Marie de Groot reckons district nursing in Wanaka is unique. “District nursing here is very different to almost anywhere else in New Zealand,” she said. She attributes that not only to Wanaka’s relatively affluent society but also to the remarkable relationships Wanaka’s district nurses have with other local medical professionals.   Marie is one of four qualified district nurses who works in the Wanaka district utilising her specialised nursing knowledge and assessment skills to care for a range of patients from treating wounds to palliative care. The District Nursing Service is a community based service providing a wide range of free care to patients in their own homes and at clinics.   Marie trained in Dunedin and worked in the hospital there. “It was the best experience for becoming a District Nurse,” she said,” because you worked in every department and gained a breadth of knowledge.”“We’re all “generalists” in this job,” she said.Marie has witnessed the rapid growth of the district through her working experience. When she started nursing here 17 years ago, only two nurses were employed to meet the needs of the seven day service.“Now there are four of us. We work a rotating roster 3-4 days a week including weekends, 8-9 hours a day and it’s constant, every single day,” she said. One nurse will work from the clinic at the Wanaka Lakes Health Centre while another is on the road providing home care. Between the two they’ll handle an average of 18 patients a day.The seasonal increases in population always puts an enormous strain on the system, Marie said. “Our workload just quadruples.” As well as squeezing in a lot more patients into their busy schedules they also have to cope with congested roads, she said. “We know all the shortcuts yet our ability to get to our patients is still ridiculously compromised. Like every other local, we’re sitting at the roundabouts yelling at the car in front - ‘go, go now’.”Complicating it further is a tax-payers funding system which doesn’t recognise seasonal changes to population. “So we go from 7,000 to 30,000 over the summer and we get no more funding or resources,” she said. “It’s not fair but it’s accepted.”“The government pays us only for the 20-30 minutes contact time with our patients,” she said. “It doesn’t pay for the two hour journey to Makarora; or for writing up notes; or arranging referrals to an occupational therapist.”She said the Central Otago District Nurses see a lot more patients than they are funded for by the District Health Board but they also pick up funding from ACC which pays the shortfall. “We see the problems as they’re occurring and we stop them and keep people out of hospitals. We are the ambulance at the top of the cliff but we could do it so much better with more resources.”The problem is, she said, those with the funding are making decisions which apply now. The pay-off for the ambulance at the top of the cliff is in 10 years, not next week, she said. “Governments are not prepared to think a decade down-track when this would actually come to fruition.”As a nurse she has “learned to be very resourceful, and very patient, and accept what you can’t change - or go mad.”Marie admits to have grown more cynical about the job but still derives enormous satisfaction from the good days.“Our chemo ladies - they go through their treatments and we have a laugh. We make it as pleasant an experience for them as much as we can. We get to know them really well and try to make their treatment fit in with their lifestyles while they’re healing.“You walk these journeys with people and at the end of the day you can feel good because you’ve actually achieved something.”She said this district was “incredibly lucky” with the medical care provided locally. “We have great collegial relationships with the practice nurses and GPs. It means if we come across a problem, we can pass on the information to a practice nurse, she takes it to the GP and it can be dealt with that day.” In her experience that just doesn’t happen in the cities.She believes the greatest single concern this district is going to have to cope with is its aging population. “If there’s one thing that makes me want to stay fit….”“The one-downside to Wanaka is that it’s a real bubble. Everyone here has money; even the ones who say they haven’t, they still can afford to live here and go on holiday.”She compares it with her early days nursing in Dunedin. Their relative affluence means, in general, local residents have taken better care of their health. “They don’t have the really chronic conditions.”Most of the patients she treats are in their 70s, 80s and 90s “and they’ve reached that age in pretty good shape.”  Age has made them “a bit broken or dented” but they’re not chronically ill with complex conditions.Money also makes them “well motivated to get better,” she said. They still plan to enjoy the next stage of life; they’ve got an overseas trip to look forward to. “That motivation makes a huge difference.”Marie and her husband and children moved to Wanaka from Dunedin because both her and her husband’s fathers died young, at 62. “That’s a big wake-up call,” she said. “We decided we needed to do what we need to do because you may not get as much time as you thought you’d have.”Her husband Rob (they’ve been married for 33 years) is the outdoors type, who holidayed in Wanaka as a child, and thrives in the Wanaka environment; and her children Abby and Patrick have both grown up in Wanaka enjoying activities on the lake and in the mountains.Both children are pursuing careers (Abby teaches at a low-decile primary school in Porirua) and Patrick is an electrician, but the “empty nest” Marie and Rob were enjoying has had to adapt to the recent return of Patrick, who now works in Wanaka. Marie stays fit, active and relaxed by walking the environs with the family dog Axel - who has a penchant for nipping over to the primary school, checking for any “leftover sandwiches” - and kayaking in the summer or taking out the jetski. She and Rob also like to travel two to three weeks each year (although as Rob said “she organises it, I just come along”). She admits she likes doing the research and organising the trips early “to get the bargains. I like four star at three star prices.”Marie said she’s content doing what she does at present but not she’s not sure about retiring in Wanaka. “I don’t know if we want to be that far away from medical services and I don’t know if it’s going to give me the lifestyle I want when I’m retired that I can afford. “There are other places where there is cheaper housing, cheaper groceries, more affordable health care but we’ve looked around and I really haven’t found anywhere else. It’s a real quandary.”PHOTO: Wanaka App

Despite her years working with organisations and on projects to bring about change in our community and environment, it has taken a while for Sophie Ward to embrace the term ‘activist’.Sophie grew up in Melbourne with a strong role model in her father, who was one of the pioneers of paper recycling in Australia. But Sophie’s initial career path seemed set when she completed a business degree and spent years working in banking.Then she travelled overseas for a year, including biking through China, Vietnam and Nepal. After that, it no longer made sense to her to work for an organisation that wasn’t contributing to the planet or the environment. "I decided I never wanted to work for an organisation that didn’t have a positive outcome.”A sideways step into wastewater project management was more aligned with her values, and that was followed by a move to Wanaka in 2005, with her then-boyfriend Mal."I always thought if I had the opportunity to live in New Zealand, I’d take it,” Sophie said. "My perception was that New Zealand was clean and green.” She imagined buying organic, locally grown food in a sustainable environment, but the reality was somewhat different. In fact, the first time she asked to buy a reusable shopping bag at the supermarket, "they didn’t know what it was”.However, Sophie loved the mountains, the landscape and the lifestyle. "I was living in such a beautiful place, and it’s definitely a town where people are really passionate about the environment. Now I just love the whole seasonal excitement of the food that comes and goes - the first tomato of the year, the first asparagus.”Her first job here was summer work with Backcountry Saddles horse trekking in the Cardrona Valley, followed by contract work for the Queenstown Lakes District Council on waste issues.Sustainable Wanaka had just been launched, and Sophie contacted Megan Williams, the coordinator, more or less begging to be allowed to volunteer her time and expertise for the organisation. Megan probably couldn’t believe her luck.Sophie’s first project with Sustainable Wanaka was the Bag the Habit campaign. She’s quick to point out others had been working on the issue for years. "I just picked it up and ran with it, gave it a new name,” Sophie said. The project ran for a few years: reusable bags were made and given away, awareness raised, and at one point about 40 percent of Wanaka shoppers were taking their own bags to the supermarket.Then Sophie moved to Wastebusters, and the bag campaign got bigger - it joined with the Get Real campaign to reduce plastic bags and packaging. In 2012 Get Real successfully pressured Foodstuffs to introduce a 5c charge for plastic bags, but there was a lot of resistance (although not locally), and the decision was revoked after just a few months. Foodstuffs were on their own, Sophie said, and Nick Smith (the Minister for the Environment) and the packing council were saying there was no problem with plastic bags, and recycling was the answer.The Get Real team was philosophical, Sophie said. "We thought ‘I guess New Zealand’s not ready for a plastic bag ban or tax’.” They turned their attention to packaging.Their ‘Unpackit’ awards for the best and worst examples of packaging made national headlines and were funded by the Ministry for the Environment for three years. Sophie and the team got to travel all over New Zealand with Unpackit. "Foodstuffs will say those awards changed the way they packaged fruit and vegetables.” (Both supermarket chains Foodstuffs and Progressive have now agreed to phase out single use plastic bags by the end of 2018).Sophie celebrating with Gina Dempster when both Countdown and Foodstuffs announced they would phase out plastic bags last year. PHOTO: SuppliedBut there is a long way to go: Sophie is currently doing Plastic Free July (an international campaign which encourages people to try to avoid buying any plastic for the month). "It’s hard. There are some products where it’s not possible. There’s such a long way to go.”After leaving Wastebusters and doing some contract work here and there, Sophie and Mal went to Nepal for the best part of a year (2015), where Sophie volunteered for Karma Flights, a small NGO which raises money through the paragliding world to fund girls’ education. "It was a great life,” she said.One day they were having coffee with friends in Kathmandu when the 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck. They ran outside and huddled together, watching the buildings weaving like trees in the wind. "It was terrifying,” Sophie said.Within two days Karma Flights had taken trucks filled with supplies to the epicentre - they were the first group on the ground. Sophie and Mal started their own disaster relief programme, working with Sir Ed Hillary’s granddaughter Amelia Hillary to get aid to badly hit areas. Sophie described it as "a very intense three weeks”, with no sleep, amid constant aftershocks. She and Mal opened a Givealittle page, and through their contacts ("it was probably more Mal than me,” Sophie said) raised $120,000 for the relief efforts.Sophie then went on to work for the UN for two months, working 12 hour days "doing logistics” for the remote area operation getting aid, meals, and people to where it was most needed. She loved it: "The work was really interesting and they were amazing people.”Sophie doesn’t like to do the same thing twice, so on her return to Wanaka a role with LINK Upper Clutha beckoned, doing lots of research, event management and community engagement. But when the government changed last year she was drawn back to Wastebusters."I felt the context had changed around waste with the new government. I was like ‘this is our moment, this is our time to be in this space’. We’ve got a Green Party Minister for the Environment [Eugenie Sage], and she’s saying that waste is a problem. And that is something we have not heard for a long time.”"I feel like the crisis around recycling is such a big opportunity to focus on reduction of waste. And you can feel it - people are talking about it.”Sophie’s project work with Wastebusters included the Waste Free Fair, which took place earlier this month. It had "energy and excitement”, Sophie said, and people were keen to learn. Plastic Free Wanaka is still committed to its ambitious goal of Wanaka becoming plastic bag free by 2019. "We’re about to find out how far away we are,” Sophie said: the group’s next step is to compile a list of local plastic bag free retailers.Meanwhile, she lives simply (but eats "really well”) and is modest about her "not very hardcore” outdoor activities: climbing, trail riding, bike packing and touring, tramping, and skiing."I kind of dabble in things. My Melbourne friends think I’m super adventurous, but in Wanaka - I’m at the back of the pack.”Sophie said she’s always avoided the term ‘activist’. "I never felt like it fitted me.” But she was inspired by the advice of climate change activist Bill McKibbens (who visited Wanaka in 2009) to do what you can do; work actively in your community; change your work to align with your values; and lobby."Basically, be an activist,” Sophie said. "I think I’m owning it a bit more now.”

