Michael Batson

The West Coast of New Zealand’s South Island has some of the most stunning scenery to be had anywhere on the planet. The life of Coasters is shaped by the rugged beauty of its landscape which contains a lethal legacy clearly illustrated by recent events. To drive the coastal road of the West Coast is to privilege one of nature’s wonders. Breakers roll into the shore from such distance and volume that the spray given off creates an aeronautical hazard. The bluffs that form the western edge of the Southern Alps descend here precipitously, the road clinging precariously to the terrain. Yet people build their homes here, some basic constructs barely recognisable as worthy dwellings, almost makeshift, eclectic, or transitory, and yet others architectural wonders where envy, from every view point, abounds. People and engineering here hangs tenaciously on. Threateningly nature could claim back its territory seemingly at will. One great wave, a powerful earthquake or mine explosion, and it will be all gone, and those on the Coast have seen them all, the latter most recently. Where people venture in, they do so with trepidation. The sailor battered by high Tasman seas and the relentless waves, finds solace in the sight on the horizon, of this natural phenomenon rising seemingly out of the ocean to both greet and to threaten to seas’ travellers and its survivors with its keel-busting bluffs. Primary industry is paramount is this domain; forestry