High Country Lark Read online

  For a time the storm seemed to be stationary over Glenorchy. Lightning forked through the rain, and thunder rocked the area. Between flash and thunderclap the delay was hardly noticeable. The lightning was right over the town. Ordinarily, thunder takes about three seconds to travel a kilometre following the flash. It was the worst possible time to be trying to load horses into truck and trailer. But it had to be done. Visitors wanted to leave before the road to Queenstown was washed out. Locals wanted to get home pronto. Then there were the television people.

  A television documentary crew led by presenter-poet Gary McCormick was in town to make a programme about the Glenorchy Races for Gary’s Heartland series. They got footage of horses, riders and punters and into the bargain captured the drama of the electrical storm and its flood effects. There was some quick rewriting of the storyboard for the doco because the storm suddenly became a focal point. It caused an almighty flood in the Dart River, which became a ‘banker’ covering the gravel islands all the way across the braided delta area. The Dart that day hit an estimated 2,200 cubic metres per second. That’s an awful lot of water. By comparison, the same river during the November 1999 flood, which pushed Lake Wakatipu to record levels, was only half the volume — a flood flow nonetheless. The 1994 ‘weather bomb’ was a local phenomenon. Lake levels went up but not seriously so.

  Weather watchers calculated a rainfall of sixteen inches (forty centimetres) in thirteen hours, which is something you would expect west of the Main Divide but rarely on its eastern flanks. Unused to the intensity of the downpour, hillsides along the Dart River and its tributaries were scarred by rock and tree avalanches. Lake Wakatipu’s upper reaches were stained brown by flood sediment and littered with branches and tree trunks.

  Jim Veint, one of the event organisers, and his partner, Ros Angelo, made it home safely to Arcadia Station that afternoon, and watched in amazement as the lightning and rain continued into the evening.

  Looking back, Jim calls it a one-in-1,000-year storm. A freak event, he reckons: Australian bush fires around that time, which sent a wedge of warm air, ash and brown smoke high into the atmosphere over the Tasman Sea in the direction of southern New Zealand, might have had something to do with it. The rainfall knocked out power to Arcadia and other outlying properties, washed out the Paradise road for a couple of days (the Veints got out by tractor before road repairs were completed), and altered the course of the River Jordan.

  It was a miracle no one died in the storm, given the number of people on camping holidays. There were dramas aplenty. A Lilo (inflatable mattress for water recreation) floated out of a tent at the Oxburn/Twelve Mile, carrying a child into the flooded river delta. A helicopter was involved in the rescue. In the Buckler Burn a hut occupied by a family with an eighteen-month-old baby started to move off its foundations, causing the family to flee in the middle of the stormy night.

  My first experience of the Glenorchy Races is the 2008 event, and I am to keen catch up with Jim Veint. I find him in front of the equalisator tent writing horses’ names and numbers on a whiteboard. He’s helped with the running of more than forty of these events. I ask him how the equalisator works.

  When the equalisator is closed before the running of each race, the numbers of the competing horses are applied by ballot to letters of the alphabet corresponding to the tickets sold. Instead of placing bets on individual horses — the totalisator method — the punters simply buy lettered tickets at $1 a pop, and listen out for the numbers from ground announcements. A dividend, minus a small commission for the rugby club, is paid out on the winning horse only. It’s a system more akin to a raffle than gambling. But make sure you collect your winnings on the day. They’ll disappear into the fundraising account otherwise.

  ‘It’s taken some of the thrill out of it,’ says Jim. ‘In the tote days, a policeman would come along from Queenstown and make sure everything was being run properly. We never had a problem.’

  The equalisator method has tended to discourage ‘surprise’ entries, originating mainly from Southland — thoroughbred horses capable of running the hind legs off the local hacks. Yet even if the owners of these ‘secret’ horses (Jim’s name for them) backed them on the tote, they were never likely to make big money. At least, not the kind of money they could make on the regular TAB racing circuit.