Monique Kelly has always liked a busy life, and this week surely proves it: the nationwide sustainability network she co-founded was launched, and she leaves today (Sunday September 2) for Europe to display the award-winning and innovative chair she has designed with her husband Alex Guichard.There’s a lot more to Monique than design talent and a passion for sustainability: she’s a lawyer who consults for the United Nations (UN) and has an unusual perspective on sustainability - its foundation in international rights.Monique and Arna Craig (the brand development manager for Monique and Alex’s business Revology, and the founder of Feverpitch) co-founded ONE New Zealand, which launched in Wanaka on Tuesday evening. ONE is a sustainability framework based on the UN’s sustainable development goals, which Monique hopes can be used by other communities to monitor progress on sustainability and provide information and resources to everyday Kiwis wanting to be more sustainable at home and in business. ONE will also host a sustainability festival in this district in October.The mission of ONE is to accelerate the understanding that we are one interconnected, diverse economy, community and environment. "If we understand the simple idea that our planet is one system, we can start finding some really innovative ways to make the whole thrive,” Monique says.Her interest in the issue goes back to her legal studies at Otago University, where papers on international law and human rights piqued her interest. “I’ve always been interested in international law, and a lot of it has to do with rights. I didn’t want to get into corporate law, I really felt this was a space where I was comfortable.”Monique finished her studies in Auckland (after taking a year out to ski in Canada before “knuckling down”) then moved to France for a year - but after meeting “this lovely man” Alex, stayed for 14 years. The couple lived near Geneva; Alex worked in the composite industry and Monique secured a job as an intern on the legal team of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), under the UN umbrella. That was 2001, and she continues to consult for the organisation.“The ILO was the first articulation of human rights (in this case focused on workers) on a global level. It’s one of the UN organisations that actually has some teeth - they’re not sharp, but they are there,” Monique says. While in France, the couple had two children (Romy, now 13, and Carter, 11), and enjoyed their shared interest in design.Monique, a Southlander from generations of farming stock, grew up creating: she made her own clothes and created art from a young age. If she hadn’t chosen to study law she would have studied design. (She financed some of her studies by selling her original oil paintings).In Europe she saw many humble bistro chairs, an Austrian invention of 1835. The inventor patented a “totally innovative” way of bending the wood with steam and sold the chairs as kitsets. Monique and Alex wanted to do the same thing with a new material - shaping and moulding it into “something gorgeous”. The result is the Revology chair, a twist on the classic bistro design, made with flax fibre, bio-resin and brass.“It’s a marriage between Alex’s and my interests, values and expertise,” Monique said. “I’m so proud of what we’ve done.”The chair is just their first planned product (in design, Monique says, a chair is one of the hardest things to get right, and they can quickly become collector’s items).“It’s a way of showing sustainability can be not only good for the planet, but also beautiful.” And while the chair in itself is not going to solve any problems, Monique says, it is “pushing problems to be solved”, such as innovative ways to use natural fibres and the technology to support it.“We know that we have to think about materials differently. We know we’ve got to go away from fossil fuels and we need to find something else to replace them - because we don’t want to go backwards, we want to go forwards.”The next product, which Alex is already working on, is a bike. This will solve problems, Monique believes: A beautiful bike made from flax, light enough to be carried up stairs into urban apartments; enabling lighter e-bikes to attract wider use.The couple’s business, Revology, was set up in 2014, the year they moved to Wanaka to be close to Monique’s parents and give their children a different life to the one they had in France. Research and development of their chair has been a necessarily slow process, but today Monique and Alex leave for Paris Design Week, where they will have a pop-up store and gallery. Then they will travel to London for the London Design Junction, a similar display. They are planning a limited edition of 1000 chairs, and this trip is to attract orders. Production starts next month. But despite the demands of the business, Monique “keeps coming back to sustainability” - hence the development of ONE New Zealand.Monique believes the UN’s sustainable development goals are the first step towards the adoption of environmental rights, the logical evolution from the adoption of economic rights for workers post World War I by the ILO followed by human rights adopted by the UN post World War II.“It’s an interesting evolution with a crisis at each time - now it’s a climate crisis, but it’s a catalyst for change that’s much more holistic.”Monique is watching with interest international cases brought by communities against governments, such as young people taking a case to the USA federal court arguing the government isn’t acting on climate change, therefore infringing their human rights. “We’re going beyond human rights to biosphere rights. We have rights, but the other species on this planet which can’t speak also have a right to exist. It’s recognising we’re part of this system - not just stewards.”Developing a nationwide sustainability framework and an innovative global business from Wanaka is made possible by the “greater freedom and reach” offered by the internet, Monique says. But Wanaka remains a place where Monique and her family are “grounded”. “Life is so much simpler, easier and healthier here than in France” she says. “When you’ve got a really busy business life; the support of my parents, and knowing my children are happy and independent is so important.”PHOTOS: Supplied

Francesca Voza moved to Wanaka with a working holiday visa and $600 in her pocket. She’s now a renowned food entrepreneur, with 11 eateries and counting. If you’ve lost track of the number of businesses that have come about since the Francesca’s food truck first parked up in Wanaka, you’re not alone. Francesca has barely taken a breath since she first built the food truck as a way to stay in Wanaka after moving here for an OE with her husband. Her most recently-opened business, the Prince Albert English-style pub in Albert Town, was opened by Francesca and business partner James Stapley last week. Their first cookbook, published by Penguin, is due out in October. Another restaurant and a fish and chip shop in Albert Town have added nightlife to the Wanaka fringe suburb, while further afield eateries in Christchurch, Dunedin and Timaru are adding to the foodie destinations in the South Island. The Wanaka App spoke to Francesca about her love of food, how her early life prepared her for a career in the restaurant business, and how she keeps it all together. Francesca was born and raised in England, with trips to visit her Dad’s family in Italy influencing her eponymous food style. Her parents had Italian restaurants and Francesca started working in them at a seriously young age. “I started working for them at six and I managed my first restaurant at 14,” Francesca said. There were no excuses, Francesca said, and she was doing all aspects of restaurant work before she had even finished school. Members of her Dad’s family that still live in Italy - where she and James Stapley went to write their first cookbook - run restaurants and hotels (one even has a buffalo farm where she learned to make fresh mozzarella) to this day. Absorbing all that knowledge from a young age undoubtedly helped Francesca get to where she is now; although the origins of her food business were still fairly random and the result of two things. The first, Francesca and her husband (also called James) wanted to find a way to stay in Wanaka; the second evolved from a frustrated comment by her husband.“James [Stapley] and I used to work together and we would always say to each other ‘what would you serve if you had an Italian restaurant?’ and ‘how would you do this if you had your own restaurant’. Eventually my husband just said ‘would you guys just hurry up and start your own food business?’.The growth of James and Francesca’s restaurants has surprised her as much as others, and managing so much at the same time is an ongoing juggling act. “My big thing is to answer every question as it comes through. I try to get everything in a day that needs to be done. If staff need something, as soon as it happens, I react. But I still surprise myself most days.” Putting out consistently great food across multiple venues in different parts of the country is another test - and one Francesca puts down to having great staff. “Good management is key,” she said. “My head chef at Francesca’s Italian Kitchen is the first person I ever hired. We try to have good retention.”Good management is something that allowed James and Francesca to take off to Italy a little over a  year ago to write their cookbook. They continued to work while away, but remote work and opposing time zones meant emails weren’t coming in while Francesca was working. This allowed the pair to spend more time on the book, discovering and refining recipes. Her favourite recipe from the book, “Fritto Misto”, is something she discovered in Italy and ended up eating daily - together with mozzarella cheese. “We hiked in Italy in Cinque Terre and would buy this all the time. It’s made with fresh octopus and squid lightly fried and served in a cone. It’s so amazing.”The cookbook also has all the Francesca’s Italian Kitchen favourites, from polenta fries to tiramisu, and lots and lots of pizza. “We wanted it to be homely, approachable and rustic,” Francesca said. “We’ve tried to keep it an approachable and affordable cookbook for any kitchen skill level. There’s something for everyone.”The pair had intended to self publish until Chris “Lumpy” Lumsden from Wanaka Paper Plus brought the team from Penguin Books into Francesca’s for an evening. “They had such a nice night they decided to publish us. We would never have gotten that deal without Lumpy.” The book’s photography features Wanaka heavily, an intentional choice by Francesca and James. “We didn’t want it to be all about Italy. Francesca’s began in Wanaka so it was important to showcase it. We don’t want it to just be a cookbook, it’s almost like a memory of Wanaka too.”Francesca is insistent there aren’t any more eateries in the works right now, but will “never say never” for more in the future. She hopes to eventually work a little less, but accepts that a seven-day week is a part of doing what she does - for now at least. “We [she and her husband] used to go hiking every day when we first moved to Wanaka, and go on a lot of overnight hikes. I don’t get a heap of time to get out and about now,” she said. Working on the food truck in summer does offer its perks though, like the opportunity to travel all over the South Island for events. “It’s still work, but I see a lot of the country that way.”PHOTO: Wanaka App

