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The Richard Wagner Society Inc.

‘Richard Wagner and Visual Art’ Tour

of New Zealand Wagner Societies

16 March to 11 April 2017

Trevor Clarke

Richard Wagner Society (Victoria) I gave a talk on “Richard Wagner and Visual Art” to the Wagner Societies of New Zealand in the cities of Auckland, Wellington, Dunedin and Christchurch. Maija and I travelled by hire car between the cities, and here follows an account of our road trip. My only regret is that preoccupation with delivering the talks prevented me from photographing members and meetings. Art and Culture We visited the city galleries for their permanent collections, which are increasingly subordinated to temporary exhibitions. Auckland’s Fuseli drawings of Nibelungenlied scenes were absent, and Wellington’s invisible Te Papa collection is only to be revealed later this year. We also visited the city museums for their magnificant Maori collections. The small private galleries and local museums along the route usually rewarded a visit, especially those in the goldfields of Arrowtown, Bannockburn, Gabriel’s Gully (Lawrence) and Shantytown (Greymouth) On a whim Maija booked a short play at Wellington’s quayside Circa, only to discover her iPhone remained at Portofino’s restaurant. I raced out of the theatre for it, forfeiting re-admission since the play was about to start. Such is life. I cooled my heals on the waterfront, while Lesley Kendall from the Dunedin Society fortuitously rang and conversed about our upcoming Society meeting there.

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Auckland We commuted from harbourside Devonport by catamaran to the ferry terminal, where Heath and Liz Lees collected us by car — imagine that happening at Sydney’s Circular Quay. They showed us around hilly, harboury, sub-tropical Auckland, and invited us home to a splendid dinner.

B&B Buttressed Morton Bay is testament to how Australian

natives thrive in these volcanic soils

My Auckland talk, technically assisted by Peter Rowe and Ken Tompkins, drew a large attendance at the Society’s new suburban venue. Afterwards, Heath and Liz took us to the ferry terminal in time to watch the last ferry departing, whereupon, without skipping a beat, they continued on round the harbour to drop us off at our doorstep. Thank you, Aucklanders.

Heath, Maija and Trevor Heath, Liz, Trevor and volcano

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Waiotapu On the road to Wellington we visited the geothermal province of Rotorua — a compact Yellowstone. As regular tourists, we watched Lady Knox geyser perform on cue, wandered the coloured pools of Wai-O-Tapu, and crossed the Waikato river for the thermal cave and silica terraces of Orakei Korako, where we chanced upon a spontaneous geyser erupting before our eyes.

Champagne Pool Devil’s Bath

Tongariro We lodged in a B&B, that was once a fisherman’s private retreat on the Tongariro River, where our host caught trout outside our back door, and our hostess served it for breakfast. Kiwis are justifiably immodest in their national claims, and the locals shamelessly proclaim this to be the “trout capital of the world”. From the lodge, we could explore the dramatic Tongariro volcanoes of conical Ngauruhoe and sleeping Ruapehu.

Rainbow trout at your back door Mt Ngauruhoe — misty, not erupting

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Wellington Driving Wellington’s mountain-track roads is an extreme sport. Here we perched on a ridge of Mt Victoria near a ‘Lord of the Rings’ forest. For pleasure we took the century-old cable car (a funicular railway) to the hilltop above Wellington’s Victoria University, and strolled down its lush botanic gardens. We were invited to dine at the Davidson’s, who are even more precariously perched than we were, as their lovely abode overhangs one of New Zealand’s active geological faults — beauty harmonized with terror. Wellington suffered a 4.8 magnitude earthquake during our stay, but locals never batted an eyelid. My talk was well attended. John Davidson conducted the proceedings with, I am certain, his typical aplomb, and the Society supplied superb technical assistance. John invited us to join the committee for dinner at Portofino’s, the venue we had recently left our iPhone at (see above) and our reputation preceded us.

From our B&B balcony we could follow maritime comings and goings far below

Reconnecting after four decades with member Hugo Rusbridge, clutching an old

photo taken at our wedding in Sydney

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Te Anau We crossed Cook Strait by twin-prop Bombardier to Invercargill — about as far South as we could go — where we collected our continuation hire car, and headed North for Te Anau on the edge of Fiordland. Our B&B hostess pre-arranged a helicopter flight over remote Dusky and Doubtful Sounds, which are not strictly ‘sounds’, but glaciated ‘fiords’. The first Europeans to venture there were Captain Cook and the Endeavour crew. Cook later established a temporary base at Dusky, but avoided Doubtful lest its massive peaks becalm his Resolution, and trap him there.

Dusky Sound Vegetation on a peak in Dusky

In perfect flying conditions we landed on a peak of the fiord. And there, like Keats’s “stout Cortez, we stared at the Pacific, silent, upon a peak in Dusky”. We descended into a ‘hidden’ valley, from which we rose to hug the rugged coast of the Tasman Sea before returning through Doubtful.

Over Dusky Campbell’s Kingdom

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Outnumbered by a crew of three, we sailed the South Fiord of Lake Te Anau, under motor power on historic motor yacht “Faith” to walk an island track in New Zealand bush, and returned homeward bound with sails aloft.

Someone doing very little Others doing a lot

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We were early on the road to Milford Sound — the most celebrated of the fiords. Despite dawn’s thick fog, conditions turned out to be perfect, apart, that is, from raids on our car’s exposed rubber mouldings by whimsical mountain Kea parrots. The Milford catamaran sailed to the Pacific, lingering beneath glacier-fed waterfalls that cascade down the walls of the fiord.

