be used for post graduate research. It was a substantial amount, in excess of half a million dollars. In our small district of Waihao Forks we had quite a group of ex Lincoln College studentsColin Cameron. Don Scott Don HulstonSnow Trengrove Bill Wright Mark Leslie In the 4th form - 2nd year at High School I was put in charge of the milk distribution. I had to see that the milk crates containing half pint bottles of full cream, pasteurized milk were distributed to the girls' and boys' playgrounds. The milk was free and about half of the pupils availed themselves of this. I was also the bell boy and had to ring the bell for the start and end of each school day as well as the end of each teaching period. For School Certificate I had to sit five approved subjects. I thought I had made a hash of the woodwork paper because it was purely practical with no written questions. When I started at secondary school the class master probably never expected me to complete three years at secondary school so a School Certificate year was not planned for. In my first term report I obtained one first place in arithmetic and in the 3rd term of my second year I received four first places, a second and a fourth place but only four of the subjects were eligible for School Certificate marks so I took woodwork as a School Certificate subject. I was very thin as a child and after my second year at secondary school where I sat and passed the Public Service Entrance, I was offered a position in the Public Service in Wellington. My father advised me to take it as he doubted that I would ever be strong enough to work on a farm. Most of the local school students who were accepted for the Public Service were drafted to the Railways or Post Office locally, or in Wellington. I can only assume that my high class marks got me posted to the Head Office of the Valuation Department in Wellington. Fortunately I had gone with a school group to the Centennial Exhibition in Wellington in January 1940 otherwise I would have been disorientated for the attendance to the Public Service Commissioner in March. The sleeping arrangements in the Winter Show Building and eating arrangements at the Newtown Primary School were a little overwhelming to a country bumpkin, though I did manage to cope with the dodgems and met some friendly female students from Taumaranui High School. I reported to the Public Service Commission on 25 March, 1940. The Public Service Commission's field officer took me to the Valuation Department on the second floor of the Government Life building on Customhouse Quay, facing the waterfront. This was a surprise as I thought the Public Service was the Post Office and the Railways. This was the head office of the Valuation Department and there was a staff of 26, which included only one valuer - Jim Mackie. Even at that stage I had no aspirations to be a valuer I was 15 years and 4 months old and had only the clothes I stood up in plus a pair of pyjamas. No accommodation had been arranged for me and through the Y.M.C.A. I was referred to 14 Tinakori Road, a boarding house with a mix of humanity. None of whom I wished to become too friendly with.It soon became obvious that with only Public Service Entrance that the salary cap would be very low, so to overcome that I had to study for School Certificate which meant going to Night School to study French, and the boss allowed me to go to a private French tutor (Mrs. Finlayson) one hour a week. I certainly was not a very good French student and was pleased when another door opened in the form of applications being called for the Rural Field Cadets which required College graduates to be trained to help with the rehabilitation of returned soldiers onto farms. Although applicants were to have School Certificate, I was accepted. I was 15 years and 4 months old and had only the clothes I stood up in plus a pair of pyjamas. No accommodation had been arranged for me and through the Y.M.C.A. I was referred to 14 Tinakori Road, a boardinghouse with a wide range of occupants none of whom I wished to call my bosom pals. There were ship jumpers, I suspect both male and female. There were two brothers who lost a brother to the marksmanship of Stan Graham on the West Coast. I could not leave there until I gave a week's notice and as I did not have any money I stayed two weeks. The Tinakori house was eventually demolished and replaced by a high rise apartment block. Herbie Caselberg retired to this building after leaving the State Advances. When I moved to 14 Wright Street off the top end of Taranaki Street I could walk to work in the Valuation Department in the Government Life building, or run if it was raining. There was no spare money for trams. I had 7s 6d left, after paying my board. I wanted a new pair of trousers costing 10shillings, so I tried to hold back paying the full amount but the landlady said I should give her 5shillings extra that week and take 5shillings out of next week's pay because what I did not pay this week would be twice as hard next week. At Wright Street I had my meals with the family of Mrs. Dillon but slept in a tiny room with outside access at No.16. The washing and bathing facilities were at No.14, not a very convenient or sociable set up, but the arrangement sufficed for a few weeks. Then I met Barry Haining from Horopito and Louis Sands from Roxburgh both public servants and two year older than me. They earned more than me and were able to socialize more. Both had girl friends and went to skating and dancing classes. When they both developed mumps and I thought it was something you caught like VD. When I saw how they suffered and I didn't I was glad that I was not socializing with the opposite sex. The land lady did not understand my reservation so she introduced me to her vivacious red-haired niece. This young lady was worldlier than me and she contrived to get us into situations where we could have passion a plenty, I made sure that we were always fully clothed but that did not stop me getting a pain in my genitals which Barry and Louis diagnosed as "Irish Toothache". She (and ‘she' shall remain nameless) was often in my compass over the ensuing years, but we remained just a good friends. I am now given to understand that both sexes carry safety equipment or the female sex has access to the pill - morning after if necessary. Barry and Louis were boarding at 21 Torrens Terrace and I moved in there with them. Torrens Terrace was much nearer to my work then Wright Street and almost all the way under shop verandahs. We lived three to a room so I was much more aware of the pain of their mumps. It was at Torrens Terrace that the taxi driver Bert boarded with his sister-in-law. I was not aware of this arrangement until years later when I met up with Barry again. Bert had a black 1939 Nash, No.30 in the Wellington Taxi fleet, and I used to wash and polish his car on a Saturday and I got 5/- for that which almost made me a millionaire in my eyes. Bert had a heart condition - surely he was taking a rest with his living (or was it loving) arrangements. He regularly took