It has been more than a generation since the Upper Clutha premier rugby team won the coveted Central Otago premier league championship. In 2009 the Rams came close, making it to the finals; but the last time the team won was in 1979.The Upper Clutha Rams has played an extraordinary season of rugby this year and made it through to the finals locking horns with the Cromwell Goats. The Wanaka App sat down with the Rams coach Paul Glynn a few days before the weekend’s brilliant final (Saturday, July 28).Like many New Zealand rugby coaches, Paul started out as a junior rugby player rising through the grades and moving into the player-coach role at grass roots level.A loose forward, Paul continued to play and coach in Southland regional competition (especially around Waikaka) for more than 10 years, including two fun years coaching at Clinton, until injury forced him to reassess his options. He moved to Wanaka in 2008 for a job opportunity but only stayed for four years. His return to Wanaka in 2015 to manage a farm near Luggate turned out to be beneficial for the Upper Clutha Rugby Club as he took over as head coach of the Rams. What he encountered when he arrived at the club was a team without cohesion. “It wasn’t that it was bad, it was misdirected and the team wasn’t pulling together,” Paul said. It’s been a struggle for the club to truly get in behind their team, he said. There have been some strong personalities with strong opinions and “I’ve had to stand on some toes,” he said.“Some people have the mentality that they like to see others fail and that’s sad. I’m fairly astute, and if I hear anything like that I stomp it out pretty quickly. “I like to call it ‘weeding the garden’. When I came to this team three years ago I had to weed this garden fairly severely. The culture had to be changed; and that’s what we’ve done and now we’re reaping the rewards.”“Now I’ve got a core base of 35 guys. There’ll only be 22 selected, so potentially there will be 13 very disappointed guys but they are still here, week-in week-out, because they’re all part of the team.Finals week, Paul expects to work 25-30 hours but normally he’d put in 12-18 hours each week - and it’s completely voluntary. “I wouldn’t do it any other way,” he said.“The reward is not just us being top of the table with a win on Saturday. Coaches can get hung up on the win. Don’t get me wrong, I want to win and I’d do anything for the boys to win but there’s more to rugby than winning,” Paul said. “It’s about community, especially in this town. The team can become the community hub; a place where young guys can go and be a part of a group and have some fun.”That’s why he coaches - it’s the involvement with young guys growing up and a chance to shape and develop them. “There’s a lot of kids who leave school at 17 or 18 and they don’t know what they want to do; some still don’t even know when they’re 28 or 29 - they’re still acting like kids. They haven’t got the fundamentals about respect, honesty and discipline. “A lot of them go through struggles and it’s just good for them to have a shoulder to lean on, to get some advice, to give them leadership and direction.”Paul said he was fortunate growing up to have had a strong family base and to be exposed to good coaches from whom he learned. His club also put him through a week-long coaching course in Palmerston North where he learned about what sort of coach he wanted to be.Many coaching clinics are directed at coaching players competing at a high or professional level and there’s no attention put into people’s welfare or the roots of a club, Paul said. “It’s all about performance and the 80 minutes out there instead [of being] about these kids growing into good men, good responsible adults, to be doing the right things on and off the paddock.”He said his team knows he has zero tolerance for drugs. “It’s banned 100 percent. Some of the parents think it’s acceptable but it’s not in any shape or form.” Drinking, on the other hand, doesn’t have to be a bad thing as long as it’s managed, he said. “We have a culture where pies and beer go hand-in-hand with rugby and young guys will try to push the boundaries but that’s where the clubs have got to step up and manage it responsibly.”When asked if he thinks he was a better as a player or a coach he laughs and suggests “it depends on who you ask”. “Some people might be good rugby players but it doesn’t mean they’ll be a good coach,” he said. “Coaching is more than just coming out and telling a player how to play or what game plan to use. It’s almost 80 percent off the paddock now. It’s about managing guys and making sure people are in the right headspace - and that’s the hard bit as every individual is different.”He admits his coaching style has changed hugely since his early days and that’s largely been driven by the current young men he’s coaching. “Where I was brought up [in Tuatapere] you got in the team, you said nothing, you worked hard, and you earned your right.“Here those basics still apply to some degree and you can’t achieve anything without doing hard work. I still believe the team that works the hardest will get there - and these boys have worked hard.“But these boys have softened me up a lot. I used to rule with an iron paw and some of these boys couldn’t handle the pressure. So I’ve changed a lot. I can still be fairly grumpy, and if I feel that people aren’t being honest with themselves I will bark-up.”He also said he used to like to control everything but he’s learned to rely on a few support people. “I’ve learned to put good people around me; people that are better than me in certain aspects. It means I can focus on the bits I’m strong at.”He singles out the team’s manager Robert ‘Wiener’ Nolan - “his work rate is excellent”; and previous club coach Paul Cosgrove - “he’s my springboard for bouncing ideas off”; and former All Black Isaac Ross (who’s currently playing in Japan) - “was tremendously influential at the beginning of the season”. As soon as rugby season is over, though, Paul will be off fishing. “I could spend every living minute fishing. I love the independence of it.”He said he chose to move to Wanaka from Southland because he wanted to be up in the mountains and rivers. “That’s where my heart is; it’s what I truly love - and I got sick of wearing gumboots; I need some sun.” But this past week Paul wasn’t looking any further ahead than the finals on Saturday. “We’ve got a team that’s capable; I’ve got full belief they can do it and I’m confident going in. If we get our focus right, our process correct, the right result will happen. The boys will be disappointed if they don’t win but it’s not the be-all and end-all. If they’ve done the best they can and they don’t win, so be it. There’s no regrets.” And in Saturday’s magnificent Wanaka winter sunshine the Rams were victorious: 27-8.PHOTOS: Wanaka App

