Thanks for all the comments, everybody !.
A little bit of background to this place.
The Ahuriri River valley is reasonably typical of the rivers that arise on the
eastern side of the Southern Alps of the South Island of NZ. The geology is
greywacke rock, an ancient sediment that came originally from rocks now in
Queensland, Australia.
This particular river is not all that large as these eastern rivers go, because
it
so happens that its catchment area is small. However, it does run right up to
the main divide.
Until about 4 years ago, when Helen Clark was Prime Minister, the land was
farmed under a Crown Pastoral lease (in perpetuity) to a family named
Williamson..The land was actually owned by the government. The Pastoral
Lease appellation means that the land could not be cultivated or "improved"
in any way. Only grazed.
The Wiiliamsons were actually very good custodians, and took very
particular care to prevent any of the many serious exotic weeds that NZ has,
from becoming established there. As a result, the upper valley looks to be in
a moderately natural state (except that there would probably have been fires
up there at some stage). Grasses on the flats, beech forest on the valley
sides up to the climatic growth limit ( or "bushline"), and above that steep
rocky slopes with snow in season. As per my photos.
Helen Clark was/is a keen mountaineer and hiker, and admired the relatively
pristine state of this valley. So in her time, the government bought out the
Williamsons from their lease; for a sum of +/- $11 - 14 million. (Forget the
precise detail).
Now the upper valley is managed by the Department of Conservation.
The Williamsons, as I understand it, have used their new money to take up
the new farming style in this region, huge dairy farms which involve very
high set-up costs, and yield very large returns. Much more than from grazing
sheep, even if they were fine-woolled merinos.
All pretty recent stuff.
Brian Swale.
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