  Jim has forty-one horses listed so far — well down on the seventy-odd of the tote years — but they are still arriving even with the first race about to start, and the tally could reach fifty. In the early years horses would arrive by barge from various lake stations and in trailers brought over the stony and slip-prone Haast Pass road from the West Coast. The trip over the pass was as much of a challenge as the racing.

  ‘Riders never used to wear helmets in those days,’ says Jim. ‘As few rules as possible — that was the approach. We still try to keep things simple.’

  And the programme?

  ‘We’ve kept the same race programme since nineteen sixty-four with the addition of the Ladies’ Gallop and Local Gallop.’

  Jim was the first secretary and captain of the Lakeside Football Club, and a prime instigator, with Wattie Watson of Routeburn Station, the club’s first president, in developing the race meeting out of the tradition of a gymkhana. Both men played rugby and rode horses, and were relatively good at the two pursuits. In a rugby career spanning twenty-eight years Jim played in the backs, practically every position. He played ten games when he was fifty — his last season.

  His father, Lloyd, is here today, looking dapper with a necktie. He handed over the running of Arcadia Station to his only son about the time these race days were initiated. He is ninety-four now and living in Queenstown with help at home from daughter Gale. What a life he’s had at the Head of the Lake. Scheelite miner, crack-shot deer culler, farmer, guest-house proprietor and, in retirement, artist and fishing guide. At the age of eighty-eight, he guided two American anglers on a fly-fishing expedition to Hollyford and Southland rivers. Until arthritis got to his fingers, he was a dab hand at painting, too. One of his works is of Bill O’Leary (whom Lloyd met) and packhorse Dolly, with mountain beech forest and tall peaks as a backdrop — the kind of Dart country Lloyd himself revelled in as a hunter. He has attended many a race meeting at Glenorchy.

  Funds raised by the Glenorchy Races over more than forty years have given the district an array of new services and mod-con hardware. Chalk up television reception, a swimming pool, a new ambulance, flasher rugby clubrooms, and improved fire-fighting, medical, library and school amenities.

  A bugle announces the close of betting for the first race.

  The public-address system informs everyone that there has been a bit of a delay. The starter, who has done the job for years, in fact was one of William Gilbert Rees’s right-hand men, has ‘tested positive for steroids’. Never mind, it is a sedate start to the day’s racing. The twenty-two horses in the field set off at a walk as prescribed by the rules of the race, with one doing it sideways, prompting Ferg to tell the crowd it could be Monday before the race is over.

  The jokes might be recycled but they still go down well: ‘If there’s anyone from Jellymeat here today, they might be interested to know the horse going sideways is only one can away!’

  The winner of the Walk-Trot-Gallop, sponsored by Routeburn Canyoning, is … ‘Wait for it, I can see one official talking to another official and that other official is, well, we’ll get the result to you some time soon’ … Horse K, ridden by a woman named Jess. The payout is $17.50 — ‘That’ll buy you a litre of petrol’.

  A thirsty nag

  In the 1950s, when the annual race day was a community sports day or gymkhana, the races attracted a down-home bunch of homestead ponies, station hacks, and hard-bitten miners’ horses. Ben Gollop’s Nugget was among them, a chestnut gelding, half draught and ornery. Ben used to ride Nugget to the scheelite mine in the hills above Glenorchy, and the horse would be turned out for haymaking work as well in the hay season.

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nbsp; Ben’s son, Rory Gollop, would be home on holiday from boarding school at gymkhana time. He remembers those race days, and one in particular. His father was riding Nugget and lined up at the far end of the track. The competitors came thundering down the back straight, turf flying from under the large feet of the working horses. Instead of rounding the corner, Nugget bolted out the gate and down the road towards the Mount Earnslaw Hotel (he had been there before). By the time Ben got Nugget turned and back to the track the other horses were over the finish line.

