Brand new Shore Excursion to Holland America this year is the Akaroa History and Nature Safari, quoted by guests as the best tour they have ever taken. This exciting new tour takes in the very best of Akaroa scenery and nature and weaves together the early settler stories into one amazing experience. Offered on Noordam and Maasdam in Akaroa.

Marie Haley is the preeminent local guide in Akaroa, bringing together seven generations of Akaroa family history, an in-depth understanding of New Zealand’s history with a a lifetime of experience and a formal education in nature conservation.

Marie is able to create a narrative like no other tour, visiting four of New Zealand’s most important historical monuments, she tells the complete story of New Zealand’s settlement, within an ecological and cultural context.

Incorporating Maori history and culture throughout the tour, you will gain a unique understanding of the change in the Maori culture over time and the rapid speed of transformation once Europeans arrived.

If you really want to experience New Zealand, then this is the tour for you. You will leave with a feeling of deep understanding and connection to this unique part of the world.

What our guests say “Probably the best tour ever, anywhere!”, “Best tour ever!”, “Best tour in our entire trip”, “we feel we have a new friend”, ” This is a see-to-believe experience and Marie will take you off the beaten path to take it all in”, “definitely seven stars!”

Brand new Shore Excursion to Ruby Princess this year is the Akaroa History and Nature Safari, quoted by guests as the best tour they have ever taken. This exciting new tour takes in the very best of Akaroa scenery and nature and weaves together the early settler stories into one amazing experience.

Marie Haley is the preeminent local guide in Akaroa, bringing together seven generations of Akaroa family history, an in-depth understanding of New Zealand’s history with a a lifetime of experience and a formal education in nature conservation.

Marie is able to create a narrative like no other tour, visiting four of New Zealand’s most important historical monuments, she tells the complete story of New Zealand’s settlement, within an ecological and cultural context.

Incorporating Maori history and culture throughout the tour, you will gain a unique understanding of the change in the Maori culture over time and the rapid speed of transformation once Europeans arrived.

If you really want to experience New Zealand, then this is the tour for you. You will leave with a feeling of deep understanding and connection to this unique part of the world.

What our guests say “Probably the best tour ever, anywhere!”, “Best tour ever!”, “Best tour in our entire trip”, “we feel we have a new friend”, ” This is a see-to-believe experience and Marie will take you off the beaten path to take it all in”, “definitely seven stars!”

Dame Anne Salmond visited Akaroa recently for the Akaroa Civic Trust’s 50 year celebration and to discuss the Tahitian navigator Tupaia with Dr Eruera Tarena of Ngai Tahu.

Here is the link to the video of the whole talk:

The following recommendations are based on eight years as the Wildside Co-ordinator working from within the community, from the recommendations of Andy Cox senior pest threats advisor at DOC (2014), widespread consultation, and from national best practice.

Contributors/consulted: Hugh Wilson, Helen Greenep, Alice Shanks, Di Carter, Ian Hankin, Mark and Sonia Armstrong, Asif Hussain, Penny Carnaby, Tina Troupe, Tricia Hewlett, Paul Newport, Nick Head CCC, Robin and Jo Burleigh, David Norton, Maree Burnett, Tom McTavish, Mel Young, Andy Cox,

The purpose of this Trappers Guide is to improve the operation and maintenance of our trapping program. This guide should help professional and volunteer trappers alike and standardise the management of traps across land ownership or tenure.

Some pests are intelligent enough to learn from bad experiences and will quickly discover how to avoid poisons, traps and spot lights if your first attempts to kill them are not successful. Using a range of traps, baits, toxins and techniques and cycling toxins from one knockdown to the next, helps to avoid a build-up of wise, bait or trap shy animals.

Traps that are not managed to a high standard are likely to increase the likelihood of bait shyness as an almost trapped animal is likely to be a never seen again pest. Poor maintenance also increases the replacement cost of lost or damaged traps.

Another key focus of this guide is for trappers to feel engaged, supported and vital to the success of a trapping program. It is hoped that this guide will help to inspire improvements not only in trapping but in your personal safety and enjoyment.

For wilderness is not space, but the life force that inhibits that space.

Marie Haley

In 2007, I spent the first of three summers working on Campbell Island, amongst the royal albatross and New Zealand sea lions. They were to be some of the most formative episodes of my life. It was here with the vast expanses of ocean around me that I first felt the freedom experienced by wild animals, and it was like taking a deeper breath than I known was possible. A breath that still manages to fill my soul with a mix of joy and hope. For wilderness is not space, but the life force that inhibits that space.

