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"There are no people, no roads
or habitations. Occasionally a group of trampers walks up the valley
and just as seldom Glen Lyon station musterers come for a day or two,
but their momentary presence leaves no traces and changes nothing."
Quoted
from Momatiuk and Eastcott: High
Country. This book is a quality pictorial presentation of the
High Country: land, people, work and seasons.
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There
are stations in most mountainous areas of New Zealand. The only
major exceptions would be Fiordland, as well as the higher areas
of the Southern Alps, along the main divide. As a result there
is a variety of landscapes, landforms and climate conditions as
wide as that of the country's mountainous regions.
In
the North Island the high country stations area broadly follows
the greywacke mountain axis of the island, from the East Cape
to Cape Palliser, through Hawke's Bay, along the edge of the Ruahine
Ranges, Ruapehu, and across Manawatu and Wairarapa to the Wellington
area.
In the South Island stations are spread right from the northernmost
tips of d'Urville Island and Cape Farewell, all long the mountain
areas of Marlborough, Canterbury and Otago, and down to Southland.
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The
Vista on Glenary station, Central Otago
A
wholly different landscape from Peter Newton's description of
Mt Algidus station, quoted above: from the Raukumara Range in
the East Cape area of the North Island to Southland at the bottom
of the South Island, high country stations encompass a great
variety of landscapes and environmental conditions.
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The
land of high country stations may be described in greatest details
in the books of Peter Newton "Big Country of the South
Island" and "Sixty Thousand on the Hoof - Big
country South of the Rangitata". These books are not
recent and the photographs are black and white. But the description
of the land, complemented with historical perspective and the
life and work on the stations, is both detailed and enlightened.
Philip
Holden's books, Station Country I, II and III, which
are up-to-date, offer an excellent choice of colour photographs
of landscapes and land settings of high country stations both
in the North and South Island.
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Philip
Holden, 1993: Station country I - Back-country
Life in New Zealand. Hodder Moa Beckett.
Philip
Holden, 1995: Station
Country II - Returning to the New Zealand Backcountry.
Hodder Moa Beckett.
Philip
Holden, 1997: Station
Country III - The Last Muster. Hodder Moa Beckett.
Yva
Momatiuk and John Eastcott, 1980: High Country.
Reed.
Peter
Newton, 1973: Big Country of the South Island.
Reed.
Peter
Newton, 1975: Sixty Thousand on the Hoof - Big country South of the
Rangitata. Reed.
Peter
Newton, 1980: High Country Journey From Glen Lyon to Molesworth -
one man's remarkable saga. Reed.
Peter
Newton, 1983: The World of Peter Newton - The Best of his High Country
Writing. Reed.
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