Off the Beaten Track: The Fiordland World Heritage Park of New Zealand

Off the Beaten Track: Fiordland World Heritage Park of New Zealand a photo journey by Pearldiver, is a powerful collection of original haiku verses and images, taking you on a journey through a small part of the South Island's Fiordland region of New Zealand, within the flow and context of a little piece of the areas history. A very unique look at one of the most beautiful and wildest areas of New Zealand and a world heritage listing. At the southernmost point of the Fiordland Heritage Park, jutting out into the Tasman Sea, is Puysegur Point Lighthouse, built to aid coastal shipping in 1879, as one part a network of lighthouses around the entire New Zealand coastline.

Until 1980s, the Lighthouse was operated daily manually, requiring a Lighthouse Keeper to maintain all operational duties, including the reporting of general weather, rainfall, wind speeds, sea swells and barometric pressure etc. Lighthouse Keepers and their families were (for obvious reasons) required to live 'on site' and were rotating each seven years, to other lighthouses around the coastline. All lighthouses were basically situated in the harshest environments, as is the New Zealand coastline, known for providing spectacular vistas and a full spectrum of conditions. It takes a special kind of person and positive, 'I can do' attitude to live on the edge. It makes one as unique as the environment around you.

To appreciate the lifestyle, one had to embrace a pioneering mindset, maintain a sense of humor and enjoy the isolation, as effectively that was the only way that the surroundings would allow you to survive. One of the prerequisites was that Head Keepers had to be married, so spare a thought for what that meant for the wives. Many were medically trained and expected to cope with anything from a life threatening fall to stubbed toes, while teaching their children in the formal schooling of correspondence over the radio, also the only lifeline and social contact with other staff or boat skippers. This was the lifestyle that my parents chose and we were stationed at three different Lighthouses. Puysegur Point in Fiordland, was the first of them and here, my roots were firmly planted and still hold tight to the sheer sea swept cliffs of this wild, windy, desolate place, unknown to most of the world. Even Google can't locate it in their map below.

© Copyright 2011 - 2013 Pearldiver nzpol with all rights reserved.

Photographic Images © Copyright mclellan images 2011 - 2013 with all rights reserved.

From the author's perspective: I was four weeks old when I first met this place and on a very rough day, I arrived by barge suitably dressed for the dangerous unloading at the jetty, tied down in a cabinet drawer. Our supplies, mother and I were unloaded on the tidal surge; as the boat climbed level to the jetty, they were quickly passed hand to hand. When it was my turn, I was passed late, as the boat fell back down the wave. In my greeting from my father (on the jetty) he dropped me and I fell out of my drawer box, twenty feet, to be snatched from certain death below, by a deckhand, who himself nearly fell into the wild seas saving me. He caught a flagon of beer as well apparently.

I've always loved surfing big waves, boating, flying, bungy, though I never tossed my kids to my father, hate being held by the scruff of the neck and I'm always late! Clearly, very early in our lives, we are conditioned by experiences. Here, my home was Puysegur Point, born with that pioneer spirit and a Lighthouse Keeper's son, wide eyed to nature and the environment. This truly is a wild place, known for it's high wind squalls, desolation, changeable weather and spectacular beauty. The peninsular backs onto extremely thick native bush, with prolific bird life and framing distant ranges, sheer and endless.

'Off the Beaten Track,' - Is about following a series of Original Haiku verses which take you along a track through what is known as -The Fiordland National Park. I wish to acknowledge and thank the photographer D. Mclellan, for the bulk of the images in this article. He has worked extensively and lived in the Fiordland region and probably knows the area better than most.

So please enjoy this special place, through this special collection of images and words, that make up: 'Off the Beaten Track.' For the author, this represents a life circle taken in the hope that places like this will always exist in their timelessness for many more generations. This is a Southern Flow of New Zealand, an unbelievable home for nature at her best, off the tourist route and a place that you must simply feel the heartbeat of, to know you are alive. Oh did I mention that there are biting Sandflies here, so maybe you should use a good repellent. (And Rainwear).

To get to the Lighthouse you will have to negotiate a Department of Conservation Permit to do so at the National Park Offices in Te Anau. If you are successful with your permit, then also check out the Manupouri Power Station and the Helicopter Tour Operators at Fiordland Travel at Te Anau. Factually, you are going to need to just go.. Get a chopper to Lake Manupouri, Puysegur Point, over to Mitre Peak, then you might as well stay at Mt. Cook... Check out Resolution Cove, Dusky Sound, Doubtful Sound.... There are huts and lodges and sandflies and why not just Trek it... with your camera... This land: This place is spectacular... Enjoy:

© Copyright 2011 - 2013 Pearldiver nzpol with all rights reserved.

This place speaks to me

Born of wild, unspoiled lands

In flowing imagery

Now deserted this

Undesirable cliff top property

With unrestricted views

I am truly unique

Personality forged in soft waters

And stone gardens

I am here, this land, this place

Now, devoid of people

A spiritual space

Here, alone

My light cries out for

All roaming seafarers, moths and birds

♦ Original Haiku by Pearldiver ♦

© Copyright 2011 - 2013 Pearldiver nzpol with all rights reserved.

Photographic Images © Copyright mclellan images 2011 - 2013 with all rights reserved.

My years taken

Beyond these wind sweep cliffs

All carry me home

Southern albatross

Three score old roost here

Gliding on updrafts

A drop of me exists

In every ocean’s current

Beyond Fiordland

Being here I feel

Pioneer spirits, committed love yoked

Unknown to my children

Never believe you know me

Until you have also walked here

In this wild place

A world of change

Greets each of us differently

Yet equally

Here, I learned

But I just can not comprehend

What cities are, without nature

♦ Original Haiku by Pearldiver ♦

© Copyright 2011 - 2013 Pearldiver nzpol with all rights reserved.