me with him at the weekends and we would wait at the Railway Station and line up the passengers carrying big bags, particularly priests as they often had to negotiate many steps to get to the seminary above Oriental Bay.I was seldom side tracked by sport, though I did run with the Kiwi Amateur Athletic Club, but I was not good enough to get any stimulation out of regular attendance. The emphasis at Kiwi was on short distance races and I could not hold my own with the sprinters. It was a few years later that I realized that I was a middle distance runner and some years after that I realized I was blessed or cursed with slow twitch muscles and that many of the darker races have fast twitch muscles which enable them to sprint and jump. Towards the end of 1940 I answered an advertisement for Rural Field Cadets. They were male students expected to have at least School Certificate with some rural interests to be trained as field officers to help with the rehabilitation of the returning soldiers on to farms after the end of WWII. The scheme apparently involved farm work culminating in graduating from an agricultural college. This seemed preferable to full time office work so I applied. I did not have School Certificate, but I had my intentions in the direction made know from the time I started with the Valuation Department. The initial interview was with the Public Service Commissioner. Mr. Sam Barnett. I do not think he was a relative though my paternal grandmother was a Barnett. After the interview I was referred to Herbert Caselberg, the supervising valuer for the State Advances Corporation. He had been credited with being the mover and shaker that set up the Rural Field Cadet Scheme. I was accepted and the two gentlemen were interested in my activities in the school holidays - hoeing mangolds, fleecoing, fruit picking in Central Otago, as well as school duties, bell boy, milk prefect. NCO training in the school cadets. SNOW TIME On 15th July 1945 we were heading red clover on John Cromie's farm, it was a windy day and as we traversed the windy side of the paddock the wind blew the newly cut seed-laden heads off the cutter bar, but we got a bag of seed per round at £150 per bag. John said that we were losing too much seed to the wind. My father wanted to work only three sides of the paddock, but the wind got stronger so work stopped. The wind dropped at midnight and Mother Nature dropped 18 inches of snow on the district. Next day the snow presented another problem. We had to get feed to the sheep. The mangles were still in the highest paddock of the farm. The tractor and wagon were at the low point. When we tried to take the wagon up the hill the tracks of the tractor filled with compacted snow and the outfit tobogganed down the hill and we were lucky it did not capsize. We gave up but planned to go next day to take a long route on the road. Fortunately that night we had a strong north-west wind that blew all the snow off the north and west of the hills so the grass was exposed for the sheep. The snow was eight feet deep on the offside of the hills. If there had been a frost the snow would not have cleared. As it was the drifts lasted for six weeks. There have been heavy falls of snow since them, but not while I have been involved. THE RICHARDS' FAMILY The Richards family farmed the Waihao Downs homestead farm for many years for two different periods. In the 1920's the daughter Gertie, a tom boy, was under the new Model T Ford looking at the underside of the pedal attachment trying to work out how one could get reverse and forward out of the same pedal. She heard the garden gate shut and saw the spatted ankles of the newly appointed Anglican vicar.In her haste to get to her feet she bumped her head on the running board exclaiming something like "Jesus Christ" or "Good God" to which the vicar replied "No, it is the Reverend Julius one of his disciples". He went on to become Bishop Julius with a university girls' student hostel named after him. I met up with Heather McKay who was a resident there I 1947 but my courting was severely curtailed by being short of funds, but I enjoyed her company. ATHLETICSRunning My athletic ability blossomed while I was at Lincoln College. My first recorded success was in the Cross Country in 1944. Entries were invited and of the early entrants the popular choice to win was Ray Lyons (or Snow Lyons as I knew him)I said if I could not beat him I would go "he", so I entered. I did win, but having not done any serious training I was like a cripple for several days afterwards. I was back at Lincoln in 1946 and I won the Cross Country, the 800 yards and one mile, setting a new record time for the 800 yards. The previous record time had been set by Pat Boot who, subsequently, represented New Zealand at the Empire Games. In 1947 I was at Canterbury University. There I won the Cross Country as well as the 800 yards and the mile. I was second in the Llewellyn Cup, which I won the following year (see photo at left). I also ran the Dauvauchelle to Akaroa leg of the Takahe to Akaroa Canterbury AA Centre Relay Race, which we won for Canterbury University. In 1948 I was back in residence at Lincoln and repeated the achievements of the previous year, winning five cups and a couple of trophies, as well as setting a new time for the mile - as shown in the photo at right. In 1949 I ran for Victoria University, Wellington. Work interfered with training as I was establishing the statistical bureau for the Lands and Survey Department which entailed me travelling all over New Zealand. When possible I did work out on the Kelburn Track with Dave Batten, the New Zealand 100 yard champion, but my times did not improve. I was selected to go to Australia with the Victoria University athletic team but declined as I was below my best. In 1947 and 1948 I went with five other Canterbury University students to Dunedin to run in and win the Lovelock Relay. The team of six had each to run a mile. Happy days, but now only a distant memory. How I wish for some of that mobility now so I could throw the walking stick away! Swimming In 1986 Gregory was eligible for the Special Olympics because of his intellectual handicap. Greg's coach left the district so I took him to the Levin Aquatic Centre. He was self motivated and would swim up to 120 25 metre lengths. I became bored with the waiting about so I got into the pool, which was usually heated to 29ºC, and started to do a few lengths breast stroke, but soon progressed to back stroke. I was not very fast as my best time for 25 metres was 34 seconds. Greg's time was 28 seconds. However, we were both eligible to swim with the Masters, often in the same race at the same venue. I have won nine gold medals by virtue of the fact that I was the only one in my age group in the race. I consider myself to be the slowest back stroke swimmer in the world. At the World Championships in Christchurch in 1998 I could not beat the over 90 year olds! I've Learned:That our background and circumstances may have influenced who we are, but we are responsible for who we become.

