Rachel Brown at Bikevember PHOTO: Supplied

SUE WARDS

Rachel Brown credits her standard three teacher Mrs Gamble with the inspiration to be an engaged citizen, but it’s likely Rachel’s strong ethics date back much earlier - she’s been sticking to them for more than 50 years.

Rachel, 54, resigned as chair of the Wanaka Community Board (WCB) on Thursday (April 12), after almost five years in the role. She will stay on as a board member for the remainder of this term.

She has already packed in enough for several lifetimes, and she’s looking forward to a new phase. The Wanaka App usually sits down to interview people - but had to catch up with Rachel on a roadside at Timaru Creek this weekend, where she was marshalling for the Contact Epic (yes, of course, Rachel - a passionate active transport advocate - biked the 25kms to get there).

Born in Upper Hutt and schooled in Auckland, Rachel has strong memories of Mrs Gamble, her standard three teacher at Maungawhau Primary, who taught her how to debate, look at an issue from all angles, and "be an engaged citizen”.

After school Rachel studied veterinary science at Massey. In an early show of her "strong ethical stance”, Rachel boycotted physiology labs, concerned they were teaching a disregard for animal life. Summoned by her physiology professor to explain her absences, she explained her position and he thanked her - it was the first feedback he’d had on that part of the course. Some of the labs were later dropped.

Rachel won a gold stethoscope for being top of her class - but she decided the veterinary world wasn’t for her. She took the summer off; went to Mt Cook with a boyfriend who introduced her to mountaineering, and went "Wow! No-one told me I could have a lifestyle like this!”

It was the beginning of a period of nomadic adventures, including years of mountaineering at Mt Cook; teaching nature programmes on Stewart Island; and scoring an internship at the Outdoor Pursuits Centre (OPC) in the Central North Island - which led to a full time job, with plenty of climbing, tramping, kayaking, ski-touring, caving, and more.

In between all the adventures she fitted in a post-graduate diploma in education and a science degree at Canterbury - including geology, Maori language, and ecology. "I loved learning about the environment and sharing our place within it with other people.” During her degree she went to Antarctica for the first time, counting penguins. She struggled with the existence of tourism - and even human habitation - on that continent.

In 1995 Rachel decided Wanaka was "the next place I’d like to live”. She moved here to help Steve Henry set up the Otago Polytechnic certificate of mountain recreation - and she also trained to become a mountain guide. In 2000 she and partner Al Wood bought 10 acres of land at Hawea Flat and began designing and building their unconventional straw bale home. But a few years later, everything changed.

On August 1 2002 the pair went ice climbing with friends. Al was climbing and Rachel belaying when a large slab of ice fell - Rachel felt it brush her hair as it passed her. Al was fatally injured.

"I actually felt that day I got shunted into a parallel universe,” Rachel said. "There wasn’t really a lot of point in anything for a while.” Life hasn’t been the same since.

Her community rallied around - friends helped by working on the house and she lived with a friend and some flatmates.

"For me it ripped the passion out of climbing,” Rachel said. She did no more serious climbing or mountain guiding.

After a year she applied for a job as camp manager at Cape Hallett in Antarctica - for "escapism”. Rachel had already done three other seasons in Antarctica, and despite believing the continent would be a better place without humans, she was drawn by the "sheer, unsullied beauty, the starkness and rawness”.

She got the job: three and a half months on the ice working with one other staff member - the camp mechanic, Gus McAllister, who is now her partner. "We just worked together easily from the beginning,” Rachel said.

At the end of the season Gus came to Hawea to help out with the house. They lived in a caravan and worked together, spending the next two summers at Cape Hellett. With a house and garden - the nomadic lifestyle over - Rachel spent a period enjoying "peasant farming” and finding her place in the community.

A self-confessed workhorse, Rachel also studied information design, worked for DOC designing interpretation panels, wrote for the Wanaka Sun, joined the choir (Wanakapella) and a women’s theatre group (Flat Out Productions), got into yoga, chaired Wastebusters, and studied Te Reo - earning a diploma.

She told then-mayor Clive Geddes she was interested in getting into local politics, and he advised her to get on a council advisory panel, and get involved with her local community association. It was good advice, she said. She joined the Hawea Community Association (HCA) and in 2006 was part of a representative review panel.

Giving birth to daughter Winifred in 2009 (on her 46th birthday) began another phase of life, and "opened up a whole other part of the community”.

Rachel’s community roles are many - community board member, Upper Clutha Tracks Trustee, Wanaka Alcohol Group chair, Responsible Camping Forum facilitator, Friends of Wastebusters chair, HCA member, active school parent - but when she was elected to the WCB in 2013, she decided to do only two terms. "Then it would be someone else’s turn.”

Last year she was mulling over what to do in the "next phase of life”, and decided on teaching. Education has been a lifelong interest, and she has been accepted onto a postgraduate programme for primary school teaching. Again, it’s about making a difference in the community. "And I like to feel I have a bit of wisdom and life experience in me.”

Now feels a good time to do it, she said. And she may be going full circle: "I could be the Mrs Gamble who teaches my kids how to debate, and be engaged citizens.”