She’s lived in Wanaka for almost 24 years and in that time has established three businesses, one of which, Chapter 5, still continues. She’s witnessed the growth of Wanaka first-hand not only as a resident but also from a commercial perspective and still chooses to call Wanaka home.Claudia MacAulay has lived on Mt Alpha’s foothills since the early nineties when she and her husband, Ron, and two boys, Shayne and Dan, relocated from the Waikato. The boys attended Wanaka Primary and Mt Aspiring College, while Ron became one of Air New Zealand’s first long-distance commuter pilots, travelling from Queenstown to Auckland to go to work.Purchasing 90 acres of rural Wanaka to establish a private airstrip, hangar and the homestead was designed to be part of Claudia’s first business in Wanaka. The concept was to create a unique "Sky Lodge” - a place where like-minded people from the flying community could fly in for short stays while Claudia provided dinner-bed-and-breakfast."The intent was "Air BandB” - land your aeroplane and stay the night; it would have been amazing but the council put the squash on that and made it all too hard to get consent,” Claudia said. Having built the house with six bedrooms and five bathrooms, Claudia still ran a bed-and-breakfast in the traditional sense, juggling it simultaneously with her second Wanaka business, Coco’s Hair Salon.For Claudia, Coco’s was a natural extension of what she had been doing since she was a teenager. At 16, she left school for a hairdressing apprenticeship and by 20 she owned her first salon. She operated two salons in Auckland, married Ron, travelled, and gave birth to her sons before relocating to Wanaka. "We moved from Waikato to Wanaka,” she said, "So I’m not really a JAFA.”At the time she established Coco’s on Brownston Street, Wanaka’s resident population was fewer than 2000 people. Only the streets in the centre of town were sealed and while New Year’s was relatively busy with a massive influx of holidaying Kiwis, the shoulder seasons stretched interminably. "I hated the quiet times when you used to be able to fire a rifle down Helwick Street…”Coco’s built a loyal clientele and Claudia operated the salon until a repetitive shoulder injury, caused by decades of hairdressing, forced her to put down her scissors. "I never understood why people refer to it as a glamourous vocation,” she said, "I never saw it that way in 36 years as a hairdresser. It’s bloody hard work.”"Stuffed legs, shoulders and backs are common with hairdressers,” she said. She sold the salon as a going concern but still keeps her hand in. "I still love it, still do it a little bit,” she said. "But making people feel good about themselves, that was the best part, that’s why I did it for so long - that and it satisfied the artist in me .”Claudia at her retail store, Chapter 5, in Pembroke Mall. PHOTO: Wanaka AppThat artistic sensibility also led her down a new path to establishing her fifth business. One of the longest running businesses in Wanaka still operated by its original owner, Chapter 5, a retail clothing store in the heart of Wanaka’s Mall, was opened 14 years ago.Her vibrant store assaults the senses with colour and that is partially why she’s attracted to being a clothing retailer. "It’s the colour, the style, the textures, the fabrics and, once again, it’s the satisfaction of making people feel good about themselves.”"When we had the idea of the shop I said to Ron I want a point of difference that no other shop has in New Zealand.” Kacper (pronounced like the ghost) shoes became that touchstone. They went to a shoe trade fair in Melbourne and were blown away on first sight by the colourful Polish brand of men’s and women’s shoes on display.Their first trip to Poland in 2004 was an eye-opener - for the Polish manufacturers. "They were rapt,” Claudia said. "They couldn’t believe their shoes were selling in New Zealand, let alone a small alpine town so far away.” Now you can find Kacpers in Australia, she said, but Wanaka was the first downunder market for the Polish brand and Claudia is still the only New Zealand importer. "They’re still pretty stoked about it.”At the time, being new to the retail business, it was a gutsy move. "You don’t know it’s going to work out but sometimes you’ve got to take a gamble. And it worked. Fourteen years later they’re still selling like hotcakes.”Chapter 5 is also known for its massive Easter Sunday sale which has become something of an institution. Outside tables in the mall are filled with excess stock selling at low prices. Claudia started the Easter sale in the second year when she had some extra stock.Having witnessed the feeding frenzy of shoppers looking for bargains around the tables, she said "It’s bloody awful, but it works. Even my accountant says it’s much better moving the stock on than having it sitting in a box at home.”"People call us from all over saying they’re coming to Wanaka for Easter, asking will the sale be on again? And if we don’t do it one Easter Sunday - I think we’ll be in trouble.”Having experienced almost a quarter century of growth in Wanaka, Claudia’s willing to share her opinions on that growth. "It’s good and bad. The infrastructure is improving and I like it when there’s more people around,” she said.And while Claudia said she doesn’t have a problem with more visitors per se, she admits to a low tolerance of overseas visitors who disrespect our environment and make no effort to adapt to the New Zealand culture. "We’re a relaxed, considerate culture; we don’t barge in front of people and we’re not generally impolite and arrogant as some of the foreigners who come here. That’s my experience anyway.”When she gets a chance to relax, her garden or her art beckon. "Gardening and painting are my space-out times.”Claudia has been "arty-farty” for a long as she can remember. Acrylic paint is her favoured medium and she paints for her pleasure, as well as on commission, and she’s exhibited her paintings and sold several in auctions and fundraisers.She also confesses to having "a wee bit of a green thumb” as her new "edible garden” attests with lettuces still growing in outdoor pottagers during June, and nothing protecting them but some good mulch and peastraw. "I love growing something that you harvest and eat and share with others. There’s something really nice and satisfying about it.”"I’ll probably stay here for the next...who knows? Being an old age pensioner now I’m allowed to paint, and do my garden, and see my grandchildren a bit more.”Aviation is the reason Claudia and her family moved to Wanaka. While she has learned to fly and still enjoys going on flying adventures with the family, she doesn’t share the same passion for flying as the "three men in her life” (all commercial pilots).Wanaka provides easy access to a naturally beautiful environment, she said. "Being able to fly into the bush for a day’s outing, landing in a riverbed…. I realise we’re very fortunate and I hope it doesn’t change. I love it here because my family calls it home and they love coming home.”

The man they call ‘Grins’ was looking relaxed and living up to his nickname this past week - his final one in the police force.Senior Sergeant Allan Grindell is hanging up his baton after 42 years in the NZ Police. His career has spanned a time of enormous change in the force, and Allan was there for much of it - including on the frontline with the Blue Squad during the 1981 Springbok Tour, and in the thick of Wanaka’s boozy New Year’s Eve days in the 70s and 80s.Allan has six months of long service leave ahead of him (some of which will be spent having knee replacement surgery and recovering) which takes his final official day close to New Year’s Eve - one of the first since 1976 he won’t be working.Born in Invercargill, and educated at Otago Boys in Dunedin, Allan joined the force when he was just 18. The question of ‘why’ stumps him a little, but he said he always wanted to stop "the bad guys”. And it’s ended up being quite a career.He recalls the recruiting sergeant telling him "you’ve got more than sawdust in your head”, and remembers having to strip down to his shorts in order to - just - meet the weight requirement.There were 119 raw recruits in Allan’s intake. "They were the days of huge recruiting, 300-400 cops a year.” He was one of the youngest in his wing at Trentham, and his first posting was on the beat in Wellington Central in 1976-77. There were plenty of old pubs, sly grog dens, and stripper clubs - and lots of assaults. "It was a good eye-opener. Quite an exciting place for a young man from Dunedin.”He transferred to Dunedin later in 1977 and worked on the frontline, team policing. Mass disorder was one of the issues the team dealt with - perhaps good training for what followed in 1981: the Springbok Tour, when Allan was picked for the Blue Squad, which escorted the Springbok team around the country.As a keen rugby player Allan went into the tour thinking "politics and rugby don’t mix: the game must go on”, but the tour was "an attitude changer” for him."By the end of the tour I’d changed my mind on that.” Particularly significant was the test match in Christchurch, which was "like a war zone”. "There were 5000 protestors lined up across the road. We moved forwards into them and we batoned those people in the front line. That wasn’t a good feeling.” He said the protestors were not the usual types he dealt with, people being arrested for assault, but ordinary Kiwis protesting something they felt strongly about."It really tore New Zealand apart. New Zealand never wants to go through that again.” The police would have been lucky to have reached 50 percent support back then, he said. "It took us a few years for the police to get over it.”Back in Dunedin, he was dealing with the "mundane: burglaries, assaults, and so on”. By 1986 Allan was back in Wellington - "the big smoke” - promoted to sergeant. It was a busier place by then, and gangs were a big factor. He remembers a gang member murdered on the street and guarding the body while his colleagues kept other gang members back.A young white boy from Invercargill didn’t get any special training for dealing with different cultures. "I don’t think diversity was something we considered. Now it’s a big thing in the police - ethnicity and gender.”"I’ve seen massive changes in the police force - huge. We always talk about our values - professionalism, integrity, respect. We try to refer back to those values.”Allan has also been part of the Combined Investigation Unit in Wellington Central, dealing with serious crimes, and in the team policing unit - wearing riot gear, policing the pubs and gangs and dealing with street disorder, armed with just a wooden truncheon and handcuffs.By the early 1990s he was back to Dunedin, the 24/7 supervisor based in the station, "in charge of the town at night”. Orientation Week and the Undie 500 were big issues, and by 2005 the power of social media was becoming clear. That year he and his team cleared Castle Street of students, and they returned with trebled numbers. "I think I started the riot actually.”By the early 2000s, the policing model changed from reactive to a crime prevention model. "The model we have now is ‘let’s stop it before it happens’. Once people get into the justice system they’re in it for life.”In 2009 Allan moved to Wanaka. The recession was starting to hit and a lot of tradies were leaving town, Allan said, but there was no real serious crime. There still isn’t, according to Allan."Wanaka is a safe place. Safest place in New Zealand, I reckon.”Increasing tourism and more people arriving are causing more issues, such as vandalism damage and more drugs. "There are lots of drugs in this town,” he said. While there is some crime associated with it, such as drug driving, "what we don’t see here is a lot of downstream crime. I suspect it’s because there’s a bit of wealth in the town.”Close to half of Wanaka’s police work is around road policing, but it’s not just the foreign visitors, he said. "We see some horrendous New Zealand driving.”And of course there are the alcohol issues. This is an area in which Allan would have liked to have done more work before he left the force. "Wedding season [November-January] is huge,” he said. "They all arrive in town about midnight. Many of them are fine, respectable people who are liquored.”There’s a lot of work to do with stakeholders in the wedding industry, and the local bars. "A liquor accord is a possibility. A one-way door at 1am is another.” But he compares it to the bad old days, such as his first New Year in Wanaka in 1977. "Every window in the THC [now the Bullock Bar] used to get smashed. They used to arrest 30 people in one night. By the time the pubs closed at 3am the street was awash with bottles and cans. New Year’s are quite good now.”He would have liked to have spent another 12 months here, but his knee replacement is looming. "Stations this size need all the police to be fit,” he said, and "in fairness to the station and the community” he feels it’s time to go."I don’t know if I’d use the word ‘love’, but the police force has been a great career for me,” he said. "I still get up on a Monday morning and want to come to work. Motivation isn’t an issue for me.”He’s leaving the Wanaka police in pretty good shape, well-off for staff and efficient with deployment. One of his last duties this past week was accompanying the family of the young Taiwanese woman who was killed in a car accident on the Wanaka-Mt Aspiring Road late last month to the site of the accident. Friday was his last day, and on Monday Detective Senior Sergeant Malcolm Inglis will be "warming his seat” while a replacement is found.Allan has no firm plans for retirement, he says, but after knee surgery the golf course beckons, and he makes a surprising admission: "I’ve got an interest in drinking wine.” He has done some viticulture papers and wonders whether "wine tourism with an ex-cop would appeal”. Well, he’s good company, has an amiable grin and plenty of interesting experiences and stories, so why not?PHOTO: Wanaka App

