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Tuesday, 31 August 2010
When Bevan Kelly says he's been on his feet all day, no-one would think he means standing on water.
The Whitby barefoot waterskier's four months of intensive training paid off when he won the senior men's world championship title in Germany recently.
Twelve skiers from New Zealand competed at the World Barefoot Waterskiing Championships in Brandenburg, which comprised three events - slalom, tricks and jumps.
"I knew I was in with a really good shot and the focus wasn't just on getting a really good placing, it was to win," Kelly says.
He set an Asian Australian record for his final jump in the competition of 24.1 metres.
"That really shook the American [also vying for gold]. I think he went over thinking, 'This is mine', then when he saw me competing he thought, 'What is going on here?'."
Kelly puts his success down to experience. After 27 years in the sport he has reached the goal he set as a 10 year-old just starting out.
"I've been in this sport for a long time and the dream was always to win a world championship. Now I've done it and I'm really happy. From experience I just know how to keep calm and not let the event overwhelm me and treat it like any other training day."
Last year he came eighth at world champs and has won nine New Zealand titles.
Although barefoot waterskiing is a worldwide sport, Kelly says it's "not huge" in New Zealand, so he appreciates all the support he gets, especially from family. "It was a huge help having [wife] Jodie there. She sort of took all the stress away and handled things so I could just focus on training. It was a real bonus."
Tuesday, 31 August 2010
Many people today believe the Moriori are extinct, never existed, or were a Maori tribe.
But an exhibition currently on at Pataka signals the growing renaissance of a distinct people who are not lost and will not be forgotten.
Although modest in scope and simple, but elegant in presentation, it is immensely affecting, emotionally and intellectually.
The Moriori of Rekohu Island, in the Chathams, call themselves t'chakat henna (people of the land), echoing the Maori term, tangata whenua.
However, Moriori migration across the Pacific, landing on Rekohu Island about 800 years ago, was parallel but separate from Maori.
At the first European contact in 1791 perhaps 2500 Moriori lived there.
Europeans, bringing dogs, pigs, cats, guns and diseases, were devastating to the Moriori food supply, contributing to the deaths of hundreds of Moriori between 1800 and 1830.
What Moriori call the Maori "invasion" in 1835 led to killing, disease and slavery, because the Morirori had renounced violence and war 500 years ago. In 1862 there were only 101 Moriori left.
The New Zealand government sided with the "conquering" Maori, and Moriori were left with only a tiny fragment of their land.
The exhibition is built around the statued figure of the last known Moriori of full descent, Tommy Solomon (Tame Horomona Rehe).
It tells the lives and stories of Moriori descendants on Rekohu through original photographs and those from Pataka curator Bob Maysmor, also a photographer.
Among those shown are Tommy's grandson, barrister Maui Solomon, of Titahi Bay, who is a member of the board of the Hokotehi Moriori Trust, which sponsored the exhibition. It runs to January 29. See pataka.org.nz and moriori.co.nz for more information.
Michael Kopp - Kapi Mana News
Saturday, 21 August 2010
There has been a steady stream of offenders through the courts who are charged with various offences, but those involving unlawfully taking and possessing paua dominate the cases. Fishing in a marine reserve is obviously prohibited, but unlike restricted areas on land where fences and signs can identify closed spaces at sea it is mainly a question of being able to read a chart. And it would not be hard to stray too close to water which is closed to all fishing.
This is exactly what happened to a party of four men who were fishing in a competition being run out of Whangamata.
They were trolling lures near Mayor Island when they were spotted by DoC officers who determined that they were inside the boundaries of the Tuhua or Mayor Island Marine Reserve.
When the DoC officers stopped and checked the boat they found that the men had not caught any fish but that didn't save them.
The DoC staff confiscated the nine rods on board, worth about $10,000.
The four were charged with fishing in the reserve and when they appeared in the Tauranga District Court were each fined $400. They also had to forfeit the $1400 they had paid DoC to retrieve their confiscated rods.
That's a total of $3000 for dragging some lures where they shouldn't have been fishing.
It is important to know where the boundaries of these reserves are, as these four anglers may have had no intention of fishing in the reserve and just didn't realise they had wandered into it.
Scientists are asking scallop gatherers to keep an eye out for tagged scallops in the new season which opened on July 15 around much of the country, and runs through to February 14.
