Windy Tops

Category: musing

  • New Topo50 and Topo250 Maps for New Zealand

    If you stay informed about maps, you may already know that Land Information New Zealand (LINZ) will be officially changing New Zealand’s Mapping System in September 2009. There will be several obvious changes for people who use LINZ maps for navigation, one of which is that New Zealand’s map grid will change. This is a consequence of the Geodetic Datum (from which latitudes and longitudes are derived and on which the entire maps are based) having been changed several years ago, and LINZ is finally updating its maps to catch up with its techniques. When this happens, LINZ also intends to make a collection of other substantial changes to how maps are produced, how they look, and how they’ll be used. Most obviously for people into tramping, the well known NZMS260 series (1:50000 scale) and the NZMS262 series (1:250000 scale) of maps will be completely withdrawn from publication, and respectively replaced by two new series’ of maps called Topo50 and Topo250.

    LINZ has a large section of their website which describes the project in detail, explaining how it will affect people’s use of maps, GPS devices and other related systems. It’s good to see this actually happening — we’ve been hearing about it for several years now.

    Everything you need to know is behind the link above, but I thought I might try to summarise the changes, perhaps to help people understand it better but as much to help myself to get a grasp on what’s changing and why. I’m doing my best to get this as correct as I can, but please keep in mind that I’m an amateur at this. If you notice inaccuracies or omissions, I’d appreciate it if you could point them out by posting a comment. If necessary, I’ll correct the post and credit as appropriate. Meanwhile if you’re keen to get more authoritative information from the source, a good place to start is the LINZ Publications & Other Resources page. The downloadable Topo50 map Reading Guide and the Where in the World Are We? booklets are especially helpful, and much of what I’ve written here is really just a dumbed down version of them.
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  • Tragedy near Kime Hut

    Also see Tragedy near Kime Hut, part 2 and Tragedy near Kime Hut, part 3.

    It’s always sad to hear about tragedies in the outdoors, but it hits home more than usual when it’s nearby. The recent occasion in which the bodies of two trampers were found in the Tararuas will no doubt be remembered for some time not because two people died, but because one of them was particularly well known. Even now, most media reports focus their attention on obiturising one of the trampers who is presumed to be of most interest to their readers and about whom there is probably more readily available information, mentioning his companion almost as an afterthought. I can fully understand why this happens from the media perspective and its audience, but I think it’s important to remember that irrespective of the profiles of both people, two people were equally unfortunate.
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  • Dreaming of Moonlight Southern Crossings in the Tararuas

    It’s been an interesting last few days, watching the weather. Several days ago, Craig invited me to head into the Tararuas tonight and attempt a Moonlight Southern Crossing. We’ve just decided to cancel the attempt within the past hour or so, and might try again in another month if the conditions fit. For me, thoughts about a Moonlight Southern Crossing go as far back as the first ever tramp I went on with the Wellington Tramping and Mountaineering Club.

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  • Torches, boots, hills and Wellington

    For all of today, Wellington was doing a cute thing that it does several times a year. The clouds come in low over the harbour and drift over the city. Living in the hills, it’s possible to either be inside the clouds, or above them and looking down over a flat desert of smooth drifty white. In Northland, on the western side of the Tinakori Hill, our view of Otari Wilton’s Bush was relatively clear but for the walls of fog creeping around the end of the hill and making their way towards us, but always evaporating before they reached us. Many people living in the cloud would stay at home for the day, believing it to be dreary and depressing weather, but I find walking through this subtle kind of environment fascinating.

    Stacey and I went for a walk down into the central city, 20-50 minutes away depending on urgency, and the view over the harbour was iconic of these kinds of days. Much of the mist would have evaporated by the time we saw it at 11.30am, but with the Orongorongas highlighted by their contrast in the background behind the city and the harbour as they lead towards the southern extent of the Tararuas, it’s a good sight all the same.

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  • Evolution of the new Atiwhakatu Hut

    Through some strange set of circumstances I’ve found myself walking past Atiwhakatu Hut in the Tararuas on 5 separate days of 3 weekends in the past 6 weeks. None of it was very planned in advance, but it happened to correlate with the hut’s replacement, giving me an opportunity to take some photos of its evolution, and the eventual destruction of the old hut. The new Atiwhakatu Hut is the same design as Roaring Stag, and although I haven’t had an opportunity to see inside, it looks great from the outside.