Two of Wanaka’s best search and rescue specialists were rewarded recently for their significant contribution by New Zealand Search and Rescue (SAR). Gary Dickson received a plaque recognising his vast experience in mountain rescues and Roy Bailey earned a Merit Award as a river rescue expert with more than 10 years experience for LandSAR.Both men are long-serving members of NZ SAR and are both well-known and highly-respected rescue specialists in their own fields, Wanaka SAR chair Bill Day said."These guys are the ultimate Kiwi good bastards who get out of bed on a stormy night to go looking for perfect strangers,” he said. "They’re heroes.”Bill said like many volunteers involved in emergency services, they earn a living by the hour, but are willing to walk off the job, often risking their lives in treacherous conditions, to save someone in trouble.He said both Gary and Roy have developed skills and a level of expertise equivalent to a PhD, and their experience and knowledge has been integral in the development of New Zealand’s fledgling search and rescue organisation into the sophisticated institution it has become.Alpinism & Ski Wanaka Ltd’s director and principal guide Gary has had a long career in mountain guiding and instruction operating in both New Zealand and Switzerland. With his vast experience in the mountains he has held technical advisory roles for mountain safety in Iceland and in NZ, where he has been heavily involved with the Mountain Safety Council and the NZ Mountain Guides Association.Gary started with SAR in Canterbury assisting with technical mountain rescues in Christchurch and Mount Cook during the 1980s, rescuing hikers from alpine passes and climbers out of crevasses. He was also involved in recovering victims from an aircraft crash in the mountains.He moved to Wanaka in 1999 and became the team coordinator for the Alpine Cliff Rescue Team in Wanaka, a role he held for 10 years. Gary has also been a Tai Poutini Polytechnic rope rescue instructor (2013-2014) and is the Wanaka SAR communications expert: maintaining equipment, conducting training sessions, and advising on the set-up of communications in the challenging local mountainous terrain. He remains an active team leader of the Alpine Cliff Rescue Team in Wanaka SAR.Roy Bailey, of Bailey Builders, is a river rescue specialist and has been integral to the development of the river rescue team both in the Wanaka region and at a national level. After being called in to help on an operation to find an Australian hunter who drowned in the West Matukituki River, Roy formed the concept of a specialist River Rescue/Swift Water team.He is now a River Rescue expert for LandSAR, writing the competency framework for River SAR in NZ in 2015/2016, and has presented papers at national LandSAR conferences. Additionally, Roy is a national representative on the Back Country Technical Rescue Advisory Group.Locally, Roy has been a valued member of Wanaka SAR for the past 11 years. He played a key role in managing the building of the new Wanaka SAR premises and is still an active and experienced team leader of Wanaka’s River Rescue and Sub Alpine teams.Roy said he was "pretty stoked” to receive the award. "SAR has been a fairly large part of my life for the last 10 years and to get recognition for that is quite nice, especially at a national level.”"The key point of why I enjoy SAR is because we don’t do it for ourselves, or even people we know. Mostly the people we search for are complete strangers to us,” he said.PHOTO: Supplied

In Wanaka, Marjorie Cook needs no introduction. If you don’t know her personally, you certainly know her writing.Marjorie has been reporting local news since 2003, when she made the move here in order to take a job with the Otago Daily Times (ODT). Her role with weekly newspaper The Mirror, which began in 2014, finished on Friday as part of Fairfax’s closure or sale of 28 rural newspapers. The change follows many years of Marjorie digging out the best ‘good’ news in town, and having the unenviable task of reporting the ‘bad’ too.If the typical reporting persona to you is someone tough and insensitive, you might be surprised to learn that Marjorie is none of these things. The ups to reporting have made the downs worthwhile, Marjorie told the Wanaka App, but it’s digging out the interesting, heartwarming stories that has sustained her amid the challenges of reporting local tragedies.Her knack for finding the curious, charming and funny news in Wanaka and sharing it with humor has set her apart.But writing wasn’t Marjorie’s first love, or even her second. At school in Timaru, swimming and music defined her. She still swims regularly, but music is something that slowly drifted from her life, although she’s picking it up again now.Having studied music and english at university in Dunedin - her instrument was piano, and she sang in choirs - it’s been somewhat intimidating going back to music. But singing lessons are the first step, she said, in rediscovering something that was an important part of her early years.The way she ended up here is "that classic Wanaka story,” Marjorie said. "I came here every year for my holidays. From a very early age I was visiting Wanaka four or five times a year.”Her understanding of Wanaka and the mechanisms that make it tick didn’t come to her completely until she moved here in 2003."When you’ve only visited a few times a year you really notice the changes,” Marjorie said. "But it’s not until you live here full time that you really understand the town, the people and the environment.”It was after completing her diploma in journalism through Aoraki Polytechnic that Marjorie began writing for newspapers. First in Dunedin at the ODT, followed by a stint at the Timaru Herald. It was a job in Wanaka with the ODT that caught her eye while she was living in Timaru, and eventually led to a move down here."I started at the beginning of 2003,” Marjorie said. "At the time the ODT office was in a grotty little office where Urban Grind now is. It was a cubby hole, really.”Marjorie shared her office with Mark Thomas (a former reporter better known as Curly the chimney sweep), and Basil, a very old dog of some acclaim, who had at least one article written about him.A visit from Dunedin-based ODT staff, who were shocked by the size of the "office”, led to the purchase of the newspaper’s existing office on Brownston Street, where Marjorie worked until 2012."I went on my big OE,” Marjorie said. "I went to Europe.” While away she visited Cork and Jersey, two of the top open water swimming clubs, where she had the opportunity to learn from some of the best gurus of open water swimming. Her experience swimming mainly in Wanaka felt amateurish in comparison, Marjorie said, but it was a huge learning opportunity.After the trip away, Marjorie was drawn back to Wanaka but not straight back into reporting. After 18 months at Mitre 10, Marjorie took on her role at the Mirror in September 2014. She is candid about the difficulty of the decision to return to journalism."I didn’t think I’d want to be a journalist again and then I did some research again and decided I could give it another go. There were a whole lot of reasons why, partly because of all the good stuff that was going on.”The deaths and tragedies that Marjorie has had to report on have been difficult for her. "I found myself getting more sensitive to reporting on grief,” she said. The old premonition - that bad things come in threes - has rung true to Marjorie. "Without being superstitious I do think you get clumps of things,” she said.The sense of responsibility when reporting on tragedies can be huge. "It is a privilege to report those sorts of stories, and it’s so important to get the information right that it’s one of the hardest parts of the job.”And the best part?"All those lovely times when people have gifted you the time and the energy to explain their passions, and how they feel about where they live and what they do, those are the stories that have sustained me.”The change in her situation doesn’t mean a move away from Wanaka. Adventure and sports are a big part of Marjorie’s life, which is one of the reasons Wanaka is such an important place to her."You keep coming back for the fun things,” Marjorie said. "Swimming in the lake has been incredibly fun, with biking I’ve had some adventures - there are stories where you think ‘did we really do that?’ Things like cycling in blizzards and snow… There have been all sorts of adventures.”On the writing front, Marjorie plans to keep on writing - mainly for herself - "just to keep the creative impetus going”. Her next opportunity, while just around the corner, is still unclear, but Marjorie is looking forward to - at least briefly - having more time for her hobbies, while she figures out what comes next. What seems certain is that it will be here."I feel so hooked for the town now that when I go away it’s Wanaka that I pine for,” Marjorie said. "What Wanaka takes out of you it also gives back.”PHOTO: Wanaka App