Milford under a set of ideal viewing conditions

That evening we crossed Lake Te Anau to clamber through glow-worm caves that are still being sculpted by melt waters following the last Ice Age. We drifted in silence through river caverns lit only by starry constellations of glow worms, overhead and just out of reach. Wanaka We skipped Queenstown for nearby Wanaka, which served as base for our trekking to the Rob Roy glacier in Mt Aspiring National Park. This rewarding climb through Gondwanan beech forest was the sole energetic event we permitted ourselves on our tightly pre-determined tour of New Zealand.

The climb begins… Nearing our destination…

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Dunedin Dunedin is attractive for its bluestone railway station and Otago University buildings, its strong Scottish heritage – Robby Burns’s nephew was a founder — and its cathedrals. Like Wellington, the city is confined between parallel ranges. Unlike Wellington, it has a shallow harbour. We sought out its deep-water port, Port Chalmers, where Scott departed for the Antarctic, and we dined there in the charming historic Carey’s Bay pub. The drive on the other side of the harbour is along the spectacular Otago peninsula, ostensibly to glimpse through binoculars the world’s only mainland royal albatross colony — four nests holding large fluffy white chicks whose parents were feeding on the wing out at sea, while an adolescent soared above, demonstrating its mighty wingspan. A whale continually breached off shore. We beachcombed lonely black Pacific sands populated only by sea lions and nesting penguins, where Maija got thoroughly soaked by that unpredictable rogue tenth wave of soi-disant ‘pacific’ ocean. I gave my lecture, this time in the afternoon, at the music school of Otago University to a full house, with no seats to spare. Discussion came spontaneously, abetted by effusive comments from concert pianist, Prof. Terence Dennis. Lesley Kendall tirelessly prepared welcome half-time refreshments. That evening we dined at cafe Nova in Dunedin’s central octagon — yes, it’s an octagon, not a square — with seven members, among whom were three professors from the University. My passing reference to J. C. Dollman’s painting of Oates in Antarctica led to a kind invitation to view Scott memorabilia at the Dunedin Club. Memory of Scott still looms large in the South Island.

With Wagner Society member Betty Rawlings at the Dunedin Club for Scott memorabilia

Poetic Dunedin Club president Austen Banks who recited to us Patterson (Aus) and Glover (NZ)

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Oamaru Geological concretions are among Maija’s favourite rocks, and she was naturally appalled by tourists trampling slipshod over the exposed calcite veins of the giant Moeraki boulders. The boulders, OK, but not on their yellow-and-dun crystallisation. As far as Oamaru is concerned, we might possibly have experienced it at its best — on a rainy day, as the tail end of tropical cyclone Debbie was bearing down. It took me considerable effort to extract Maija from the wonderful craft stores and antiquarian bookshops in this quirky time capsule of a former lamb-and-wool exporting town, monumentally built in white limestone. Christchurch My Christchurch talk was given on the following Friday, and not as elsewhere on the Sunday, which left us scant time to explore the city. We intended to go to Banks Peninsula for its panoramic views of the old shield volcanos, but cyclone Debbie decided otherwise, and confined us to the city’s new gallery and established museum, which we enjoyed immensely. As with all New Zealand societies, the Christchurch members were a wonderful mob. Chris Brodrick and Gloria Streat were perfect conveners, and Chris assisted with the technical side. We had a full house, and enthusiastic response. Discussion turned tangentially to such things as Rachmaninov’s “Isle of the Dead” and Nietzsche’s music. Our stay was far too short, and we hope to return some day.

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Hokitika The storm clouds parted as we travelled westward through stunningly beautiful Arthur’s Pass, and gave us perfect conditions for viewing perfect alpine scenery. We lunched at Moana on Lake Brunner, and then headed for quaint Shantytown, where we encountered wekas in the wild (flightless birds, not ‘weta’ insects). Here Maija unexpectedly caught up with members of the Greymouth mineral club in the process of installing a display of New Zealand fossils, including Quaternary crabs encased in concretions, and a Cretaceous mosasaur vertebra with articulated rib, familiar to us from complete specimens found on our dinosaur digs in Queensland.

Greymouth mineralogists at Shantytown Hungry weka

We visited nearby Hokitika Gorge with its swing-bridge over milky blue waters. On a whim, we took an afternoon Cessna flight above Franz Joseph and Fox glaciers, around the face of Mt Cook, and past the Tasman glacier. This flight up to 12000 feet over the mighty Southern Alps was perhaps even more stunning than helicoptering into the darkly mysterious fiords. Just the two of us and the pilot, flying near enough to the ice to imagine we could reach out and grab it.

Glaciers near Mt Cook Franz Joseph, I think

Hokitika is New Zealand’s greenstone (Nephrite) capital, but Maija was seeking Hokitika’s Ruby Rock (Goodletite) — ruby, sapphire and tourmaline in emerald-green Fuchsite — reputedly New Zealand’s only unique gemstone. She was unable to get matrix material from the wily dealer to share with her opal and gem cutter friend in Melbourne, and had to settle for polished sections.

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We returned East via the Punakaiki Rocks and the spectacular Great Coastal Road, overnighting at Springs Junction in Lewis Pass, and thence to Christchurch for our return flight to Melbourne.

Punakaiki Rocks Fred Dagg campervan

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New Zealand was exceptionally kind to us — the country, the weather, the seeing conditions, the people and the four Wagner Societies. We met so many members. In return I hope to have enhanced our cross-Tasman Wagner Society links. New Zealand Wagnerians are welcome to attend our Society meetings, which are advertised on our website www.wagnermelb.org.au, and to deliver lectures or performances, provided you give us ample time to arrange the venue and promote the event.

17 April 2017