To live in a place where no humans reside, where animals rule, turns what we know of the world on it’s head. Our daily experiences are defined by interactions with the world that are controlled and measured, we know the weather forecast, we hear the daily news, we can adjust the thermostat to make our environment more comfortable and all of our experiences with animals tend to be with ones that are either domesticated or have habituated to a human modified world.

All in all we control our world so we are safe, and that safety limits our depth of experience of nature. On Campbell Island, we were the odd ones out, there were no tracks, no roads and no vehicles, no internet, not even a weather forecast and whatever news came was weeks too late for it to be new anymore. We had one heated room and spent weeks on end camping right in a sea lion colony or in tiny huts on the exposed headlands surrounded by albatross.

Living in such simplicity gave the mind so much time to slow down, to notice the finest details of life and to expand into poetic daydreams. The abundance of nature was captivating, so that I never felt a moment of boredom (that feeling of reaching for updates on your phone). There were always interactions to watch, penguins coming ashore in their daily commute or albatross gliding in from ten long days at sea, sea lions defending their place in the world or even just little pipit birds working as camp cleaners hoping around our feet for crumbs.

After some time I felt these experiences of freedom and the beauty of nature working their way inside my brain and rewiring my neural pathways so that I know I think differently than I did before. For me it has left me with a lifelong yearning for more wildness, more freedom. For some time I sought it out by moving from place to place, but when I found that wherever I went in this human world, it was not there, I decided to stay home and recreate it for myself in the world around me. I started to plant trees and flowers to bring in the birds closer around me and to slow down and watch the wild species that are actually all around us, that go unnoticed in our speed.

The Wildside is an area on the outer edge of Banks Peninsula recognised for its high biodiversity value and a community of landowners who have become conservation leaders for their protection of endangered species some of whom are found nowhere else in the world. Recognised in 2017 with a national Green Ribbon Award from the Ministry for the Environment(MfE) and Department of Conservation (DOC) for Conservation Leadership.

 The Wildside started off more than 25 years ago when a farmer Mark Armstrong, who grew up with little blue penguins all over his farm, was showing a visitor a penguin nest under his woolshed. He lifted the floor board to find a ferret in the nest eating the two chicks. Local farmers had wondered why penguin numbers were dropping but this was the first definitive proof that something was really wrong and action needed to be taken! Landowners approached DOC and were able to borrow half a dozen traps. Soon it was found that predators had to be stopped well before they reached the penguin colonies and so trap lines were established by the landowners up the valleys and ten years later DOC established extensive trap lines.

 Now over 700 predator traps cover 7000ha of Banks Peninsula in a coordinated program managed by the Banks Peninsula Conservation Trust in a long established partnership with DOC, Christchurch City Council (CCC), Environment Canterbury (ECan) and landowners. Initially the Wildside was a reaction to the issue of predation of the little blue white flippered penguins (endemic to Banks Peninsula) but at the same time Hinewai Reserve was being established by the Maurice White Native Forest Trust and visionary botanist Hugh Wilson. Around the same time the community of traditional farmers were struggling with the 1980’s financial downturn and started to look to diversify their income and the Banks Peninsula Track was formed. This bought about a change from traditional farming to regenerative farming where beautiful scenery, biodiversity and healthy forest was valued for economic reasons.

 In 2001 the Banks Peninsula Conservation Trust was formed as the only community group in New Zealand who has the legal statute to covenant private land. Suddenly landowners were empowered to manage their own conservation projects and a new era on Banks Peninsula began. BPCT Trustees as landowners were able to talk over the fence to neighbours and promote habitat protection. Hinewai Reserve was an example of how to turn unprofitable and unmanageable gorse infested land into valued forest.

 In 2010, the Wildside coordinator was employed to bring together into one cohesive project all of the many diverse conservation efforts. Born and raised within the Wildside Marie Haley has a grounded understanding of the people and place and worked within the community to set outcomes in a visioning process.