Bruce Shanks believes your attitude is poured into your work. After 12 years of working mostly on the demanding and repetitive recycling press at Wanaka Wastebusters, he’s in a good position to know."When everybody’s miserable, it comes back out in the work, and if everyone’s happy it comes out in the work,” Bruce says.Bruce has lived in the Wanaka area for more than 20 years (he’s lost track of how long it’s been). He worked at the Mt Iron Sawmill (now closed) and Placemakers before starting at Wastebusters, where he was initially a kerbside runner.Bruce used to press wool when he was younger (he grew up in Oamaru), and now he’s the main press man out the back of the recycling yard at Wastebusters. It’s not the cushiest workplace. Bruce is pretty much outdoors year round, but he has his strategies for dealing with that.He reckons the ‘emergency shower’ near the fence is just for him: he had to use it a few times last summer to cool down in the 30+ degree heat. "Sometimes I put my head under the emergency shower. I’m the only one that does.”Winter’s a different matter. Does it get cold? "Oh, far out. When it’s really cold, I just stop. I can’t work when my forehead and fingertips are freezing.” That’s when Bruce goes into the shop for a while to join shop cat Mr Manly thawing out in front of the fire.Bruce has noticed how much busier Wastebusters has become over the past 12 years. "More people have come to town, there’s more recycling. We used to do about one bale a week, now we do about one a day,” he said.While he puts "just about everything you can think of” into the bales he presses, "cardboard is the biggest one for miles”. He is responsible for ensuring the correct materials go into the press, and those clean bales are Wastebusters’ pride and joy - it means the recycled material is actually recycled into new products, even when the worldwide recycling industry is in a crisis. Some of Bruce’s bales go to Dunedin, some to Christchurch, then overseas to remade into useful stuff.Sue Coutts, Bruce Shanks, and Gina Dempster on some of Wastebusters’ clean bales of recycling.Stopping waste is a concern to Bruce. "There’s just so much waste now. I reckon the biggest waste will be supermarket plastic bags.”But for all Bruce’s serious approach to getting his job done, his sense of humour can’t be missed."Yeah, OK, I am pretty friendly and sociable,” he admits. That’s where his philosophy of being happy at work comes in. "One thing that makes the job is the people. If you say ‘how’s it going’ and you get a not very good response, how would you feel? When I make jokes and say nice things, people like it.”Bruce’s job at Wastebusters and his church community - he attends Wanaka’s New Life church - are both important parts of his life. He uses tradespeople from his church to work on his house wherever possible, and a Wastebusters colleague describes Bruce as a model employee: he’s never been late to work, and seldom takes sick days. Bruce bought his house (with "an extremely good view of the lake”) at Lake Hawea in 2002. He’s pretty house proud: he’s renovated the roof, the shower, painted inside and out, and is now looking forward to getting new curtains and blinds. While he does furnish his place with the occasional Wastebusters find (maybe a DVD and a vase to put with his "lovely plants”), he prefers brand new, and says his house is "getting quite flash”."I’m sitting on it - I’ll never move,” Bruce says. He likes the idea of a holiday though - the last time he travelled overseas was in 1988, and sometimes, while operating the Wastebusters press, he dreams of a cruise around the Pacific Islands. "I reckon it would be quite fun, quite cool.” But in the meantime, he "doesn’t mind” working away out the back of Wastebusters."Everyone’s around me, sorting out and recycling. It’s not a stressful job.”If he has one complaint, it’s that other people’s music choices at work don’t accord with his taste for 60s music. Maybe the right music enhances the positive attitude Bruce pours into his work, as he keeps the press going, producing more clean Wastebusters bales.PHOTOS: Simon Williams

Wanaka-based paddleboarder Annabel Anderson was recently named the supreme winner of the Central Otago Sports Awards, recognising a remarkable 2017 sporting year: she was the number one stand up paddleboarder (SUP) in the world – her seventh consecutive year of the title, and the only female to hold the top ranked position.Her 2017 SUP titles also include the ISA Long Distance World Champion, the ISA Long Technical World Champion and the Pacific Paddle Games Long Distance, Technical and Overall Champion.Like other Kiwi athletes who excel in a sport which doesn’t feature large in New Zealand, 36-year old Annabel is probably better known overseas than she is in her homeland. But after eight years of international competition, competing with barely healed injuries and the constant travel on her own, Annabel is enjoying a quieter year spending some time at home in Wanaka to rest mind and body - "I had burned the candle at both ends.”For the uninformed (including this Wanaka App reporter) competitive SUP is a combination of sprint kayaking, surf-lifesaving, outrigger canoe paddling and whitewater kayaking, mixed with the tactics of bike racing, according to Annabel. It’s played out down rivers and rapids, across lakes, over oceans and surf and "it’s a full contact sport, believe it or not”."What people think I do and what I actually do are two very different things,” she said. "I could not have scripted the last 10 years. I have thrived on the thrill of the chase.”Her professional paddleboarding experience started when Annabel was based in England pursuing a career in marketing. In 2010, with her work visa about to expire and nursing a desire to travel, a random adventure presented itself in the guise of a SUP competition in Hamburg, Germany."I turned up to this world cup event in Germany and I managed to wangle an entry. I was super fit but I’d never been on a race board. It was basically a free weekend, all you had to do was turn up, and I walked away with second and 2000 Euros in my pocket.”It was a classic tale of a New Zealander operating on the smell of an oily rag - "I had to turn up and win; that was the challenge”. She used international competitions to travel the globe, from Thailand to Europe, to Hawaii and back, each win paying her way to the next event."I did this crazy zigzag all over the world for the first year - it was like "The Amazing Race”, she said. She saw Paris, Hamburg and New York for the first time - all from the vantage point of a racing paddleboard.At the conclusion of that first year she had won enough "to upset the applecart”. "So I thought this might be the time to take it seriously.” She knew she had strengths and weaknesses she could work on, and her performances brought her to the attention of sponsors, mostly equipment manufacturers.The past two years though have been self-funded without sponsors. "I’ve been a privateer so I could do things my way to my values. It made life harder in some respects but also way easier as I didn’t have the pressure of someone else’s expectations.”She’s never really had a mentor - "all my motivation has come from within” - but there has been one person who’s had her back, a former professional surfer and "the guy who’s always shaped my boards”, Bryan Szymanski.Bryan’s that "uncle figure” who, from the beginning, encouraged her to succeed by "playing it like a game. What if we tried to do this and actually managed to pull it off?” The only expectation he put on her, Annabel said, was "to be a better person”.Having been a competitive athlete for most of her adult life, from skiing and biking to running and triathlons, Annabel knew what it took to succeed. But without a traditional background in surfing or paddling, her rise to the top spot in the world and her ability to stay there for consecutive years was highly unusual, she said.She accords her success to preparation, planning and process. "I don’t have a huge amount of self-confidence. I gain confidence from the execution of the process.”"I can’t control the performance of others, or conditions, or decisions going against me but I can control the process. I get self-belief from nailing the process. When you get curve balls sent at you randomly, my ability to cope is because I know what cards I have to play.”Annabel in open surf drives for the shore.Annabel is also unusual in the international world of SUP in that she has been repeatedly successful over multiple disciplines, from long distance to technical paddleboarding to river boarding to surfing."One of the things that drew me to the sport was it’s variety,” she said, "one discipline complemented another. It’s also kind of the Kiwi mentality to just do everything.”She competed in last year’s Ultimate Mountain Challenge, in Vail Colorado, but decided not to limit herself to just one or two events. Instead she took on all comers, entering all 11 running, biking and whitewater events over the course of two and a half days and came within one point of winning the entire challenge. "It was a comedy show, I even borrowed someone’s dog for the 5km dog race.”She’s also relied heavily on her professional skills as "a pretty decent project manager” to pull off the demanding logistics. "I learned early on that anything that was critical to my success, I had to own it; and then if something goes wrong I have no-one to blame but myself.” She also built a network of friends she could call on for logistical support, such as lending equipment.That’s not to say crucial gear hasn’t gone missing before an event and she’s had to improvise with borrowed gear but "things usually work out and it just makes for a better story to tell.”Annabel has also been a guest presenter for World of Adventure Sports (a US TV show). "When they need a jack of all trades that they can throw into pretty much any situation I get a phone call.” Amongst other things, she’s rafted the Snake River for three days in the Grand Teton National Park and was sent to the Faroe Islands to hike and "jump off a cliff”.But the thing she’s most proud of was leading a push to ensure women competing in SUP would win purses of equal value to the men. It made her angry to realise she would put in the same effort as the guys but win only a fraction of their earnings.A social media campaign led to international media coverage and now women are getting paid the same. "I am more proud of having the courage to ask the questions, and use the responsibility of my position, than any trophy, or award or result.”As for now, she’s not retired and she’s not taking time out. She doesn’t like to share her goals. She says as soon as you do that "life gets in the way and you have to adapt” and then you’re accused of not meeting you goals."I’m still travelling, I’m still surfing, riding bikes and taking the opportunity to do a bunch of things I haven’t had a chance to do in a very long time,” she said. "It’s time to recalibrate and take a breath.”PHOTOS: Supplied

