The Haast, a small but Turbulent River

By world standards it is not a big river. It is only around 100 kilometres from its source in the rainforested Southern Alps to the Tasman Sea, but its impact on the environment can be huge. In a benign mood, the river is a beautiful placid blue, but during the frequent heavy rains it soon turns into a malevolent,  turbulent dirty grey-green monster which each year  can bring down some 10 million tonnes of silt. The average annual rate of flow is almost three times that of the River Thames in Britain. This is the Haast River of New Zealand’s South Westland.

The blue waters of the Haast River in its lower reaches, its benevolent mood

The grey-green waters of the Haast River during rain: its malevolent mood

Until 1960, the small settlement of Haast, near the mouth of the river, had no road access with the rest of New Zealand. The early families, known as the Far Downers, had come in by sea from the 1870s and a cattle track was established along the coast and inland to Lake Paringa. There was also a rough horse track that more or less followed Tiori Patea, the old less-favoured Maori route to the West Coast.  This route followed the river, with summer-flowering rata trees and dense rainforest, before winding up to, and over, Haast Pass to the more open country along the Makarora River.

The rata trees - Metrosideros umbellata - can put on a spectacular show along the banks of the Haast River

The Pass, the river and, in later years, the small town, were all named after the German geologist Sir Julius von Haast who, in 1863, travelled from Central Otago over the Pass and down to the Tasman Sea.  
 The modern road, now State Highway 6,  follows the river for almost its entire length and was constructed in the late 1950s, giving road access to the town of Haast for the first time. New Zealand’s most isolated community was now connected to the modern world. Ironically though, it was one of the first communities in New Zealand to have a regular air service, with West Coast Airways establishing a regular service from Hokitika in the 1930s. The road north to Lake Paringa, Fox and Franz Josef Glaciers, Hokitika and Greymouth was not completed until 1965.

A homestead in the settlement of Haast

Haast Pass, at 563 metres is the lowest of the three major road passes over the Southern Alps. After crossing the Pass one follows SH 6 into the rainforests of Westland. On the right a small stream, known as Cross Creek, appears and after a few hundred metres joins embryonic Haast River which plunges out of impenetrable mountain rainforest. The river soon widens as the traveller heads north. By the roadside is a small hut, still used by road workers. This once housed the explosives used for the large amount of rock blasting that was needed on this section of the road.  There are a number of waterfalls on both sides of the road with evocative names such as Fantail, Diana & the Trickle; the latter two often cause problems on the road in heavy rain. After passing an ‘escape’ road - in case brake failure! - the road passes over the spectacular one-lane Gates of Haast Bridge which crosses the now turbulent Haast river. After passing Thunder Creek Falls, the road again crosses the river at Pleasant Flat and a little further on the Landsborough River, the only major tributary of the Haast flows in from the right.  

The Gates of Haast Bridge over the Haast River

The rapids of the  river beneath the Gates of Haast Bridge

The river has now widened considerably and each bluff or little creek along the road has been given a name. There is Douglas Bluff, named after the indomitable Charlie Douglas, a surveyor and prospector known to local history as Mr Explorer Douglas. He was a man of grit and determination with a wry sense of humour. Once when asked if the rising barometer meant bad weather, Charlie Douglas replied, in his dour Scottish way ‘The barometer doesn’t affect the weather much on the Coast.’

Further along the road there is Dismal and Dizzy Creeks, Imp Grotto, where a prospector was said to have found uranium during the road construction. There is Chink Creek, the Roaring Swine, Dancing Creek, Depot Creek, Gunboat Creek and Snapshot Creek, where, I have been told, the road crosses the Alpine Fault which is the meeting of the Pacific and Indo-Australian tectonic plates.

Snapshot Creek, where the road to Haast Pass crosses the Alpine Fault

After passing by the small modern town of Haast, SH 6 crosses the spectacular 750 metre single-lane Haast River Bridge, the longest in the country. 