New hut dropped in for trampers - 1981

2010-03-13T06:31:43.324Z

Many hours of planning and preparation came to a suc¬cessful conclusion last weekend when members of the Levin Waiopehu Tramping Club rebuilt the Waiopehu hut in the ranges behind Levin.. On Friday, January 16, several trips were made by helicopter ferrying the tonne of materials needed for the job and work began in the afternoon with a full workforce of 17, says the clubs chief guide, Mr Ernie Maluschnig. "On Saturday the site was full of enthusiastic amateur carpenters, drainlayers, painters, plumbers and appren¬tices. "After three days of working in some of the hottest weather this summer, the hut took on a new, inviting look. "The Waiopehu hut now has a wooden floor, new fireplace and chimney,relined bunks, new water supply and a fresh coat of paint all over." He said a new long-drop toilet adds one of the comforts of home. This week-end another working party will tidy up and put the final touches to the hut which now provides a pleasant place for the many trampers who use it and for those who make the not very difficult four hour walk to it from the foothills. "We hope many people will get pleasure from using the hut and keep it in good condition and we do thank all those who have supported the work par¬ties and business firms in supplying materials," said Mr Maluschnig. The original Waiopehu hut was built in 1928, less than a year after the club was formed. Tragedy struck on Sunday. February 2, 1936, when a hurricane swept through the area and caused the death of one member. Mr Ralph Wood , whose grave still remains between the snowgrassed tops of Mount Waiopehu and Twin Peaks. The intense winds devastated the lower Tararuas and all the huts and tracks that club members had provided were wiped out., The Waiopehu hut was lifted from its piles and became a tangled mass of wreckage 300 feet down a bank. REBUILTThe hut was rebuilt after the war, and opened on May 17, 1947 and in 1971 a new roof was fitted, the iron being carried by hand to the site. At the beginning of last year it was decided that the state of the hut was a disgrace and it was decided to rebuild it. First, the track was opened up to make it one of the most pleasant in the area and Mr Maluschnig recalls that without the dedication of Mr Ossie Schaef and Mr Jim Malcolm, this would not have been possible. PLANNINGWe then spent hours on planning the hut and the materials needed and we especially thank Felvins, and House of York, Levin, for their valuable assistance and donations, says Mr Maluschnig who adds that the club welcomes people to join them on its trips and seeks new members who can contact him at Levin 89-739.

Ypres. - Maisons Place Vandenpeereboom. avant et apres le Bombardement. Houses Vandenpeereboom Place before the Bombardment and after.

2010-03-13T06:31:06.314Z

(1) I met Mr. Hudson here yesterday, he is keeping very well but is full up of this sort of life. He has no stripes at all now, he is just a private. He has not been up this way very long. We are getting some pretty good weather here lately, the mud is drying up and the weather is much warmer. I received that cap you sent me, it was very good of the old lady to be so kind, you must thank her for me. Any use of this image must be accompanied by the credit “Horowhenua Historical Society Inc.”

Wellington Statue & Arch, Hyde park Corner, London.