  There are ten races to get through by about 5 o’clock Glenorchy time, with a lunch break of half an hour promised somewhere in the middle of the programme. Each race is wrapped in a warm fuzz of waggish commentary. The way the horses get spaced out early — and the distance between first and last in each race — confirms the tradition of variable fitness and ability among the entrants. By the look of them and their solid build, many of the horses are more used to slogging it out on the hills, mustering sheep and driving cattle, than going flat out round a race track. There appear to be few thoroughbreds, sleek and high-strung, among them. But, really, I’m no judge of horse flesh.

  The event’s website carries a line right out of rodeo: ‘This is not riding for the faint hearted’. The blonde rider who crashed from her steed down the back straight during the relay race and got a crack on her helmeted head from a hoof as the horse passed over her, would probably agree. For a few minutes she lay on the track on her side facing away from the crowd, knocked out, with one hand trembling. By the time the ambulance arrived, and thanks to prior help from first-aiders, she was able to get up, smile and walk to the vehicle.

  Another flood

  In November 2002 another ‘thunder plump’ hit the Head of the Lake, bringing torrential rain to the Dart catchment. In the headwaters of a small creek feeding Diamond Lake, dams formed from fallen branches and trees and when the dams broke, a flash flood ensued, so powerful and loaded with sediment that it raised ground level at the creek’s fan, near where it enters the lake, by about a metre. The gravel that came down that day caused the death of about a hectare of lake-side forest. It is close to where Heaven’s Gate once was, and Peter’s Tomb is still to be found. The site today, just off Paradise Road, is an open parking area for visitors to the lake. It is marked by numerous grey spars of red beech trees, which were fatally debarked by the rush of gravel and rocks brought down in the flood. Something similar might have happened about one hundred years ago. The dead trees in this area are mostly same-age. A new crop of red beech is growing up through the gravel.

  For the punters, it’s a picnic day out with family and friends, and a chance to wear a cowboy hat. Not to worry if you haven’t brought food. Over by the rugby pavilion are food stalls selling savoury fare such as whitebait patties and venison burgers, and dessert in the form of strawberries and cream. The whitebait are a coastal delicacy, of course, but the venison and strawberries are Head of the Lake specialities that appeared on menus at the Paradise and Arcadia guest houses in a past era. The food is a fundraiser for the Glenorchy School. I see Mandy Hasselman among the volunteers behind the tables, and husband Mark is somewhere in the clubrooms preparing the food.

  Glenorchy, like many remote towns, has few elderly among its residents. As the Head of the Lake Community Plan notes, the elderly are under-represented because later in life they tend to move to areas where there is appropriate health care and support for them. The race day brings back a few of the old faces to visit, Lloyd Veint is an example, but the 2008 crowd is largely young to middle-aged, with families predominant, and many of them have come for the action. They wouldn’t miss it for quids.

  The saddling race is like something out of the Mel Brooks’ comic Western of the 1970s, Blazing Saddles. It involves a race in two parts on the home straight — a sprint from the start/finish line, bare back, to the other end of the straight, where the contestants must throw over and secure a saddle then ride back to finish. Speaking from the experience of previous years, the announcers warn the riders to make sure the girth strap is fastened good and tight. Some riders are unseated on the sprint to the finish. The last rider makes it with his backside slewing one way then the other down the home straight, with his predicament summed up by the announcers: ‘She’s a hard road, boy, finding the perfect mount.’

  Blazing saddles under a blazing sun. For much of the day the sun remains searingly high overhead — a UV holocaust for those prone to sunburn.

  When lunch time is declared, it’s time to streak. The young man running naked along the home straight is not so much out to shock and stun as to fulfil a tradition, it seems. The crowd reacts accordingly, with admiring amusement. He must be the least bothersome streaker of all time. One hand masks private parts and with the other he waves the wave of a stellar performer. Just as suddenly he is gone, and the punters in the crowd are invited back to the equalisator tent to place more bets.

  I make a couple of visits to the betting tent, buying half a dozen tickets each time to share with my family. There are winning tickets both times, with payouts of $11 and $7 — a fifty per cent return on investment. I doubt if tote betting would top this.

