A blast from the past...

This is not a photograph that I have taken...

It is, however, an image of a place with which I have a very close spiritual attachment.


My parents taught at the Te Whaiti Maori School in the mid/late 50's, when I was 8 or 9. I was taken, once, to the area at the bottom of the Te Whaiti gorge, about 200m downstream from where this photo was taken (at the top end).

The river is the Whirinaki, and the full name Te Whaiti Nui A Toi means (as I get it) "Where the narrow part widens out".

There are a number of other places in the district which (sad to say) are no more.

There was a stand of totara, some twelve or more mature trees perhaps clear to the first branches at 10 or 15 metres, in a ring. Standing on the edge of that clearing was like the entrance to the greatest of cathedrals. As I recall, the clearing

A small lake, perhaps no more than half an acre in extent, with no outlet stream. The open portion hidden from the edge by the stands of podocarp (rimu, miro and matai particularly) standing in the shallows. Walk out through the trees to the edge of the clearing to see the mist rising out into the hills and the early morning light.

Both of these are now exotic (mainly pinus radiata) plantations.

So sad...