2010-03-13T06:31:03.954Z

Mrs. W. H. Ransom, Euchau Lea, Winchester St. Levin. N.Z. This is where I am for folidays, we are having lovely weather so are enjoying it A1. Hope Stewart is keeping better Yours ayl Isa. New Address ‘Helmslea’ 72 Kilmarnock rd. SLawlands. Any use of this image must be accompanied by the credit “Horowhenua Historical Society Inc.”

S.S. Tofua

2010-03-13T06:31:03.454Z

May 5th 1917. Dear Mother, This is a photo of the boat we came over in, she looks very well on Post Cards, but is not to nice to ride in. I hope we get some good weather when we go home because she rolls about just like a cork. Well Mother 8am keeping farely well. I have got a bad cold and it takes me all my time to talk, but it well in a few days I hope. So with love and a few xxxx I will say good bye. Wilf. Any use of this image must be accompanied by the credit “Horowhenua Historical Society Inc.”

Page 5 : Daily Chronicle, 01/08/2008

2010-03-13T06:25:45.611Z

The Weather section contained an article about the storm in Horowhenua on 01/08/2008. It discusses, from a meterological point of view, why the storm had so much impact in the region.

Proud Mayor opens pool

2010-03-13T06:25:14.864Z

In April 1890, the new Levin pool was opened.. This text that follows is the content of the attached PDF. The Levin Coronation Swimming Baths were formally opened by the Mayor (Mr B.R. Gardener) yesterday afternoon. The weather was fine and a large concourse of spectators was present, including Mr J. Robertson, MP and members of Horowhenua County C...