The 750 metres single lane Haast River Bridge 

Having viewed the river from the road, let us now experience the river from the waterway itself.  Haast River Safaris operate jetboat tours along a 30 kilometres section of the lower river. 

After a short bush walk, hopefully evading attacks by the persistent Westland sandflies, the traveller scrambles into the large, fully-enclosed jetboat of locally operated Haast River Safaris.

A tour group boards a Haast River Safari jetboat while their tour coach continues over the bridge

With a thunderous roar of twin V8 engines the jetboat is off, heading up the wider reaches of this interesting river.There are single banks to wend around, rapids to zip through and trees, brought down by successive floods, to dodge.

With a roar of twin V8 engines the Haast River Safari jet boat is off.

Near Haast settlement the river is wide, but as the boat proceeds upstream, narrow channels between single banks become more frequent.  The Haast River is never constant, always changing. The boat operator knows the river; what to look for after a flood when the course of the river can change dramatically. The main channel of the river has been know to switch from one bank to the other in a matter of minutes. A flood will bring great trees crashing down, and as the waters drop, new unexpected hazards have been created; single banks will have moved. I have travelled the river many times over the years and have never ceased to be amazed at how things do change. A section of river bank, undermined by a recent flood, with large trees growing precariously on the edge, will have disappeared completely by my next trip, with these trees now forming new hazards in the river. It is very much a landscape in flux. The rainforest along the banks is dense, but it still cannot halt these extreme forces of erosion. 

Rainforest growing precariously on the edge of the eroded river bank.

This large kahikatea tree has succumbed to the erosive forces of the Haast

  Features seen from the River are quite different from those of the road. Joe and Harris Waterfalls, two permanent waterfalls, plunge through the rainforest and were, incidentally, both named by Joe Harris, a foreman during the road construction. The Roaring Swine takes the shape of a spectacular glacier-formed hanging valley, disappearing into the clouds of Mt Aspiring National Park. The fresh, clear waters of the small Thomas River mingle markedly with silt-laden main river. 

Threatenng weather up the Roaring Swine, a classic glacier-created hanging valley

Shingle banks of smooth coloured river stones, mostly greywacke, but also granite, schist, quartz and orange ultramafric, tells a geologist much about the makeup of the Southern Alps.  

Investigating a shingle bank on the Haast River

No jetboat journey would be complete without several fun 360 degree spins. These large, powerful machines spin more sedately than their smaller, open counterparts, but nevertheless it is still exciting - and dry!!

Inside a Haast River Safari jet boat during a fun 360 degree spin

. Journey's end is at Roaring Billy, a waterfall which plunges through the dense rainforest of the left bank and was named for its likeness to a billy of boiling water when in full spate. At times of little rain, it could be likened to ‘Whispering Willy’! 

Roaring Billy plunges through the rainforest on the banks of the Haast River.

© Neil Rawlins  text & photography

Books published by Neil Rawlins on Amazon

Through the Tassili N'Ajjer to Djanet Oasis

Recently I reread Philippe Diolé’s  1955 book, The Most Beautiful Desert of All, translated from the French Le Plus Beau Désert du monde and rather unimaginatively published in America as Saharan Adventure.

I had found this book in a second-hand bookshop not too long after I had returned to New Zealand from travelling through Africa.  Diolé had been one of Jacques Cousteau’s offsiders during many of his diving expeditions around the world, but he also spent time in the Sahara which he loved, and in the introduction to this book he draws certain parallels between the tranquillity and fascination of the deep, with similar sentiments in the vast open reaches of the Sahara Desert: The sea and the desert gnaw equally at the wrecks lost upon their surfaces: the stranded truck eaten away by rust, the ship aground on the sands, prone on its side. In the solitude of the sea, in the silence of the desert sand-hill, there is some anonymity, the same melancholy of things dying rather than dead, given over defenceless to the sands of the sea bottom, to the sands blown by the wind.

