Kia ora,
Thanks for stopping by… Weathertop is our home and livelihood and we’d like to share a slice with you.
The Weathertop whenua (land) is 10 acres of gently sloping rewilding native bush bought in 2012 from a group of Buddhists who had been using a wee 3x3m tin shack, now the Bach, as a silent retreat which we believe has amplified the good juju of the place.
Since then we have built our home working with a permaculture design system to include solar hot water and solar power, we collect rain water, use compost toilets, eat from the organic vege garden and food forest, and believe developing our community sufficiency is really important.
We share our land with a handful of ducks, chooks, and a heaving menagerie of wild birds, plants, fungi and bugs. The birdlife here is incredible and we’ve even been lucky enough to find Giant Stick Insects and a very rare Green Forest Gecko. We have the blessing of dark skies and bright stars, surrounded by native bush and always in the distance there is the sound of the Ocean pounding on the shore.
We love sharing our alternative way of life with visitors, and enjoy hearing how we’ve inspired people to slow down and maybe sow some seeds or plant a tree of their own.
Dion & Liz
A bit of History
The name Karamea is used for both the township and the whole area. It has two potential meanings in Te Reo Māori: Sweet-scented gum: a contraction of the phrase Kakara-taramea; the gum was made from the leaves of the speargrass plant. Also: Red ochre: a colored clay that was used for war paint on the face and body.
Transient Maōri heading south on the Pounamu trail knew Karamea as a good place to stop for kaimoana | seafood for more than 600 years. The mouth of the Heaphy River is the site of an early Māori encampment dating back to perhaps 1380 AD, and there is evidence it was one of the few sites in the northwest South Island occupied by people for extended periods of time - which is understandable when you experience the unique natural beauty here.
The first Europeans and Chinese to settle here would have been early gold-miners in the 1860s, followed by European families starting to pioneer a settlement in earnest in the 1870’s. The Weathertop land was marked out and sold to Mr & Mrs Strange from the Shetlands in 1876 who clear cut the land and tried their best to farm on the poor pakihi | ‘iron pan’ soil. As more people arrived to face life in the Karamea bush, the settlement spread to the fertile river plains below the terrace, known as ‘The Promised Land’. To our best knowledge once again in the 1940’s the land was clear cut and farmed for a while before being allowed to regenerate back to ngāhere | forest.
Tracking the age of the trees on the short walk from the back door up to the lookout point on the zig-zag track tells the story of how the early European settlers shaped the landscape, and how it in turn continues to change.
We love learning about the history of the whenua | land we tend and would welcome any more knowledge. Karamea Museum is a gold mine of local tales and interesting artefacts - thanks to the team there for helping us to find out more about our place.
