A word before you depart
Wednesday, April 3, 2013
The south’s bush is rugged, its mountains treacherous and its seas wild. You read it here first. Or maybe you didn’t. This does, however, seem to be a message that needs to be communicated emphatically and regularly, because it seems to be not nearly as selfevident as we might expect.
Somehow, people continue to show a breathtaking capacity to minimise, or even entirely disregard, the personal implications for their own safety.
They venture into the untamed south with optimism and good cheer, but without having undertaken such dreary chores as consulting about it, as opposed to talking about it, planning for it, as opposed to envisaging it, and training for it, as opposed to hankering for it.
Imagine their surprise when they find themselves badly injured, perhaps even dying, if not forever lost, then rescued in a state of pained distress amid a blaze of publicity and oftentimes well-deserved reproach.
Annual police search-and-rescue statistics are out and Southern District police spent more than any other district on search-and-rescue operations during the financial year. An extraordinary 165 missions in 2011-12 cost the district more than $590,000.
This is something district operations manager Inspector Dave Miller attributes to people being ill-equipped or inexperienced.
It’s not that the search-and-rescue community hasn’t been working hard to educate people to be properly prepared to keep safe in the bush and on the water.
We tend, collectively, to make something of a virtue of people being undaunted. In Fiordland, Stewart Island and the southern wilds in general, that is a thoroughly bad thing. Be daunted, be very daunted, not to the extent of being forever discouraged, because the rewards of foraying into the deepest south with respect and suitable preparation are extraordinary, but anyone who is unintimidated hasn’t been paying attention.
Just ask Richard ‘‘Hannibal’’ Hayes, famed, in spite of his best head-down efforts, for his search-and-rescue work. Find us a single reader who was the least bit surprised that he received the Outstanding Airman Award for his lifesaving work in a 2005 Queenstown fire, an award given to only one pilot in any year.
Mr Hayes has just logged 30,000 flying hours. That doesn’t make him blase about the terrain he covers. In fact, the reverse is true. Being acutely aware of the inherent dangers is what has enabled him to stay atop the land, rather than embedded in it, and above the sea, rather than underneath it.
His celebrated expertise, honed since he began training as one of Tim Wallace’s deer-recovery helicopter pilots in 1975, has extended to avalanche control, firefighting and conservation. To say that he has seen it all is exactly the sort of overstatement he doesn’t like. But he speaks implacably of the need for intelligent discipline. Always be aware of what’s going on around you. Cross the ‘‘t’’s and dot the ‘‘i’’s. Do it right. There’s no such thing as a shortcut. Approach everything with your best professional attitude.
If any of that strikes you as mere cliche, then we have some heartfelt advice.
Stay the hell away from our bush, mountains and seas, until you wake up to yourself.
Or if you still feel the pull to get out there among it all, because it’s wondrous after all, then consult with the people who are ready and waiting to help you know what you need to know to stay safe.