I had travelled across much of the area that Philippe Diolé had traversed twenty years earlier, albeit by lorry rather than by camel. But on rereading his book, it brought back vivid memories of my own fascinating journey in 1973.

Coming out of the desert at Ouargla

Three days after we had passed through the interesting little desert town of Ouargla, also the starting point for Diolé  - although he had flown from here, we reached a little settlement now called Ilizi. In Diolé’s day it was still known by the French name of Fort Polignac. Diolé describes it thus: 'Fort Polignac, now Ilizi can only be described  as the most drearily uninviting of all the Saharan posts.  Polignac is stark emptiness.' I had scribbled in the margin ‘couldn’t agree more!’ He goes on: 'It is nothing but a dot on the map. Before the French took over and built the blockhouse , it was not even a native village.  There is not tree, no bush, not so much as a tuft of drinn, that woody plant growing in clumps that can withstand the aridity of the Sahara.

 Yet it is with tenderness , with nostalgia, that I think of that extravagantly spacious esplanade …  For Polignac is the gateway to the Tassili of the Ajjer. It is even more a port than a gateway. It is where one embarks for the silences of solitude.’  I had also noted the ‘extravagantly spacious esplanade’, during the hour or so we spent in this godforsaken place. It was laid out straight for possibly a kilometre. There were pavements and street-lighting standards but as I also noted in the margin of my copy of Diolé’s book: ‘street lights with no globes or tubes.'  

There was just one small shop, and while our drivers reported our intentions and our planned route to the Mairie, I bought, from memory a loaf of bread – surprisingly good – and a small tin of sweetened condensed milk. I used to love this as an after school treat as a youngster.  Just out of town there was a small settlement of basic scrub and thorn huts, with a few lethargic inhabitants, probably Tuaregs, sitting or standing around.

Basic desert huts at Ilizi (Fort Polignac)

From Fort Polignac/Ilizi, after first having to push our two vehicles through a sand drift, we headed into the rocky, steep vastness of the Tassili N’Ajjer, a barren mountain range that cuts across this part of the Algerian Sahara. Diolé crossed this area by camel looking for Neolithic paintings in the remote valleys of the Tassili. I noted in my diary at the time that the Tassili N’Ajjer was: 'one of the most barren, desolate regions on earth; a region of broken, shattered rock, chiefly sandstone, strewn as far as the eye can see. The area is very hilly and the road a mass of corrugations, bumps & rocky outcrops. We are climbing all the time at the average speed of 12 mph. The odd tree & clumps of vegetation can be seen & we saw several gazelle during the day. We are camped tonight fairly high up in the Tassili, presumably miles from anywhere.'

The road through the rocky terrain of the Tassili N'Ajjer in Mid-Sahara

The following morning we drove through what I described as even  'more spectacular with rocky mesas, canyons, cones etc. a true lunar landscape.' Before we eventually descended to the desert and skirted around the base of the mountains on the road to Djanet. At the time the spectacular scenery gave rise in my imagination that this must be what J.R.R. Tolkein had envisaged the Land of Mordor to look like in his Lord of the Rings Trilogy which I had read for the first time just before I left Britain.

As we drove through the Tassili N'Ajjer, virtually devoid of vegetation, I felt that this could be what J.R.R. Tolkein envisaged the dark land of Mordor, in his epic Lord of the Rings trilogy, would have looked like. 

On our last day’s drive into Djanet we passed a camel caravan of around 30 camels making their way in our direction. This age-old mode of transport was even then fast disappearing from the desert. Perhaps they were bringing salt from the salt pans of Bilma Oasis in Niger!