Photographic Images © Copyright mclellan images 2011 - 2013 with all rights reserved.

Puysegur Point

Here a beacon shines nightly

Unmanned by sunlight

Home foundations

All telling past lives lived here

With me

No place on earth

Gives life so relevantly unseen

As an empty home

Here, blue fin tuna

Migrate through the straits

Avoiding trolled lures

Fur seals breed

In pristine rock lined coves

With blue cod and penguins

No equal exists

No life has mirrored mine

Naturally unique

Many legends tell

Of life here long before Maori

Not knowing, here

♦ Original Haiku by Pearldiver ♦

© Copyright 2011 - 2013 Pearldiver nzpol with all rights reserved.

Photographic Images © Copyright mclellan images 2011 - 2013 with all rights reserved.

Here we have lived

Beyond all time and man

Just for this moment

Known as Godzone

Not created by mere mortals

See for yourself

I am snowy peaks

Of once broken earthen plates

Nourishing time

Follow life’s path

Each step, each day changes

If you let life lead

Sandflies extract a toll

Shelter from constant gentle rains

Creating golden streams

♦ Original Haiku by Pearldiver ♦

© Copyright 2011 - 2013 Pearldiver nzpol with all rights reserved.

Photographic Images © Copyright mclellan images 2011 - 2013 with all rights reserved.

I am the Sounds

Fresh and salt waters merge

Beneath the mist

I am breathtaking

Deep, intense, passionate

Incomparable

♦ Original Haiku by Pearldiver ♦

© Copyright 2011 - 2013 Pearldiver nzpol with all rights reserved.

Photographic Images © Copyright mclellan images 2011 - 2013 with all rights reserved.

Come the sun

Drip by drip we can then build

This land’s immortality

I am the pure waters

In flow, each drop falls down

Etched in green

♦ Original Haiku by Pearldiver ♦

© Copyright 2011 - 2013 Pearldiver nzpol with all rights reserved.

Photographic Images © Copyright mclellan images 2011 - 2013 with all rights reserved.

I am the green moss

Living in the filtered sunlight

Beyond the next turn

I am a beech tree

Reaching toward the rest

On sheer slopes

I am a chain fern

My worn stone threads offered

For fantail nests

I am the Weta

Undisturbed in mossy crevasse

Silent assassin

I am gold flakes

Washed down from rich veins

Unseen and pure

I am also the Kea

With heart of fun and pride

At stealing life

♦Original Haiku by Pearldiver♦

© Copyright 2011 - 2013 Pearldiver nzpol with all rights reserved.

Photographic Images © Copyright mclellan images 2011 - 2013 with all rights reserved.

Walk this way

This forest is alive with sound

And silence

Sphagnum moss

Provides a cicada oasis

Between showers

This track climbs up

To the snowline and icicles

Filtering the mist

Great beech trees

Dwarf the canopy walkway

Upwards

Moss climbs over

Dead ponga stumps hidden

In a life circle

All bird life are tame

Unafraid of inferior beings

In their home

Every step

Offers the privilege of new views

Unique to here

A giant snail

Passed this way last night

In silvery shoes

I wondered

What time and year it could be

In New York

What is the best time

To see this waterlogged venue

This timeless place

Five seasons here

The usual plus one other exists

It is far wetter

In this life

Do not miss the extraordinary

Do not miss me

♦Original Haiku by Pearldiver♦

© Copyright 2011 - 2013 Pearldiver nzpol with all rights reserved.

Photographic Images © Copyright mclellan images 2011 - 2013 with all rights reserved.

I am not alone

Lighthouse withstanding time

And snow capped range

I am the heart

Of everyone gone before

Beauty finally fades

I am remembered here

Loaded on surging swells

A baby almost lost

Lighthouse keeper’s son

First Christened by the spray

Of ocean's timelessness

My roots are here

Tangled in wind, relentless seas

Gulls protect them

And now childless

This desolate playground of life

Steps to doors long gone

Yet no empty home

Could be found to be vacant so

While wild nature abounds

Only the truly blessed

Can ever know this wild place

And hear her call

You'll walk not alone

Here, if you listen, you will see

One heartbeat here, is me....

___♦ Rob Pearldiver ♦___

♦Original Haiku by Pearldiver ♦

© Copyright 2011 - 2013 Pearldiver nzpol with all rights reserved.

Photographic Images © Copyright mclellan images 2011 - 2013 with all rights reserved.

I hope you have enjoyed this glimpse of a special piece of New Zealand. Fiordland and South Westland between them have absolutely amazing sites and people. The Kiwis that you will meet here, will not judge your race or color and the history that you are invited to share with the locals, is real, factual events and information; not stories of a hollow culture, invented to suit which day it is, as you are likely to experience in some of the so called 'cultural centers' in the North Island.

Sadly, parts of New Zealand are beginning to experience a tide of racial separatism, as young Maori seek to find and develop their historical culture, within a culture that has historically neglected to keep factual records. Sadly, such politically motivated animosity does drive a wedge between Maori and European races, even though we have merged the cultures over the years previously. With all due respect, kiwis live in a cosmopolitan society in New Zealand and for the most part, we do not agree with such squabbles and attitudes. To avoid it completely, come to Fiordland, real history, no animosity, great sights and even greater people... Take Care... See you Here!

♦ Pearldiver ♦