  On my second visit to the betting tent, the busiest place on the ground after the bar tent, two young guys, apparently new to the area and keen trampers, are seeking the advice of one of the ticket sellers about where they should go next. It seems they have already been in the Dart Valley because with German accents, they say they visited a rock shelter at Chinaman’s Bluff, where a man was camped.

  ‘A real mountain man,’ says one of the trampers enthusiastically. ‘Alone but friendly.’

  As they make their bets, the fellow dispensing tickets tells them about the great walking to be had in the Caples Valley. Then, before they get swallowed up among the punters, I approach them with a question: ‘That man you were talking about at Chinaman’s Bluff,’ I say. ‘What did he look like?’

  ‘Not too big,’ says one of the Germans. ‘Whiskers.’ Then the other cut in: ‘What I remember is a blue cap and red hair sticking out.’

  ‘When was this?’ I ask.

  ‘Just yesterday.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  So the Lark is at Chinaman’s Bluff now. Arawata Bill was in his prime in his sixties and the Lark is no different, judging by the way he moves around this country. It’s an easy day trip to Chinaman’s. A rough road meets the entrance to the trampers’ track. Given the recent spell of dry weather, the fords along the road should be okay to negotiate with my townie’s car. I’ll go tomorrow.

  Back in the 1990s I passed a rock shelter at Chinaman’s on a trek down the Dart from the Cascade Saddle. But I want to be sure about where I’m going, and ask around for directions. Dick Watson, ‘track master’ for the day at the corner by the main gate (the new crop of grass seemingly worked a treat), says he has an idea where Arawata used to shelter but will phone his son, Gordon, to make sure. According to Dick, Gordon has often run the tramping tracks in the district to get fit for competitive back-country foot races like the gut-busting Southern Traverse and is bound to know. Like other endurance athletes he can run, in a matter of hours, tracks ordinary people take days to traverse.

  Back comes the information — yes, there is a rock biv in the bush, about a hundred metres from the edge of it, at the north end of the bluff area. This is a good enough steer for me. I’ll head out in the morning.

  Dick, meanwhile, is pleased with GY Races ’08. He’s heard that about 1,800 people paid admission, a bigger crowd than the past couple of years, making for a bigger fundraising kitty. In this district the Glenorchy Races, tote or not, are a safer bet for community projects than the New Zealand Lottery Grants Board.

  CHAPTER 9

  A Legendary Land

  Knowing less now, and alone,

  These things make for me

  A gauge to measure the unknown

  — Lake, mountain, tree,

  Sings Harry.

  From ‘Sings
Harry’, by Denis Glover, 1951

  The road to Chinaman’s Bluff, which at times, because of flood-deepened fords and axle-deep mud, is not for the faint-hearted tarseal traveller, extends as far north into the Head of the Lake district as a vehicle can go. Landmarks abound: Rees River, Camp Hill, Earnslaw Burn, Diamond Lake, Arcadia, Paradise, Mill Flat, Dan’s Paddock.

  I pause at Paradise. The Ockwells, who formerly managed the Paradise estate under the direction of the Paradise Trust, have moved to Dunedin, and in their place is another young couple, Per Lindstrand and Rachael Bennett, who are from England. They manage the camping and hut accommodation at Paradise, and earn income from working with the Dart Stables horse-trekking business nearby. Arriving in the Glenorchy area in 2004, they were struck by not only the scenic nature of the Head of the Lake but also by its horsy nature. They are putting a stake in the ground. They’ve bought a piece of land at Glenorchy and will build a house.

  Per meets me as I pull up at the cottage. Swedish-born, he is tall and athletic. His family moved to England when he was three. Paradise House, as run-down and romantically rustic as I remember it, is next to where the Paradise managers live. Per confirms the trust has plans to restore the old home and guest-house of William and Kate Mason. It is over 120 years old now and looks vulnerable to the elements. A peacock strides past, towing its improbable cerulean tail — a flashback to an elegant, imperious age and a decorative motif, perhaps, for a Paradise House restoration project.