The camel caravan, maybe bringing saly from Bilma Oasis, heading to Djanet

I liked Djanet right from the minute I arrived, as did Diolé: "Djanet is a smiling place, and I really think it is the most beautiful oasis in the world; but it remains inscrutable, reserved rather than hostile, very small and very deeply rooted in its own long-enduring life. In the houses with their walls of very white clay, and in the gardens, silent men work with a seriousness which belongs to another age, and which is scarcely Arab. We have little knowledge of what an inhabitant of Djanet really is. … Perhaps he is the descendant of a Neolithic shepherd or farmer, issue of a stock as old as the grain he grows – that grain of the oasis which is not related to any grain ever known, unless it is to the grain of a prehistoric era.'

I had scribbled in the margin: ‘couldn’t agree more’. I awoke on my first morning in this beautiful oasis to see, in the early morning sun, the spectral figures of Tuaregs leading yesterday’s camel caravan through the oasis date palms.

Tuaregs leading their camels through the date palms of Djanet Oasis

© Neil Rawlins  text & photography

Read the full story of my travels in my books published on Amazon

One Foot in Front of the Other - First Steps & One Foot in Front of the Other - Full Stride

Mykerinus Steps Forth

Assertive and confident, from deep within the hazy mists of time, escorted by the mother goddess Hathor and Anput, his local district goddess, the pharaoh Mykerinus (Menkaure) steps towards us, out from the hard greywacke stele which has withstood the ravages of time. An imposing figure, handsome, determined and very much a leader of men, he now stands just a few kilometres from his most imposing monument, the smallest of the three Pyramids of Giza. The world he knew was a one of opulence and innovation, a remarkable civilisation encapsulated within the narrow confines of the Nile Valley. 

The Three Pyramids of Giza, That of Mykerinus (Menkaure) is on the right

The great sepulchral monuments of the vast necropolis of the Western Desert has inspired mankind's imagination throughout the millennia -

                              "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:

                              Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"

                                                                                [Shelly 1818]

Mykerinus' immediate predecessors, Cheops (Khufu), his grandfather, and Kephren (Khafre), his father, built the much larger Pyramids, but this fine sculpture, in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, brings a human face and character to these rulers from the beginnings of recorded history; rulers whose mystical reigns inspired funerary monuments of such awe-inspiring, gargantuan proportions. 

The greywacke stele of Mykerinus & the goddesses
Hathor & Anput, in the Egyptian Museum

Elsewhere within the Museum are the seated figures of the high priest Rahotep and his wife, Nofret. Rahotep, High Priest of Ra, the sun-god, was half-brother of the Pharoah Cheops (Khufu) and consequently would have been the great-uncle of Mykerinus. The most striking feature of these ancient figures are their realistic eyes, finely wrought from rock crystal. Rahotep and his wife look quizzically at us as we walk towards them, seemingly gazing into our very souls with the wisdom of four and a half millennia. It is hard to believe the incredible age of these beautiful painted sculptures.

Rahotep, High Priest of Ra & Nofret, his wife. Egyptian Museum, Cairo

It is from admiring such images as those of Mykerinus, of Rahotep and Nofret, by seeing the massive Pyramids of Giza and the earlier Stepped Pyramid of the Pharaoh Zoser at Saqqara that we can begin to appreciate the amazing splendour and technology of this far distant age. It was an age that persevered, through the vicissitudes of invaders and weak rulers for almost 3000 years, assimilating the ways of the various invaders who entered the Nile Valley. It was an age that reached its apogee in the New Kingdom some 3500 years ago, best illustrated by the amazing treasure from the tomb of the boy-king Tutankhamen.

          In a special chamber in the Egyptian Museum we can only gaze admiringly on the exquisitely worked solid gold funerary mask of Tutankhamen. The delicate gold, silver and inlaid scene of the boy-pharaoh and his queen on the back of a royal chair describes a scene of domestic harmony, while the beautiful protecting goddesses who guard the gilded-wood shrine containing the king's viscera show that he was well accompanied in his journey through the after-life, while an alert wooden jackal, Anubis, eternally guards Tutankhamen's sacred mummy.