stormy weather keep coming

2010-03-13T06:24:50.262Z

so heavy

stormy weather

2010-03-13T06:24:50.192Z

bad hail storm and wow that lighting so bright . our back garden

Sandra Dawn Raemaki. Her needless death caused by Snow Tyres 1 Oct 2007

2010-03-13T06:24:45.613Z

This is a place where I've felt it important to help raise awareness of Sandra's needless death. Please feel free to email me with any comments you may have. Email link to myself is shown at BOTTOM of page.Trevor Heath UPDATED. Sandra Dawn Raemaki (nee Heath)16 August 1960 - 1 October 2007 This page is optimised for viewing in Firefox browser. It may appear somewhat different in Internet Explorer Sandra was 47yrs old and the second eldest sister of our family. She was more than a sister...she was also like a mother to me. I lived with her for many years of my early life. She was a great provider and was the type of person who liked to help those less fortunate than herself. Now together with our eldest sister Beryl. "Forever Young and Forever in our Hearts" It is my intention to help instigate a law change banning the use of snow tyres on New Zealand roads. (Specifically - Made illegal when used in conjuction with normal road tyres / Ban imported worn 2nd hand snow tyres / Increase legal tread depth to 5mm minimum on snow tyres / Ban use of snow tyres outside colder season and colder regions of NZ). I also intend to help raise public awareness of the dangers of snow tyres prior to any law change occuring.UPDATE 11 November 2009: The law change banning the combination of snow tyres and normal road has passed and will come into force on April 1 2010. Specifically Land Transport Rule: Tyres and Wheels Amendment [ (No 2) 2009] "A Vehicle of Class MA, MB, MC, MD1, MD2 or NA (as defined in Table A in Part 2 of the Rule) is fitted with winter tyres, those tyres must be fitted to all road wheels of the vehicle." The Rule amendment also specifies that the minimum tread depth of a winter tyre must be 4mm. Thankfully and I must say long overdue! Finally - this law will be changed and any further needless loss of life won't happen due to snow tyres being mixed with normal road tyres! I just hope no further accidents attributed to these tyres occur BEFORE the law change on April 1 2010... I must give my thanks to Darren Hughes, Labour MP for Otaki and local media for thier support. (Horowhenua Mail, The Chronicle) I update my comments as events occur (letters received etc) At times this will require I update a comment part way down the page and sometimes part way up the page. For this reason please look for Update titles shown in REDI have left previous comments viewable so people can understand a chain of events where possible. Sandra was tragically killed just after 5pm on October 1st 2007 on the Opiki Road just north of Shannon heading towards Palmerston North.In pelting rain she was rounding the only 55kph corner on the road...she WAS NOT speeding according to Police.Other family members and myself were actually at her house waiting for her to arrive for dinner...We have since discovered that the SCU (serious crash unit) believe the primary cause of the accident to be the tyres on the rear of her car...snow tyres.This type of tyre is legal in New Zealand but to my amazement are banned in Japan after they are 50% worn (down to 5mm tread depth). NZ permits them to get down to 1.5mm tread depth as per normal road tyres.To my further amazement the LTSA have done nothing to ban them...they have mentioned them in the odd TV comment saying they may consider having them banned but there aren't enough crashes to warrant such a ban...I 'm astonished to hear this knowledge. How many more people have to die needlessly before people sit up and take note of this obvious error in our law?There are a growing number of fatalities being attributed to this type of tyre and in particular the use of them in conjuction with normal road tyres. TVNZ's CloseUp program ran a story on these tyres and to date nothing has been put in place by government to have them banned. Go Here for the CloseUp the story. This CloseUp story was aired on 18 May 2007...5 Months prior to Sandra being killed... In the story LTNZ spokesperson Andy Knackstedt said "there weren't enough crashes to warrant a change is legislation" The story noted that snow tyres were currently being tested in Melbourne regarding their safety. Andy Knackstedt was asked if the tests came back that snow tyres were deemed a problem would it be possible a law change could occur? Mr Knackstedt replied "it's absolutely possible, we're not going to wait for the outcome of the next Coroners' report, we don't want to wait for another fatal crash to happen, we want to move on this as quickly as we can" Well unfortunately it has happened again and to my sister no less! To date no law change has occured despite LTNZ having received the test results from Melbourne confirming snow tyres are dangerous especially when used in conjunction with normal road tyres.The LTNZ's only action was to post a statement regarding the use of these tyres. I found that statement on the AA webiste HERE.The statement was released on August 7 2007 - 2 months before Sandra's accident. My question is why has the LTNZ only posted a general reminder of the risks regarding mixing summer tyres with winter tyres when Mr Knackstedt stated in the CloseUp program that if snow tyres were proven to be dangerous the LTNZ would "move on this quickly as quickly as we can"? UPDATE 3 July 2008: Inquest was held in Palmerston North 2 July 2008. Police Serious Crash Unit determine SOLE cause of the accident was due to the snow tyres fitted to the rear of Sandra's car. Coroners' finding to follow in a few weeks. UPDATE 25 July 2008: Official Coroners Finding. Coroner has found the accident was caused due to the vehicle having been fitted with SNOW TYRES on the rear wheels and standard/conventional tyres on the front. The report went on to say that Sandra's death is most UNLIKELY to have occurred had her vehicle been fitted with four standard tyres.Please scroll down for UPDATE 31 July 2008Please scroll down for UPDATE 12 August 2008 PURSUANT to section 57 of the Coroners Act 2006 the Coroner makes the following recommendations: that Land Transport New Zealand initiate legislative changes so that Warrants of Fitness are not issued to vehicles fitted with a combination of snow and standard/conventional tyres.This is the finding I expected due to the overwhelming evidence supporting it.It does not address the issue of a total ban on snow tyres but I believe however will go along way toward an increased level of safety and awareness of the dangers of using snow tyres.At this point I'd like to insert several sections below (in black) of the Coroner's report that I think are very relevant to supporting several law changes on snow tyre usage in New Zealand. When the facts are presented it becomes obvious that tread depth and use outside colder areas of New Zealand need legislative change also, however these other issues and recommendations (below) outlined by the MTA go beyond the parameters of the enquiry into Sandra's death and were thereby not commented on by way of any recommendations.1: That used vehicles imported with snow tyres have these tyres replaced before a certificate of compliance is issued to enable the vehicles to operate on New Zealand roads.