West Coast Region

right, Lily Newton is my next guest on the program.

Now, originally off a Taranaki sheep and beef farm, moved south to the west coast of the South Island about seven years ago to start a new venture.

That is Precision Helicopters Hokitika.

She joins me once again now.

Yeah.

What's the, you know, the, I guess, interest in it? Yeah, you say be pretty busy, I imagine.

Yeah, so where I live, I'm in Hokitika on the West Coast.

It's quite a funny place.

Me nei te pūrongo a John Boyton.

[waves crashing] [singing] Nga tiriti o te moana, the Southern Alps, where pounamu or greenstone is formed over millions of years and carried down the glacial waters of Te Tai Poutini, the West Coast.

I think I took some of my first footsteps on this awa.

Waters like the Arahura River, from where Katene Campbell has never strayed too far.

This was a significant part of the iwi settlement almost 30 years ago, enshrined in legislation.

It was seen as a huge milestone, a huge opportunity for us to really take control of pounamu for the first time.

Two hapu on the West Coast manage the protection of pounamu, Ngati Mahaki and Ngati Waewae.

Cara Edwards represents Ngati Mahaki.

I'm Dom George and the show is brought to you by the team at Netspeed, 0800 Netspeed, netspeed.net.nz. Coming up on the programme for you today, really looking forward to this in a moment, we're going to be talking with Lily Newton.

who is from Precision Helicopters Hokitika, about life as a helicopter pilot over on the West Coast.

Some really interesting stories since we last caught up with Lily as well.

There was a dog rescue that she facilitated earlier in the year that ended up attracting global interest.

She's also worked for the film crew of the hit Netflix movie Apex as well, flying them in and out of some pretty interesting locations.

We talk about West Coast tourism and a whole bunch of other things, hunting as well over on the coast.

So Lily Newton to join the program, plus Christy Wright will join us as well, the new Executive Director of the Fairlight Foundation, taking over from good friend of the show, Laura Coote.

in that particular role.

I saw it on Facebook the other day.

Balanced Farm Environment Trust, so Balanced Farm Environment Awards, the New Zealand Farm Environment Trust, have announced that they have a new region coming on board, which is near and dear to my heart, the West Coast.

To talk about this, we have the general manager of the New Zealand Farm Environment Trust, Sarah Harris.

Welcome, Sarah.

Congratulations.

Well done.

Thank you for bringing the West Coast into the fold.

We've been conspicuous by our absence a little bit.

Yeah, and things did back off a little bit in the Wanaka area because we were pretty concerned about that going into the weekend, weren't we?

Yeah, there's still a fair bit of rain coming through this week on the west coast, a couple of hundred to 300 millimetres coming through, which a lot of the West Coast can handle that, but it depends on how much spills over.

So there will be a wee bit of spillover, but because it's westerly-blown weather this week, weather will sort of move through fairly quickly, but it will build up at times on the West Coast.

The heavy rain we had last week, there was low pressure crossing the South Island.

We don't really have that at the moment.

conditions here so we're not in fact we've got a um a big cold uh front moving through the south island right now a lot of snow coming down so uh so it is you know like you said it is a november december conversation to have and and and you know there's a lot of caveats like you know oh you know el nino only kind of accounts for 25 of the weather variability here so you know that's not a guarantee that it that um that it's going to have the the um predicted impact but Um, but there's a lot of signs kind of pointing in that direction.

So what that means for us is, um, uh, wet on the West coast of New Zealand, uh, and in Southland.

So there is a lot of, um, there's a lot of dairy in, in Southland, uh, in New Zealand, um, and then dry on the East coast and, and in the Northern parts of the country.

So that, that would include Canterbury, uh, potentially Waikato and some other key dairy, um, dairy areas.

Preface and Chapter 1.

In the years 1889, 1890, 1891, 1892, I made holiday expeditions to the Tasman District of the Southern Alps, and in 1893, 1894, 1895, was employed by the New Zealand Government to explore the valleys and glaciers of the west coast of the South Island.

I do not pretend to have made many high ascents, but base my claim to be considered an authority on the Alps of New Zealand on the fact that I have shared in the first exploration of nearly every glacier in the central position of these mountains.

It is not right, in my opinion, for one who has special knowledge on a subject of general interest to keep that knowledge to himself, and for this reason, as well as with the object of recording our work and helping others by our experiences, I have ventured to write the following pages.

Amongst the Otago hills lie the beautiful lakes of Wakatipu, Tianau, Wanaka, etc., which are backed by Mount's aspiring Earnslaw and other fine alpine peaks, reaching in some instances over 9,000 feet.

As the subject matter of this book is confined to the central portion of the Southern Alps, amongst the larger glaciers and highest peaks, a short description of the general topography of the mountains to the north and south of that district will be sufficient.

Between Christchurch on the east coast and Hokitika on the west coast, a coach road, unsurpassed by any I have seen elsewhere, runs over Arthur's Pass at an altitude of a little over 3,000 feet.

A railway presenting some formidable engineering difficulties is now in course of construction by this route.

So these fronts will shimmy up the South Island.

They will bring some very heavy rain to the West Coast of the South Island.

Uh, and they'll bring some really strong winds, so you're looking at westerlies along the West Coast and probably around the Deep South.

That gets redirected by the Alps to nor'westers, very warm nor'westers, so that's gonna, uh, uh, be quite windy for places like the Canterbury High Country.

And those winds will also hit Wellington, up, Wairarapa to southern Hawke's Bay.