Over the last couple of months Niwa staff have tagged more than 9000 scallops in Golden Bay, Tasman Bay, the Marlborough Sounds, Northland and the Coromandel.
This is part of a Ministry of Fisheries research programme, and anyone who catches a tagged scallop is asked to keep it in a plastic bag in a freezer and phone Niwa on (09) 375 2050 or 0800 746 464.
The scallop season in Auckland, Northland, Waikato and Bay of Plenty opens on September 1 and runs to March 31.
There has been a steady stream of offenders through the courts who are charged with various offences, but those involving unlawfully taking and possessing paua dominate the cases.
Paua are worth so much money on the black market that poaching is a major problem right around the country.
Once the illegal take gets to more than three times the legal daily limit, which in the case of paua is 10, the charge becomes one of serious non-commercial offending.
Not only do the maximum fines increase but there is also the possibility that the Ministry can charge the offender with taking the fish or shellfish for supply, which comes under the Fisheries Act which covers commercial fishing, and is far more serious. For example, serious non-commercial offending carries a maximum fine of $20,000; while taking for supply carries one of $250,000.
A group of nine people found diving near Wellington's Titahi Bay had a concealed self-sufficient camp set up nearby, and when apprehended they had 1182 paua, of which 804 were undersized.
Of three who have appeared in court one was sentenced to two years' jail, and the other two got home detention.
When Porirua man Manua Fasavalu appeared recently in the Porirua District Court he pleaded guilty to four charges involving illegally taking and possessing excess and undersized paua under the Fisheries Act.
He was sentenced to 17 months in prison and was banned for fishing for three years.
Another of the group, Neru Kome, also from Porirua, was sentenced to five and a half months' home detention on two similar charges and was banned from fishing for three years.
As well, a vehicle and dive gear were forfeit to the Crown.
Four other members of this group are yet to be dealt with by the court.
More fishing action can be found on the new internet television channel, www.FishnHunt.Tv.
By Geoff Thomas
Wednesday, 18 August 2010
A truck crash that left at least 30,000 Wellington motorists in gridlocked traffic for hours was caused by a moment's inattention, police say.
The southbound lanes of State Highway 1 near Porirua were blocked for nine hours yesterday after the driver of a Roadstar courier truck and trailer lost control about 5.30am.
Sergeant Mike George said there was heavy rain at the time but police believed the driver lost control because of either inattention or fatigue. 
He said the truck drifted on a corner about a kilometre south of the Mungavin Interchange.
As the driver tried to regain control the trailer hit a bank, then the unit jack-knifed, rolled and slid almost 100 metres down the highway. The driver was not injured.
Traffic was diverted through Tawa and on to State Highway 58 to the Hutt Valley – which then caused delays along SH2 into Wellington.
Mr George said all three highways were largely gridlocked between 6.30 and 9am – affecting at least 30,000 people – some of whom missed flights out of Wellington.
Though flows started returning to normal after 11am, the crash scene was not cleared until 2.45pm. Boxes from the truck were strewn over 100 metres and 30 firefighters were called in to deal with flammable gas bottles and hazardous chemicals still in the trailer.
Wellington Employers' Chamber of Commerce president Richard Stone said he could not put a dollar figure on the traffic delays.
"It will have been significant from a business perspective, and incredibly disruptive. I think most employers are understanding and forgiving of that, but some are not."
Glen Hooker left his Waikanae home at 8am yesterday, but after waiting in Paremata an hour, was only at Porirua by 11.15am. When he heard it would take a further two hours to reach Wellington he decided to head home.
"It's unbelievably frustrating. Obviously accidents happen but there was no plan B in place," he said.
"Tens of thousands of vehicles were affected by this [but] there doesn't seem to be anywhere we can get the latest updates."
He said if people had known more about the extent of the delays they might have stayed home – easing the traffic.
New Zealand Transport Agency's Wellington operations manager, Mark Owen said there was an 0800 number and website that provided detour information, but up-to-date traffic delay information was hard to get.
Other signs at Plimmerton and Mana Esplanade, that were used for the T2 lanes, should be able to give other traffic messages in the coming weeks.
Mr Owen said radio broadcasts were still the most effective way to get information to motorists. There would be a debriefing with police to see how well that went.
The driver of the crashed truck is to face a careless driving charge and is being investigated by the police's commercial vehicle unit, with further charges possible.
Britton Broun - The Dominion Post
Photo: Maartin Holl