(LTNZ have now recommended this as well as mixing snow tyres with normal tyres but this will NOT take effect till 2010 at the earliest! see below Update 31 July 2008)2: That a ban be imposed on the importation of second-hand snow tyres.3: That vehicles operating with snow tyres fitted outside the cold season and away from colder regions of the country be refused a warrant of fitness. Extracts from Coroners FindingSection 27: It is useful at this juncture to summarise the difference between snow tyres and what might be referred to as standard tyres. The tread pattern in a standard tyre will force water away from the tyre when the tyre is running on a wet surface to minmise the amount of water between the tyre and the road, thus resulting in good adhesion in wet conditions.Section 28: In comparison, snow tyres feature a tread design with optimised tread blocks and special blading designed for use in territories where snow is frequently encountered. They are designed for use in severe snow conditions. In wet conditions the tread pattern on a snow tyre does not force water away from underneath the tyre.Section 29: However, snow tyres comply with the standard for legal tyres set out in the Land Transport Rules 32013-Tyres and Wheels. In brief, these rules require tyres to comply with specified standards: to be of the same size, construction, and tread pattern on the same axle (emphasis added);of good quality; maintained in a safe condition; must not have worn or damaged cords; be of appropriate load capacity; be of appropriate speed rating; contain tread where indicated in the principal grooves and contain a minimum of 1.5mm pattern depth in the principal grooves.Section 30: In this context I note that it does seem that the majority of snow tyres in New Zealand are imported on second-hand vehicles from Japan, or imported as second-hand tyres. Mr Cumming (MTA Communications Manager giving evidence) stated that on their manufacture in Japan snow tyres have a tread depth of 8-10mm - which is substantially deeper than the 1.5mm minimum tread depth required for tyres to pass a warrant of fitness in New Zealand. In Japan these tyres are not legal when their tread depth reaches 5mm - but they can be imported and used here legally until their tread depth reaches 1.5mm.Section 31: It is important to note that snow tyres in and of themselves are not dangerous. As Mr Prebble (Manager of Product and Field Engineering at South Pacific Tyres Ltd - stated in a sworn deposition) noted in his report "snow tyres in themselves are not dangerous if fitted new as complete sets, and obviously perform best in the application for which they are designed - severe snow conditions"Section 32: A significant problem, however, arises when a mixture of snow and other tyres are fitted on a vehicle, and that vehicle is driven in wet conditions. While the same type of tyre has to be fitted to the same axle, the tyres on the front wheels of a vehicle may differ from the tyres on the back wheels of the same vehicle.I have been in contact with my local MP Darren Hughes who has written to the Transport Safety Minister Hon Harry Duynhoven on my behalf outlining Sandra's needless death due to snow tyres being fitted to the rear of her car.I'm currently awaiting a response from the Transport Safety Minister.UPDATE 12 August 2008: Darren Hughes was visited by myself on 3 August and wrote to Harry Duynhoven again on my behalf, I suggested he include a copy of the Coroner's report that I provided. Darren has since wriiten back to me and included a copy of Harry Duynhoven's response.A particular part of that letter stood out for me and it reads like this:"Following the Coroner's report , I wrote to the Ministry of Transport and Land Transport NZ asking that a speedier response than changing the law be urgently considered. I suggested that an amendment to existing regulations, prohibiting the mix of conventional and winter tyres on a vehicle be considered, thus perhaps preventing traffic crashes such as this recent one"This appears to be positive news...maybe New Zealanders won't have to wait till at least 2010 for a logical law change after all! Update 31 July 2008: Copy of article in Manawatu Standard 29 July 2008 - Origin Here Title: Slow progress for tyre law.A recommended law change restricting snow tyres on New Zealand roads is just days away from hitting desks at the Ministry of Transport.But the earliest a law change could be enforced is 2010.A Coroner's report solely blames snow tyres fitted to the rear of Palmerston North's Sandy Raemaki's used Japanese import for her fatal car crash on Opiki Road last october.Coroner Carla na Nagara called for "legislative changes so warrant of fitnesses are not issued to vehicles fitted with a combination of snow and standard/conventional tyres".Land Transport New Zealand is recommending snow tyres are removed from imports on arrival and warrant of fitness tests will ensure all tyres have matching tread patterns, spokesperson Andy Knackstedt said.Completely banning snow tyres was not the answer because there are situations when the tyres are appropriate, he said.It has taken several months to come to this conclusion.The Motor Trade Association (MTA) is standing by its call to rid roads of these tyres after a series of fatal accidents were caused or contributed to by mixing snow and standard tyres, spokesperson Andy Cuming said.LTNZ has not gone far enough in its recommendation, he said."Anything other than a complete ban would be a dangerous compromise"."There can be a tragic delay between the incorrect fitting of mismatched tyres, and the vehicles next WOF check, and it is for this reason we are insisting imported used snow tyres be completely banned," Mr Cuming said.At least three people died on Manawatu roads last year from this fatal tyre combination. Frankly I'm shocked to hear this...2010 is a ludicrous timeframe! On one hand great to hear snow tyres will be removed from imported cars BUT on the other hand TOO SLOW and the recommendations don't go far enough as the MTA mention. I believe LTNZ should recommend an URGENT law change whereby Warrants of Fitness are not issued to vehicles fitted with a combination of snow and standard/conventional tyres as per the Coroners recommendation of 25 July 2008. I ask why so long to implement such a change??? Something tells me there is more to this than certainly I'm aware of, big business perhaps...tax on imported tyres maybe? Or maybe I'm just becoming cynical - but something seems amiss with our processes if Government can't make urgent amendments to laws when safety is an issue. This makes me angry - it contradicts LTNZ's so-called eagerness to "move on this as quickly as we can" statement in CloseUp's story of 18 May 2007 ....5 Months BEFORE Sandra's accident! In Japan, Canada and many parts of Europe the practice of having 2 sets of tyres has been used for many years. Namely a complete set of 4 snow tyres are used in Winter (sometimes only 4 - 8 weeks per year)and a complete set of 4 Standard road tyres are used over the rest of the year. Most people have 2 complete sets of rims which makes changing the sets an eaiser task - rather than have each tyre removed from a rim and replaced with thats seasons tyre (which has to be done at a tyre shop) the whole task can be completed much easier by the vehicle owner themselves. It is widely known in those countries that snow tyres are a softer compound and become unstable in Summer...even when used in set of 4. Is also widely known that changing sets for the appropriate season actually saves people money as the tyres are used for the conditions for which they are designed and thereby last much longer. I have recently spoken to Ant Simon, the father of teenagers Isabelle and Lucy who were tragically killed near Levin in January of 2007. (go to the CloseUp story in which he featured) He forwarded emails to me from others who have had accidents or near-misses as a result of snow tyres being fitted to the rear of their vehicles.He contacted me after reading of Sandra's tragic death and wanted to help raise awareness again.He had basically given up waiting for a law change, however Sandra's death has given him cause to re-approach members of Parliament. Below are some articles I found online that support the banning of snow tyres.... Extract from NZ Herald article - origin http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/9/story.cfm?c_id=9&objectid=10470105 (you will need to Copy and Paste this address) Title: Motor Trade urges snow-tyre controls The Motor Trade Association wants a range of controls to eliminate the dangers arising from fitting the wrong snow tyres on vehicles.Among the suggestions it has made to land transport nz are: A ban on the import of second-hand snow tyres. Snow tyres on imports to be replaced before a certificate is issued to allow the vehicles to operate in new zealand. Vehicles operating with snow tyres fitted outside the cold season and away from colder regions of the country should be refused a warrant of fitness. Vehicles found with a combination of snow and conventional tyres should be refused warrants of fitness. Association Communications Manager Andy Cuming said he