A Wanaka public relations professional has won an award in recognition of her work with the motorsport industry.Kate Gordon-Smith, principal at Relish Communications, won the Motorsport PR Communicator of the Year award at the Motorsport New Zealand media awards, held in Wellington on Saturday May 26.This award, which was created in 2016, recognises specialised publicists who work with competitors, events, championships and sponsors around New Zealand to help generate media coverage of motorsport.Kate won the award for her work with Kiwi rally driver Dave Holder and rally-turned-rallycross driver Sloan Cox.The independent judge, an experienced sports publicist, said: "Sometimes in this industry, the tough jobs are when the story needs to be sold and not automatically grabbed by mainstream. Kate achieved mainstream television cover by offering an exclusive arrangement and followed this with a well-written story. It was well illustrated and achieved good cut-through on social media channels.”Kate moved to Wanaka with her husband Jeff Smith, who is a partner at the Butchers Block and Smokehouse, in 2015. Motorsport is one of her specialities, and her best-known client is New Zealand WRC driver Hayden Paddon, who lives in Wanaka when he’s in New Zealand.Kate has also worked for Motorsport New Zealand as a communications consultant since 2015, and was delighted to win the award."Essentially, it’s been wonderful to have recognition from my peers and colleagues from a sport I’ve been involved in for a long time,” she said.Kate was quick to point out that she is not the first Wanaka local to win this award - Catherine Pattison from Lake Hawea won it in 2017 for her work with rally driver Emma Gilmour.PHOTO: Geoff Ridder

A new club in town wants you to get electric. The Wanaka Electric Vehicle Club, which now has 12 members, is plugging the virtues of electric vehicles, and word is getting around. They’ve even set a goal of ridding Wanaka of 80% of its diesel and petrol cars by the 2020s. It sounds like a lofty ambition, but after sitting down with founding club members Florence Micoud and Morgan Knoesen, I’m just about sold.For one, electric vehicles are not the fringe product they once were. Reports out of Norway suggest that all of the country’s main political parties have, as of yesterday, agreed to ban the sale of fossil fuel-based cars by 2025. The Indian and Dutch governments are considering similar plans.Nonetheless, before meeting with Morgan and Florence, I was a bit skeptical. Electric cars? I immediately thought two things: expensive and slow.There are currently five fully-electric cars in Wanaka (unlike hybrids, which can switch back and forth between electric power and petrol, electric cars do not use fossil fuels at all). Their first advantage, said Morgan, is the lack of emissions. He explained that every 10 kilometres of driving creates emissions equivalent to burning 100 plastic bags. "Imagine chucking 10 plastic bags on a bonfire per kilometre. That goes into our lakes and our lungs,” he said.OK, but aren’t electric cars really expensive? Morgan’s fully-electric 2011 Nissan Leaf cost $20,000, a fair bit more than my second-hand Honda. But he can charge up his vehicle at home for $3.30, which gives him enough power to travel 100 kilometres. A quick calculation tells us if I used his car to get into town every day (I live rurally), I’d save at least $3000 per year in fuel costs, probably more. (According to the New Zealand Household Travel Survey, on average a male driver in New Zealand covers more than 12,500 kilometres per year.)But what about maintenance? Not a problem. Morgan explained that an electric car has 200 moving parts, compared to the several thousand in a petrol vehicle. Fewer things to break, fewer bits to fix.Fair enough, but won’t we need a lot more electricity if we all start plugging in electric vehicles? Again, not really. Refining crude oil into petrol uses a huge amount of electricity. And in New Zealand, because so much electricity generation is hydroelectric and therefore relatively clean, electric-powered cars are easier on the environment. As Florence said, "Why use petrol when you can use water?”There are limiting factors, particularly in rural areas. Range is an issue, with electric vehicles only able to travel 100 to 200 kilometres on a charge, with a full recharge taking at least four hours. This makes for a slow trip to Christchurch. But the Charge Net NZ electric vehicle charging network currently has 100 Fast DC Charger sites, which will charge an electric vehicle in fewer than 30 minutes, around the country, and they are installing more at a rate of about one every two weeks. A Queenstown site is imminent.For now, the Wanaka Electric Vehicle Club club has a petrol-powered carpool car which will be available to club members to use for longer trips.As for speed, I took a drive in Morgan’s car. It goes from zero to 80 more quickly and smoothly than a typical petrol car like my Honda, and, a surprising bonus, it does so almost silently. There’s something Star Trek about it. It feels space age.I like it, though I’m not completely convinced. Any car, even an electric one, is going to be a less sustainable option than, say, a bicycle. Or getting around on foot. And even with fast-charge stations, range will still be a problem in rural regions until battery technology improves.Not perfect, then, but better, something more and more New Zealanders are starting to agree with. As of January this year, there were 1000 fully-electric cars owned in New Zealand, a figure that exceeds automobile industry projections by 50%.And if Norway, one of the world’s top ten oil exporters, is prepared to give the electric avenue a try, maybe we should too. I love my Honda, but I’m starting to think its days are numbered.PHOTO: Laura Williamson

Wanaka resident and prominent health campaigner Bev Clark has been appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit (MNZM) for services to health.Calling herself a "born and bred Southlander”, Bev was born in Winton and farmed in Hokonui with her late husband Boyd Clark. While there, she became a vocal advocate for Winton’s maternity service. She served as chair of the Central Southland Health Trust and the Winton Birthing Unit for eight years, during which time she helped develop the facility, protecting access to maternity care in the region.Bev is also a veteran of the campaign to retain Dunstan Hospital at Clyde. She was chairperson of Central Otago Health Services Ltd, which was set up in 1999 to manage Dunstan Hospital, a role that won her some notoriety. COHSL was famously called "petulant” in 2003 by Labour health minister Annette King when the board threatened a mass resignation to protest the run-down state of the hospital.The board was backed at a public meeting attended by an estimated 1000 people, and the government eventually came to the table with more than $7 million towards a rebuild. Bev received an award at Dunstan’s 150th celebrations in 2013 acknowledging her work as chair of COHSL.As director of the Southern Regional Health Authority she had responsibility for provision of health services in the southern region, then, as director of the Health Funding Authority, for health services across New Zealand. She also chaired the Consumer Liaison Committee for the Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners, and was appointed for a term of six years to the New Zealand Psychologists’ Board.Bev moved to Wanaka in 1997, where she worked for nineteen years as a marriage celebrant. She is a founding executive member of the Celebrants’ Association in New Zealand, to which she was awarded an honourary life membership in 2014.A total of 177 New Zealanders (70 women and 107 men) have been named in the Queen's 90th birthday honours this year, including two dames, five knights and 66 new members of the New Zealand Order of Merit.PHOTO: Celebrants' Association of New Zealand

New York born-and-bred, a real estate agent and an engineer move to Lake Hawea to restore old cars and teach yoga. Really? Yes it’s true, and Steve and Jennifer Rumore say life has never been better.They had never thought about living in New Zealand. Steve was working in the family engineering business, designing and building off-road racing cars. Jen had her own real estate business.A man approached Steve about working for him in a business he was setting up designing and building custom vehicles. They worked on the idea for weeks. Then the man mentioned he would like to do it in New Zealand. Would the Rumores like to move too?The suggestion took them completely by surprise, but they did some research, and applied for visas. Then funding for the business fell through and the idea was shelved.If you like to know what's happening then you'll love Events & Places of InterestFour years later, the Rumores received a letter saying their application for New Zealand visas had been approved. They weren’t just offered work visas, they were offered temporary residency."That was in 2009. The US was in severe economic downturn. Real estate and engineering had collapsed. So we thought, why not?” Steve explained."We sold up, packed up, gave away, and shipped a 40-foot container of all our household goods and engineering stuff to New Zealand,” Jen added. "We didn’t know where we were going to live, but Steve had been making biodiesel in America, and we heard that Wanaka Wastebusters was using it, so we thought Wanaka might be a good place. By then we were living in Colorado and Wanaka seemed quite similar with lots of the things we liked; no humidity, a small mountain town with good snow, but no permanent snow in town that needed shovelling every day, and four defined seasons.”They flew into Auckland, bought a car, and drove around the country for six weeks looking for a place they wanted to live. Wanaka still seemed like the best choice, and they now call Lake Hawea home.Initially Steve got a job restoring vintage cars at the Warbirds and Wheels museum. Now he repairs and restores vintage caravans in the winter, and runs his own bobcat business in the summer.He’s also designed and built a prototype teardrop caravan ("basically, it's a bed and kitchen on wheels”) which he launched at the A&P Show this year. It comes in three sizes: a small one which slides onto the back of a ute or truck, the standard model, which you can’t stand-up in, and a bigger one which has a self-contained bathroom.The project he’s currently working on is a new building system for affordable housing. "The majority of the parts will be made in a factory, flat-packed to the site, and assembled in a matter of days. Basically it's made of chiller panels. I'm just working on making it aesthetically pleasing now,” he said.When they first arrived here, Jen started teaching yoga. That soon expanded to include meditation and, more recently, she’s added sessions with crystal healing bowls and metamorphic foot massage. Her latest ventures are a special ‘Golden Years’ yoga class in Wanaka and a regular class with different teachers at the Lake Hawea Community Centre.And when she’s not busy looking after their two children (Nicholas, 14, and Celeste, 8), she’s marketing the caravans."We realised Wanaka’s not the sort of place where you just do one thing to make a living. It suits us very well doing lots of different things. The only problem is, we have too many ideas and we can’t do them all.”For more information on the caravans check out the website www.adventurecaravans.co.nz.To find out more about Jen’s classes call her on 022 097 4596.PHOTO: Caroline Harker