The solid gold funerary mask of Tutankhamun & the pharoah with his wife on the royal chair,
Egyptian Museum, Cairo

It is only after viewing these exquisite treasures by ancient craftsmen that we begin to realise just how skilled and advanced the ancients were. It is frightening to think that what we see today in the Museums of the world is just a very small fraction of the riches of this ancient world. All the great tombs were well-plundered by grave-robbers thousands of years before modern Egyptologists even began their investigations, less than two hundred years ago. But in spite of these depredations, a wealth of knowledge has emerged from the ancient hieroglyphic texts, painstakingly deciphered by the 19th century work of the Frenchman Champollion, and the ornate, detailed and colourful frescoes of scenes of everyday life, of military campaigns and trading expedition that decorate the later tombs of the pharaohs and their courtiers. A wall-painting and relief in the Mastaba tomb of Princess Idut, daughter of the 5th dynasty Pharaoh Unis, at Saqqara shows an ox being slaughtered, another wall-painting shows a fishing expedition on the Nile. 

Butchering an ox, from the Mastaba tomb of Princess Idut, daughter of 5th dynasty pharoah Unas at Saqqara      

Each year further exciting discoveries are made from this fascinating era, and who knows, perhaps Egyptologists will one day find an unknown tomb rivaling that of Tutankhamun. To house these new discoveries a brand-new state-of-the-art Egyptian Museum is due to open, within view of the Pyramids in 2020.

© Neil Rawlins  text & photography

My travel books are available from Amazon: One Foot in Front of the Other

One Foot in Front of the Other - First Steps

One Foot in Front of the Other - Full Stride

A Photographic Appreciation of Castles

The ancient mudbrick Citadel of Bam, Iran

"The castle has always been a formidable image, a powerful intimidating fantasy of the human imagination. The fortress, the citadel, the craggy tower dominating the landscape: it is older than history, as natural to man as the eyrie to the eagle. To defend oneself, to attack others, to live in guarded pride: these are its laudable aims. Until they are ruined, no one but their owners and those who live under their protection has liked them; once they are shattered and dismantled, admiration supervenes; they become pets, the most esteemed ruined objects in a landscape, curdling the blood with awe, delighting the soul with majestic beauty." 

Castles have always inspired the imagination,  evoking images of medieval armies carrying scaling ladders, supported by ballista, mangonels and boar-headed battering-rams, charging up to crenellated  battlements, braving arrows, spears and boiling-oil, to hopefully scale the walls, and breach the gates. Such visions have, in recent years, been promoted by movies such as the 'Lord of the Rings', and 'the Hobbit' trilogies and the lengthy 'Game of Thrones' TV series. While these movies and TV series are fantasies, the 'real' castles of the North Hemisphere have a history just as exciting, if not more so, as any Hollywood can produce. I have detailed here just a few of the castles and fortresses that I have visited.

Ancient Troy has always stirred my imagination, ever since I first read Homer's Iliad. I have visited the ruins a number of times over the years, and each time archaeologists have uncovered more of this ancient fortress. While not a castle in the true sense of the word, Troy was a fortified city dating from the third millennium BC, and rebuilt many times. To look upon this place of legends, across the plains of the River Scamander to Aegean Sea where the Greeks left the famous 'Wooden Horse', or to walk beneath of walls where Achilles pursued the Trojan champion Hector three times before killing him, has always inspired my imagination: 

The massive walls of ancient Troy, around which Achilles chased the luckless Hector

'While Hector stood engrossed in inward debate, Achilles drew near him, looking like the god of War in his flashing helmet, girt for battle.  Over his right shoulder he brandished the formidable ashen spear of Pelion, and the bronze on his body glowed like a blazing fire or the rising sun.  Hector looked up, saw him, and began to tremble. He no longer had the heart to stand his ground; he left the gate, and ran away in terror. But the son of Peleus, counting on his speed, was after him in a flash.  Light  as  a mountain  hawk,  the  fastest thing on wings,  when he swoops  in chase  of a timid dove,  and shrieking close behind  his  quarry, darts  at  her time and again in his eagerness to make his  kill, Achilles  started  off in hot pursuit;  and like the dove  flying before her enemy, Hector fled before him under the walls of Troy, fast as his feet would go.'  Homer - The Iliad.