did not think it reasonable to expect the average motorist to pick the difference of tyre types and potential danger signals when buying a used vehicle - particularly if it had a current warrant. Mixing worn snow tyres with summer tyres was given as one of the reasons for the deaths this year of sisters Lucy Elizabeth Simon, 18, and Isabelle Jan Simon, 15, after their car slid on a bridge near Levin on SH1 and hit a truck. Levin Coroner Phillip Comber said in his findings one of the prime causes of the accident was that the car had worn snow tyres on the rear unsuitable for New Zealand conditions. Title: MTA backs call to ban tyres - Origin here Importing used snow tyres on or off vehicles and mixing the use of snow tyres and conventional tyres should be banned in New Zealand, Motor Trade Association communications manager Andy Cuming has said.MTA communications manager Andy Cuming said it was not reasonable to expect the average motorist, buying a used vehicle, to pick up differences in tyre types - particularly when the vehicle had a current warrant of fitness. New Zealand had a large market for imported used tyres, and used Japanese imported cars often came in with snow tyres fitted - exporters getting rid of tyres that were past their use-by date in Japan. "Used snow tyres are seen as attractive for New Zealand buyers, often because of the apparent length of service they still have" "This is based on such tyres complying with our 1.5mm tread-depth requirements, but it is crucial to note that the minimum safety tread depth for snow tyres in Japan is 4mm," he said. Snow tyres work and behave differently to conventional tyres. conventional tyres' tread patterns pump water out of the vehicle track, but snow tyres do not. instead, they are designed to grip snow or mud. A vehicle with mixed tyres will behave unpredictably under emergency braking or steering correction, as the tyre types are each trying to do different things. Land Transport New Zealand is collecting information about snow tyres, to recommend whether the government should ban or put conditions on their use. The association wants LTNZ to recommend: That used vehicles imported with snow tyres have these tyres replaced before a certificate of compliance is issued to enable the vehicles to operate on New Zealand roads. That a ban be imposed on the importation of second-hand snow tyres. That vehicles operating with snow tyres fitted outside the cold season and away from colder regions of the country be refused a warrant of fitness. That any vehicles found to be fitted with a combination of snow and conventional tyres be rejected at warrant testing. Mr Cuming said the association had no issue with motorists installing new snow tyres for their designed purpose in colder regions of New Zealand, and would expect motorists to exchange these with conventional tyres in summer. Extract from infonews.co.nz 10 April 2007 by NZPA Origin http://www.infonews.co.nz/news.cfm?l=252&t=103&id=731 (you will need to Copy and Paste this address) Title: Were snow tyres to blame for fatal crash? - Coroner's warning Levin Coroner Phillip Comber said the question of such tyres "is a matter which requires urgent consideration."The tyres to which he was referring in an inquest into the death of a man in a fatal crash on state highway 1 near Levin last year are fitted on some second-hand imports. A Coroner today warned owners of recently imported Japanese cars about what he said were the dangers of driving on New Zealand roads with snow tyres.The Coroner issued his report into the death of Tiaina Gatoloai, 49, a Samoan, on May 23, 2006, as the father of two young women killed in a crash earlier this year, coincidentally near Levin, urged action to ensure Japanese Imports were fitted with New Zealand-made tyres. Antony Simon told Radio New Zealand today that snow tyres were "dangerous" and should be removed from imports.Mr Simon's daughters Isabelle, 15, and Lucy, 18, died in January when their Japanese Import slid on a bridge and hit an oncoming truck. Mr Comber recommended the Police analysis about the crash that took Mr Gatoloai's life should go with a copy of his own decision to the Transport Safety Investigation Board.Transport Safety Minister Harry Duynhoven told NZPA tonight if there was evidence of a problem, changes would be made to tyre and wheel rules. But there had "not been one crash brought to my attention by the Police or Land Transport attributed to snow tyres, not one". But he said what had definitely contributed to crashes was tyre inflation and tread depth. "People's lack of maintenance in New Zealand is legendary." Mr Duynhoven said snow tyres were used all around the world and were legal in New Zealand. Mr Gatoloai, riding in the back of a Toyota, died at the scene of multiple injures. the driver and a front-seat passenger, both women, survived. An eye witness account said the Toyota, doing about 90kmh on a wet road, fishtailed then spun right around twice then into the path of a milk tanker. Police crash investigator Senior Constable Leslie Maddaford's collision analysis said there was nothing on the road to cause the crash and no apparent mechanical faults. However, the Toyota's tyre pressure were dangerously uneven, odd tyres were fitted on the front and snow tyres were on the rear. The coroner said Mr maddaford told the court there had been problems with snow tyres on Japanese imports. Such tyres were designed for different road conditions from New Zealand's. Mr Comber added the constable was aware of other crashes, including possibly two fatals, in which snow tyres had been a factor. The Coroner's report noted that the Toyota's driver was convicted last december of careless driving causing death. Mr Duynhoven said he understood the Police were looking at all the issues about the crash, including the tyres. He added police were doing research into different tyre types and he was keen to see the results. He noted snow tyres were made of a softer compound that gave better grip in mud and snow but did wear faster. Mr Duynhoven said he had been questioned today on why he had not banned snow tyres. In some parts of the country, people might want to use them in the winter."If you're living in central Otago they might be very handy. Radio NZ News - posted at 1:43pm on 15 Oct 2007 A mix of snow and conventional tyres has been blamed for two crashes in which three people died this year. The MTA is backing recommendations by a Coroner at the inquest into two teenage sisters whose car had a mix of summer and snow tyres when they died in January. Land Transport New Zealand issued a warning about the dangers of mixing tyres in certain conditions after that inquest. However, another woman, Sandy Raemaki, from Palmerston North, died in a collision earlier this month with the same mix of tyres on her car. The association says imported snow tyres should be banned, and warrant of fitness checks should fail vehicles with a mix of snow and conventional tyres as well as those fitted outside colder regions. Land Transport Website Origin Here When used for their intended purpose snow tyres provide better grip than traditional summer tyres in cold weather, ice and snow. Snow tyres will provide less grip in non-winter conditions than summer tyres. If snow tyres and summer tyres are mixed on the same vehicle, the different degrees of grip can make the vehicle unbalanced and difficult to control in an emergency or during hard braking. The mixing of snow tyres and summer tyres on the same vehicle is not recommended under any circumstances. Specialised snow tyres should only be used where and when they are needed - in alpine areas during winter. very few people in NZ will need specialist snow tyres. if you're not regularly driving in winter conditions (on snow and ice, in temperatures below 7c), you don't need snow tyres. Snow tyres should always be used in sets of four, and replaced before they get old and worn. never mix snow tyres with summer tyres, even in matched pairs on each axle. if your spare is a snow tyre, only use it at low speeds, or replace it with a summer tyre. What are LTNZ waiting for? 10, 20, 30 MORE DEATHS before they decide to act? The MTA want them banned...aren't they a strong enough advocate? Email Me Go back to Trevor Heath Photography