Ever wondered who that woman is who does the huge bubbles around town? The Wanaka App caught up with Wanaka's very own Lily Lightly (AKA Diana Hickey).WA: Where did your bubble journey begin?DIANA: I was fascinated with the colours in puddles as a kid. Then at art school I chose bubbles - I was fascinated with the concept of conception and the magic of the embryonic sac and I wanted to emulate that. I started trying to perfect ice bubbles. I was trying to push the boundaries of what bubbles were and explore the life cycle of ice bubbles. Bubbles were the perfect sphere for me. I started doing performance with them, then got into street theatre with bubbles and working with inner-city kids doing clowning and bubbles. I worked with the Irish National Clown theatre.WA: You were born and bred in Ireland. How did you end up in Wanaka?DIANA: I came to look at the snow as I'd never been on a wave that didn't dump me and snow is like one big beautiful wave.WA: As well as making bubbles what else do you do in Wanaka to make a living?DIANA: I teach [instruments and voice], write and arrange music and vocals, and do the odd visual arts thingumy here and there, as well as mucking in with public events when I can.WA: How long have you been here?DIANA: I've been here in NZ for 17 years and while I'm proud to be a Kiwi citizen, my heart is still Irish. I've bounced between Wanaka, Dunedin, Christchurch and Auckland for study and work, but the Wanaka bubble always lures me back.WA: What kind of work has taken you away?DIANA: Wanaka is partially responsible for the various paths I've skipped down over the last 17 years, including studying art psychotherapy and gaining a Clinical Masters, and then working for the District Health Board at the coalface.WA: What did that involve?DIANA: I was doing art psychotherapy with children and young adults, in oncology and in palliative situations. And working with their parents and caregivers.It was an incredible experience, but in the end I needed to take some time out and get back into creativity, for my own self care, and that’s when I came back to Wanaka. WA: What do you enjoy about living in Wanaka?DIANA: The joys of working for great events like the Rippon music festival and YAMI, Rhythm and Alps, re-igniting my clowning past, peppered with visual arts exhibits and personal musical projects here and there. It's a town where not many of us are nine to fivers. To stay we need to creatively adapt to thrive. Maybe it's the mountains and these stunning pristine lakes and rivers we're surrounded by. I aspire to be more creative by simply being here. The community is hugely supportive of one another too, all manner of colourful expression can be born and I am very grateful to call the place home.WA: Will you share the perfect bubble mixture recipe?DIANA: You will need: the snot of a northern prismic sealion (obviously you have to wait until they get a cold - which doesn't happen often); the dust off the wings of a South American Wobble butterfly (but they are hard to catch) and some mermaid scales (scraping them off can be tricky). Save yourself the trouble and buy some from Lily directly on her Flying Colours Facebook page, or phone 021 400 857.Lily Lightly will be performing at the Matariki celebrations at the Wanaka lakefront on Saturday.PHOTO: Supplied

CAROLINE HARKERThe three little pigs were wrong when it comes to building construction, or so say a local couple who gave a talk on building with straw recently.There’s no way a big bad wolf could blow down one of their straw (bale) houses, in fact they claim they would last longer than many regular homes.Local design and build team Jessica and Ben Eyers (Hiberna Construction and Architecture) are speaking at a Southern Sustainable Building meeting about their work on Tuesday night at Kai Whakapai. The talk will focus on how straw bales can be used to make a durable, affordable, environmentally-friendly, mainstream construction material.The Eyers philosophy of building is based on creating houses "your children’s children will be proud of". "The market is flooded with large mediocre homes and we are trying to reverse that trend,” Jessica said. "We think there is more long-term value in quality buildings, built to last, that don’t break the budget because of their size. For a building to last the centuries it needs to be loved, and our buildings will need to be maintained - but unlike a lot of modern materials, earth, lime and timber can be maintained relatively easily and cheaply.” The straw bales themselves are fully enclosed, so they don’t need any maintenance.Jessica said what they have is "a high performance ultra low carbon insulation technology that is proven to reduce heating costs by 90%.”Jessica is from England and Ben from Wanganui. They met while rock climbing in Wanaka, and found they had a lot in common. One thing led to another and they designed and built their first house in 2008. Located in Wanaka, it was for Ben’s parents and is an energy-efficient passive solar house.Since then they have started their own business, had two children and built their own straw bale house, "where we try out all our building ideas”. They have also designed and built houses in Tekapo and Warkworth.Jessica has previously worked for Sustainable Wanaka (2006-2009) and for QLDC as an eco-design advisor. She has two degrees in architecture. Ben is a licensed builder and natural plasterer. They are currently applying for a research grant to explore the potential for mainstreaming straw bale as a building material.Southern Sustainable Building is a group of people involved in sustainable building projects in Central Otago. Their meeting will be held upstairs at Kai Whakapai on Tuesday June 28 at 7pm. Anyone interested in attending is welcome.For more information contact Clair Higginson on 03 448 6115 or 021 102 2182, [email protected], or Jessica Eyers on 022 013 9062 or [email protected]: www.alpineimages.co.nz

It’s a family affair at Wanaka’s newest eatery, as the "food-obsessed” Lahoods have set up a cafe to serve the kind of food they love to eat.Chrissie, Sharon and Paul Lahood are three siblings from a family of ten, joined in their new venture by Paul’s wife Tasha."We’re used to having lots of people around,” Chrissie said. "And we have plenty of backup,” Paul added. The siblings have teamed up their complementary skills in hospitality (Paul and Tasha are part-owners of Relishes), accountancy (Sharon was an accountant in Perth) and advertising (Chrissie’s Wellington background) for Big Fig.Even the name has a family connection. It comes from the huge fig tree in the Lahood’s childhood backyard in Taranaki. The siblings’ mother, Dorothy, made fig jam from the fruit every year, but the young Lahoods didn’t appreciate it much then.Their mother was "a great cook”, the Lahood siblings said. Dorothy learnt Lebanese food from her mother-in-law, and passed on her "stock standard” Lebanese dishes to her children. Middle-Eastern flavours are therefore a big feature of Big Fig’s menu. The "modern Middle-Eastern” menu is influenced by the east, but "anything goes,” Tasha said.Expect slow-cooked meats, spiced rotisseried chickens, lots of hot vegetarian dishes, big-flavour salads, stuffed pitas, pastries and baking made in Big Fig’s mini bakery and, of course, good coffee."We wanted to make the food we love to eat: tasty, modern, real, good food that’s super accessible.” Chrissie said. "Slow food, served fast.”Big Fig features a pita oven with a baker working full-time to ensure there is always a pile of warm, fresh pitas. All the food is made from scratch, and is free range and locally-sourced where possible, Chrissie said. "You can come in for a bowl of hot, minty, yoghurty lamb meatballs, a roast harissa-spiced salad, a steamy pita just out of the oven, and it’s all ready for you. You can sit in to eat or take out.”The Big Fig homage seems likely to compensate for any lack of appreciation the Lahood children had for their mother’s fig jam.Big Fig, next to the i-SITE Visitor Information Centre on Ardmore Street, opened yesterday (June 24).PHOTO: Pip O’Regan

CAROLINE HARKER A local boy has won the New Zealand Duck Calling Championships for the second year in a row. Luggate apprentice builder Hunter Morrow, 18, quacked his way to success in Tauranga on Saturday (July 9), beating more than 20 other duck callers from all over the country."The best bit of winning is you get a free trip to the US,” Hunter said. He’ll be heading stateside for the World Championships in November where a win would earn him US$10,000 and "heaps of other prizes”. Although he came fifth in the World Championships last year, he hasn’t yet dwelt on the possibility of winning this time - he couldn’t tell the Wanaka App what he would spend the money on if he did win. "Dunno. Maybe some ammunition for next season. Definitely something hunting related,” he said.Duck calling requires a fair bit of skill and a lot of practise. Hunter started calling when he was five years old, and is rumoured to practise for up to four hours a day.Duck callers use a small woodwind instrument which many say requires the same level of skill as any musical instrument. During the competition entrants had 60 seconds to do a "live duck routine”. Hunter said the more time he spends with ducks, the better he can understand what their calls mean. "You can tell just by the attitude of the call what they mean,” he said."I live for duck shooting”, he said. "It’s what I do every weekend. I love it.” The duck shooting season ends in three weeks time, and this past weekend, when he was in Tauranga for the competition, was the only one he’s had off this season.”"I travel all over the South Island to hunt,” he said. "I go wherever the bad weather is. Windy and stormy is best. The ducks love it.” Although, by his own admission "I’m a pretty good shot”, Hunter doesn’t compete as a shooter. "It would take up too much of my hunting time.”He loves to eat duck ("otherwise I wouldn’t hunt them”) and he’s keen on cooking them too. "Duck burritos, stir-fry, you name it, Mum will cook it,” he said. Hunter lives with his parents Tracey and Brett Morrow.The duck shooting season finished at the end of July, but that’s not too drastic for Hunter because he also loves hunting geese, and they can be hunted all year around."Goose hunting is actually more exciting. The goose is a bigger and noisier than a duck and they’re extremely smart.”You can hear Hunter and others duck calling on the NZ Duck Calling Championship facebook page.PHOTO: Supplied