In the UK, after the Norman invasion of 1066, castles sprang up throughout the countryside, often dominating a town such as the castle in Ludlow, Shropshire. Often the home of the local lord, the castle provided protection to the town's inhabitants, usually in return for various services the townsfolk would provide their 'local lord'.

The remains of the 11th century Norman castle dominates the Shropshire town of Ludlow 

Castles and fortresses are scattered throughout Europe and Asia and one of the most spectacular I have visited is the Mehrengarh Fort in the Rajasthani city of Jodhpur in India, which dates from the 15th century. The stark, sheer, impregnable  walls dominate this desert city. Within the fort is the Palace of the Maharajahs of Marwar, now a Museum. The fort was constructed on the hill aptly named the 'mountain of birds'.

The massive Mehrangarh Fort dominates the city of Jodhpur in Rajasthan, India

The Middle East has many interesting castle ruins which date back to the First Crusade, particularly after the capture of and the establishment of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Crusaders established other feudal Kingdoms in the Middle East, most notably that of Oultrejordain, based in the great castle at Kerak (Crac des Moabites) in modern day Jordan. A small subsidiary castle of Oultrejordain was Montreal, in the small town of Shaubak. The castle sits upon a hill overlooking the semi-desert countryside and is a fascinating place to explore. 

The battlements & the ruins of Montreal, Shaubak, Jordan

One of the most romantic castles I have visited is the small 12th century Armenian castle near the Turkish town of Silifke on the Mediterranean coast. This is Kızkalesi, or the Maiden's Castle, and sits on a small islet just offshore.

Kızkalesi, the Maiden's Castle, in the Mediterranean Sea near Silifke, Turkey

There are very few fortified cities now remaining intact, but two of the best examples are La Cité, the old town of Carcassonne in the Languedoc region of France, and the hilltop fortified town of Jaisalmer in Rajasthan, India. Both are well preserved and are fascinating places to explore.

The towers of the French city of Carcassonne & the fortified town of Jaisalmer in Rajasthan

While most castles and forts have a history dating back over centuries, Fort Saumarez on the island of Guernsey in the English Channel was adapted to serve as a defensive position by the German occupiers of the island during World War 2. This latter day Martello Tower. with its machine-gun slits, dominates a section of the Guernsey coastline, but did not see any action.
  

Fort Saumarez on the coast of Guernsey, Channel Islands

© Neil Rawlins  text & photography

Travel books by the author, available from Amazon

The Native Flowers of New Zealand

It has often been said that New Zealand native vegetation lacks colour; is just a mixture of many shades of green with no distinctive flowers, but although there might not be so many of the large, showy flowers of the tropical rainforests, there is a large variety of delicate, colourful and interesting flowers which extend from the coastal plains up to the extensive alpine regions of both islands.  Over 80% of our natives plants are endemic, which means they are unique to these islands. Many of New Zealand native flowers are white, catering to the numerous night-flying moths which are among the main pollinators. New Zealand only has around 15 butterfly species, but over 1500 species of moth!

In this photographic essay I highlight a few of the unique and beautiful flowers found in the various environments of this isolated land.

Kowhai ngutu-kaka, or kaka beak; kowhai & rewarewa

Perhaps New Zealand's most showy flower is the rare, at least in the wild, kowhai ngutu-kaka, or kaka beak (Clianthus puniceus) which is classified as critically endangered by the Department of Conservation. Fortunately this plant grows well in a controlled habitat and is popular in gardens. The yellow-flowering kowhai (Sophora tetraptera) is distinctive throughout New Zealand when it flowers in the spring. This small tree is semi-deciduous and the yellow flowers - kowhai is the Maori word for yellow - is regarded as New Zealand's national flower.  One of the more unusual, and frequently overlooked flowers of the New Zealand bush is that of the rewarewa (Knightia excelsa). This tree can grow up to 30 metres in height and although sometimes called the New Zealand honeysuckle, it is actually a protea, and is the first of the larger trees to reappear with the bush regenerates.