    No doubt people involved have their own much more complete sets of photos, but I’m quite chuffed to have my own. This is the first time I’ve had an opportunity to watch a hut being built in this way.
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  • The right to walk from A to B

    I’ve found it interesting reading about the events in Auckland over the last few days, during which several thousand protesters broke through police barriers to walk and cycle over the Auckland Harbour Bridge. This was against the wishes of the New Zealand Transport Agency, which operates the bridge for vehicles only and had told the group they couldn’t walk over the bridge on its 50th anniversary. The protest was arranged by the GetAcross campaign, although the organisers claim they never asked people to break police barriers.

    I’ve never lived in Auckland and it’s not a place I know much about, but I was very surprised to discover that it’s not actually legal to walk over the Auckland Harbour Bridge. After all, if it’s illegal to cross the bridge without a vehicle then it seems like a very long way to walk between St Mary’s Bay and Northcote Point. Google Maps tells me that it turns a 7.1 km walk straight over the bridge into an estimated 12.5 hour 60.8 km walk, complete with warnings from Google Maps about possibly not having adequate footpaths along the way! Perhaps someone with a better knowledge of Auckland could confirm if this is accurate? It seems very strange, though. Several other bridges that come to my mind all have free walking routes — these being the Sydney Harbour Bridge (in Sydney), the Brooklyn Bridge (in New York), and the Manhatten Bridge (also in New York). Not having something similar for an iconic bridge in a place such as Auckland seems to be a confounding oversight!
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  • Positive news for New Zealand walking access rights

    It’s been good news that in September 2008, the Walking Access Commission was established (thanks to the Walking Access Act) with the role of facilitating walking access within New Zealand. Some key commitments of this commission are to help negotiate walking access where there is none, to help resolve disputes, to work on an acceptable code of conduct, and to provide useful information for recreational walkers about where they can actually go. WIth respect to the last commitment, as has been noted recently in the NZ Tramper forums, the commission has recently put out a Request for Proposals (RFP) for the development of a system that, if it works as intended, will make it much easier for members of the public to access information about specifically where in New Zealand there is public right of access.

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  • A snapshot of New Zealand conservation history

    The sanctity of any conserved area, be it national park, scenic reserve, or historic reserve, can be violated at will by the State acting under Sections 7, 32 and 39 of the National Parks Act, under Sections 16, 34 and 97 of the Scenic Reserves and Domains Act or, if either of these avenues by any mischance should fail, under Sections 13(a), 311 and 312 of the Public Works Act. Neither Parliament, nor, least of all, the public at large, need be informed of what is proposed to be done. The first they know is, all to often, heralded by works activity or accomplished fact.

    — Dr J. T. Salmon, Senior Lecturer in Biology, Victoria University of Wellington. Heritage Destroyed — The Crisis in Scenery Preservation in New Zealand. 1960. Page 11.

    I remember growing up in the 1980s with the devoted belief that New Zealand was a clean and green, environmentally sound country. We had a wonderful conservation estate that was open for exploration and fantastic scenery, though it took me a while to discover it properly. New Zealand was completely anti-nuclear, unlike the French who were exploding test nukes nearby, and in related actions committed acts of terrorism in New Zealand, and it was terrorism according to France’s own condemnation before French agents were caught and its government was forced to admit guilt. France threatened wide-spread European Economic Embargoes against New Zealand until we gave back their secret agents, or something like that. This entire event was a major boost to sentiments against nuclear power, which New Zealand didn’t have and therefore New Zealand was clean and green. There was even a movie about the valiant New Zealand neighbourhood watch group catching two bumbling French secret agents (or something like that), starring well known New Zealanders such as Sam Neill and Xena Warrior Princess!

    My friends and I knew that New Zealand was clean and green because the French government was exploding nuclear bombs in our back yard, and we weren’t. And we also had earthquake drills in school during which we screamed and dived under tables, and mohawks were the new rage of fashion. If it were today, I imagine we’d be clean and green because we don’t like the way Japanese vessels hunt intelligent friendly whales in the southern ocean. Fallacies are a wonderful thing for self-assurance.

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  • Quietly passing the time

    It’s interesting how people pass the time in the dark. I didn’t indicate it at the time, but on this occasion Marie’s working on statistical formulae, and Dan’s working on circuit diagrams.

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    At Totara Flats in the Tararua Range, March 2007

    It was raining outside. A lot.

  • Te Araroa, National Cycleways and Recessions

    This morning I was reading Michelle’s latest post about the NZ government’s pending plans to help offset the recession by spending $50 million to build a length-of-New-Zealand cycleway. Michelle’s thoughts, which have been similar to mine, reminded me of how weird I thought the idea of a cycleway was when I first heard about it a few weeks ago. It’s not so much aversion to having a cycleway as the suspicion of why its has suddenly emerged now.
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