 The Wildside outcomes have four broad themes, people, economy, habitat and species. To engage people in the project, both landowners and the future generations through education. To add economic value to the land, by protection of its environmental health and beauty and to promote a unique story. To protect forest habitat, stream health, sites of ecological significance and promote marine protection. To protect the species that we love and by their presence make this place special; yellow-eyed penguin, little blue white-flippered penguins, titi, Akaroa daisy, Banks Peninsula tree weta, jewelled gecko, morepork, falcon and many more. This process showed people what we had to protect and what we had to lose.

The aim of the Wildside has moved on from the initial protection of pelagic sea birds to become a whole landscape restoration project within a living working environment. That means we love and protect our land while we still continue to thrive here ourselves. Collaborative predator control has seen a dramatic turn-around in the sea bird species. Twenty-five percent of the Wildside is protected through covenants or reserves. But something else is happening on the Wildside, we have the first whole stream protected from summit to sea through farmland in New Zealand. The landowners who created this have quietly inspired landowners all around them and BPCT is in the process of covenanting a second whole stream, the upper catchment being already protected completely by Hinewai Reserve. Many other landowners are protecting the streams in their property.

Local connections don’t get more local than Marie Haley, a seventh-generation resident and experienced tour guide in Akaroa, one of New Zealand’s most idyllic ports. The town is so small that Majestic Princess has to tender passengers from ship to shore.

Haley’s fascinating three-hour tour of the coastal community and surrounding farmlands weaves in important Maori cultural sites and history, such as the infamous Te Rauparara massacre that led to the Treaty of Waitangi.

Combining a deep knowledge of Akaroa’s English, French and Maori heritage with her own engaging family history, Haley takes us far from the town’s well-trodden tourist trail.

After morning tea and scones at Heritage Park, with its panoramic views of the vast Akaroa Harbour, we head for Hinewai Reserve and Wildside Conservation Project on blustery Banks Peninsula, where Haley spent much of her childhood.

The soon-to-be mum now lives on a farm in nearby Goughs Bay which she wants to turn into New Zealand’s first designated “quiet farm” where peace and tranquillity reign supreme — a local hero indeed. Tip: Carry rain gear in Akaroa as the weather can turn in an instant.

Fools & Dreamers is a 30-minute documentary telling the story of Hinewai Nature Reserve, on Canterbury’s Banks Peninsula, and its kaitiaki/manager of 30 years, botanist Hugh Wilson. We learn about the commitment of Hugh and the Maurice White Native Forest Trust to regenerate marginal, hilly farmland into native forest, using a minimal interference method that allows nature to do the work, giving life to over 1500 hectares of native forest, waterways, and the creatures that live within them. When, in 1987, Hugh let the local community know about his plans to allow gorse to grow as a nurse canopy for self-sown native trees, the response was sceptical at best and outright angry and disparaging for the most part – one farmer stating the plan was the sort to be expected only of “fools and dreamers”. Now considered a local hero by town and country folk alike, Hugh’s home at Hinewai overlooks a valley resplendent in native forest canopy, where birds and other wildlife are abundant and 47 known waterfalls are in permanent flow. An inspiring, charismatic personality, Hugh’s passion and enthusiasm for his life’s project come through in every sentence he speaks. A dreamer who has made his dream come true, Hugh has proven without doubt that nature knows best – and that he is no fool.

Written in the Stars by Jane Nicolls

In the tiny port of Akaroa, Marie Haley recently launched her thoroughly researched history safari tour and it’s now a Local Connections tour. A descendant of the original French settlers, Haley recounts the past, including tales of French and British settlers and Maori warriors, and lays out a vision of a sustainable future. She tells us how those early settlers couldn’t sleep for the racket from the native birds, and tells us about The Wildside Project on the Banks Peninsula and conservationist Hugh Wilson’s private Hinewai Reserve, both of which are bringing back native flora and fauna.

Akaroa Conservationist Marie Haley from The Seventh Generation Tours is featured in this months Latitude Magazine for her role in establishing the Wildside Project and new boutique business venture guiding travellers to a deeper understanding of Akaroa History and Nature. #Akaroa #Wildside #BPCT #TheSevnethGenerationTours

Titi burrow monitoring result summary, 1995 to 2018

Watch this video to understand why Banks Peninsula is such a remarkable place!

Local student Marco Varray, 12, has created this winning documentary film in the National Outlook for Someday competition. The film features local characters who tell their story of sustainability, it also captures the unique outlook of this rural community who are passionate about living a sustainable and enjoyable life.

https://theseventhgeneration.org/portfolio/getting-to-know-akaroa-from-the-seventh-generation/

Our understanding of our home and our sense of place is such a vital connection for people’s wellbeing and contentment, I would be honored if I can add to that for both residents and tourists alike.