rainbow over Levin

2010-03-13T06:24:12.193Z

a nice sunny day and a rainbow made the sky nice to look at from Hadfield street

snow behind town 2008

2010-03-13T06:24:08.703Z

snow behind town 2008

2010-03-13T06:24:08.613Z

a bit of the cold stuff

Lift-Off - Photo by Trevor Heath

2010-03-13T06:23:42.223Z

My first flight and the weather couldn't have been better!

'Storm' 1270 x 3500 mm

2010-03-13T06:23:37.463Z

I live in the country, and have fantastic views in all directions. As the 'Weather' moves up the North Island I can see it coming before it starts to rain. I love thunder Stoms, I think it's all the drama. Click Here to see a the same view on a sunny day.

Clue 10 Checking the weather

2010-03-13T06:23:27.366Z

Next>>

Clue 10, Thompson House

2010-03-13T06:23:27.294Z

I was in Thompson House this morning and checked the weather through the window. It looked a nice day, so I went outside to see how warm it was.It was nice and warm so I persuaded my people pets to take me for a walk.Next>>

gladstone rd

2010-03-13T06:21:50.355Z

car and mist after rain storm on warm rd

warm road

2010-03-13T06:21:50.266Z

very heavy rain at Gladstone rd fell on a hot road and the mist formed( freaky)

big hail

2010-03-13T06:21:50.206Z

all they are perfect.all the same size .

hail on gas

2010-03-13T06:21:50.146Z

well it looks nice but it was cold

the night of 3.8.07

2010-03-13T06:21:50.046Z

11.00 apox and a 1big bang of thunder and a lot of hail and wow look at my garden

The world's weather ruled by the moon

2010-03-13T06:21:49.986Z

The night sky above Levin.

the world as we know it

2010-03-13T06:21:49.796Z

a world that looks so fragile and at peace but looks can change very quickly this it the slte for the weather in and around Levin nice diffrant and some times ugly