my little valley, you have such small hands… I knew that I should love you

I am fascinated by landscape values and environmental literacy, and how both of these things relate to attachment to place.  The comments of a girl I used to know in Dunedin, a long time ago, who has for the past 7 years been an important spokesperson for the New Zealand Department of Conservation, drive this home pretty well:

“I moved to Aoraki Mt Cook National Park when I was almost 7 years old.  We lived in a house tucked up against the mountains at the entrance to the Governor’s Bush walk, where my family would often wander.

I woke up every morning to that incredible and awe-inspiring view of Mt Sefton and Mt Tasman towering over us, and watched the sunset turn the peaks a dusky peach shade in the evening.

“I learned about the insects, the birds, the names of clouds and, while not paying much attention to it as a child, the park was indelibly inked on my heart and soul, so that when I grew up, my path was already decided.

“I then spent five years in Twizel, with the Mackenzie Basin as my playground.  The land use change and the water issues in that special, amazing place are another thing I intend to be involved with.”

I would really like to do some research into this, I guess qualitative interviews, plus place attachment theory.  It seems like a really promising (and fun) Masters topic.  Possibly even PhD.  And it takes me home to where I feel happiest, Geography.  The applications are vast, too, I think.  I need to think about them more, and try and map it out. But most conservationists have a place that is very special to them, that they feel connected to, that shapes their identity and their politics.  Writers have the same.  I think it explains a lot about how environmental attitudes form.

Really, though… I just love the idea of going home.  And I love the idea of interviewing people about the places that are important to them, the terrains that are imprinted across and woven through their autobiography.

Do you have a place that is special to you, that has shaped how you feel about the non-human world around you, and our relationship to it?  The place that is always there in the back of your mind, remembered with fondness, that you always hope will still be there?  If so, I would love to hear about it!

home

 

These are some of the photos that I took with my pentax when I was home in Dunedin over Christmas.

I had never been to my parents’ new place at Waikouaiti before, but it feels so much like home that I may as well have spent much of my life there.  It is so much like our old bach near Reefton, on the West Coast – except with an awesome permaculture garden.

I didn’t realise how lovely it would be to be so close to cliffs and the sea.  I love that there is a whole new place for me to discover in microcosm detail, until I know all the trees and all the roads… all the little special places and how to get to them.  There is an entire stretch of coast just waiting for me to go back and explore it.

I miss how peaceful and grounding that place is already.

Girl in Lyttelton

I come visit my friend Kathryn in Christchurch from Sydney about once a year. Each time that I visit she has a new place to live, and they are all lovely.

This latest is my favourite, though. She has moved to Lyttelton, a little port town east of Christchurch that has an air of rebellion and new growth that carries within it a certain timelessness. It reminds me of Dunedin, if Dunedin were taken and put in a bag and shook all around and then dumped back down on the earth again. Same harbour, same volcanic hills, same port, same little wooden villas – but it is all facing East instead of North.

There are small and insignificant things that keep reminding me that I am at home: a full sky brimming with stars, the smell of mud on the gravel drive in the morning, bellbirds calling. I randomly ran into an old friend in a cafe my first morning in Lyttelton – she used to live in Dunedin. New Zealand is just small enough to be full of such strange connections and passing coincidences.

It has been a very nice couple of days, rummaging through vintage stores and antique shops, talking and drinking and eating well. but it has been busy.  I arrived down in Dunedin last night, and now it is time to relax.