The more you know about your place of belonging in the world the stronger your connections to community and place can be. This sense of place is one of the greatest sources of meaning to our lives.

It can take many years of observation to fully know the world around you, and your rhythms within it. Over time each place, the stories attached to them and even each tree or rock can start to hold meaning for you, these become your marker pegs as you orientate yourself within space.

As a child I would roam the hills and valleys of our farm, slowly each year I would add new knowledge to my kete (basket). These gems would come from close observations, the time each year the kowhai comes into flower, when it is warm enough for jeweled gecko to be seen, a story told by an Aunty of a memory of my Great-grandmother, little scraps of information from the local newspaper, discussions with friends. And this is how I have built my knowledge of this place. My ambition in life is for that knowledge building to never stop, because this knowledge builds love and a deep connection to this land and the community who shelters here.

This August Seventh Generation will be providing ‘Locals Tours’ especially for residents who may want to add to their kete of knowledge.

Bookings can be made on my website www.theseventhgeneration.co.nz

Akaroa Mail July 2018

O Te Patatu is a spectacular and sometimes dangerous stepping off point into the wilderness. Jutting out into the Pacific Ocean it is the most Easterly point of Banks Peninsula; a beautiful and temperamental in-between place, where ocean, earth and sky merge.

We made the voyage out to this far point last week to investigate the potential for establishing a predator-free sea bird colony. Submerged reefs drive upwelling of marine nutrients, while ocean currents and weather patterns bring a wide range of seabirds close to shore; often visible are royal albatross, giant petrel, prions and Hutton’s shearwater.

Predators drove the last of the burrowing sea bird species to extinction on this headland. A special place to local Maori, it was once an important kai (food) gathering place and has associated oral legends and waiata (songs). If we can build a fence and remove introduced mammalian predators then the natural ecosystem can be re-established.

After weeks of heavy rain and heavier cloud the land was sodden, my heart was racing when we lost traction in the 4WD eventually needing to fix chains to move forward. Out on the point the wind was freezing and ripped through our tough outer layers, but deep to the south a break in the weather appeared across the ocean. Finally after weeks, weak sun shone through the clouds and pushed the rain north, so that we were able to enjoy a cup of tea from the trucks deck and watch the wilderness from the top of a cliff at the edge of the world.

Akaroa’s official Town Crier and I went on a heritage tour recently to celebrate our shared French ancestry. Both descendants of Etienne Francois Lelievre and Justine Rose de Malmanche together we visited special places of remembrance, the Britomart Monument on which Etienne’s name is inscribed, the monument of the landing place of the Comte de Paris that bought out the French settlers including both Etienne and Justine and the ‘family seat’.

It was a memorable day exploring our heritage together.

Yesterday, I found this adult male South Island tomtit dead in a stream. I lovingly bought it home to take photos of it’s incredible beauty before giving it a proper burial.

How do these photos make you feel?

I was in awe of the colors, the delicacy of the bird, it’s perfect form. It must have been all of six-eight grams in weight, for something so small to have so much beauty of life is astounding.

I do not believe that it died of any human induced threat. In fact we have only just started to have tomtits move in closer to our home and can now hear them in the forest close by on most days. They have expanded in their range from Hinewai Reserve ten kilometers away over the 30 years that Hinewai has existed for the protection of nature. As their forest habitat regenerates tomtits are able to expand and are welcomes with joy by me.

Link: Akaroa Mail Article on The Seventh Generation – History and Conservation Tours

Meet The Seventh Generation!

Driven by a philosophy to act for The Seventh Generation after us, Powered by The Seventh Generation of Akaroa’s French Descendants.

For a deeper understanding of this new tour company and why we care about telling great stories and creating a better world for the generations after us, this article gives a great overview.

But there are many stories underlying this and there are plenty more to share!

A wonderful challenging drive to Akaroa follows the unsealed Mt Bossu Road from Little River to Wainui. The views are spectacular and it is a chance to get up close and personal to the digging stick or Ko of Banks Peninsula’s founder Rakaihautu thrust into the hillside to form the peak of Mt Bossu as it is known today.

To know this story and many many more take a tour with me at The Seventh Generation.