Puriri, kiekie and kamahi flowers

Found only in the North Island, the Puriri (Vitex lucens) tree is a hardwood related to teak. The showy flowers can be found on the tree all year round, a popular food-source for the nectar-feeding  tui, and the berries are popular with the kereru, or native pigeon. The climbing kiekie (Freycinetia banksii) is a member of the tropical pandanus family and can be seen clambering over larger trees throughout the country. The leaves were used by the Maori for weaving and the large flowers of the male kiekie consists of beige-coloured stamens, surrounded by white bracts, a delicacy to the pre-European Maori. The prolific, candle-like flowers of the kamahi tree (Weinmannia racemosa) produces excellent honey.

Taurepo; toropapa & kotukutuku (tree fuchsia) flowers

Some of the lesser known flowers of the New Zealand forest include the attractive red flowers of the taurepo (Rhabdothamnus solandri) shrub, also known as the New Zealand gloxinia, found only in the North Island. Like the puriri, the taurepo can flower for much a the year and its main pollinators are the nectar-feeding native birds.  The long tubular flowers of the toropapa (Alseuosmia macrophylla) emit a strong sweet very distinctive perfume noticeable in the forests in late spring, early summer. Particularly common in the forests of South and Stewart Islands is the kotukutuku, or tree fuchsia (Fuchsia excorticata). This tree is the largest of the fuchsia family and is one of the very few New Zealand trees which are totally deciduous. Flowers are small and can be hard to see, unlike their more showy South American counterparts. The fruit produced, known to the Maori as konini, is sweet and certainly not unpleasant, if you can get to them before the native pigeons!

Greenhood orchids, veined sun orchid & spider orchids

New Zealand also has an interesting array of small orchids, not always easily identifiable. One of the most common is the tutukiwi, or greenhood orchid (Pterostylis banksii) which can be found alongside forest tracks throughout the country. This veined sun orchid ( Thelymitra venosa) looking rather like a pixie was photographed on Stewart Island, as were these ground-hugging spider orchids (Corybas macranthus).

Mt Cook lily, or giant buttercup, giant spaniards, New Zealand eyebrights

The Alpine regions of New Zealand have many showy flowers but perhaps the best known is the so-called Mt Cook lily which is really a giant buttercup (Ranunculus lyalli). This large-leafed plant flowers prolifically in Mt Cook National Park and in other alpine areas of the Southern Alps and Fiordland. The giant spaniard (Aciphylla scott-thomsonii) is a speargrass and is actually a member of the carrot family. There are many species of speargrass found throughout all islands of New Zealand.  The New Zealand eyebright (Euphrasia cuneata) is another showy flower found  alongside tracks and stream beds in both lowland and alpine regions, particularly in the North Island.

Poor Knights lily & tecomanthe flowers

Two of New Zealand's rarest flowers, although both now found in gardens, are the Poor Knights lily (Xeronema callistemon) which originally grew only on the Poor Knights Islands & Hen Island off the coast of Northland, and the spectacular climber Tecomanthe speciosa, one of the world's rarest pants, which is known from just a single specimen, discovered in 1945, growing on Great Island in the Three Kings group off the tip of Northland.

The spectacular red mistletoe growing on a southern beech at Lake Ohau

To finish this photographic essay I feature the endangered (popular food for possums) red mistletoe (Peraxilla tetrapetala). Like its northern hemisphere counterpart, it flowers spectacularly in limited locations in the weeks leading up to Christmas.
© Neil Rawlins  text & photography

My travel books 'One Foot in Front of the Other' are available in paperback & ebook from Amazon Books