Kerikeri photographer Claire Gordon on a shoot.
The art gallery at No 1 Parnell in Rawene is holding an exhibition called Layers and Landscapes Aotearoa, with the subtitle art and photography.
The photography in the exhibit is provided solely by Claire Gordon of Kerikeri, who operates under the business name of Flash Gordon. Her surname lent itself amusingly to the word association of the protagonist in the space-adventure comic strip.
With the ongoing advances in technology, she ponders whether AI could ever replace the elements of her work that show mana, heart and soul.
“My photography seeks to capture emotion and the imperfections that make us real.
“With minimal editing, I strive to honour both our whenua and our people, revealing their essence, their emotion, and the unique imperfections that remind us of our shared humanity.”
She said at times her artistic side leads her beyond the lens: she may desaturate a photograph and reimagine it with mixed media that breathes new life into the image and transforms it into something unexpected.
She arrived in New Zealand in 2007 from England, where she was a fund manager in charge of a portfolio worth £65 million ($160m). She endured burnout twice and decided to move to New Zealand so she could spend more time with her two sons and enjoy a healthier lifestyle.
When she arrived, she retrained in mental health and worked for 12 years as a mental health coach/counsellor. However, she felt she needed to do something connected with her creative side, took the plunge and set up her photography business.
The major benefit of running her own business in a small community is that she has been pushed to cover all aspects of photography, which she loves. She also runs workshops and teaches. There is also a downside.
“Truthfully, living in a relatively small community it is a struggle to have consistent earnings and at times I could not have survived without falling back on my savings,” she says.
She recently purchased a darkroom set-up so she could go back to film, to enhance her creativity. She also has a love of travelling and with one son in Europe and the other in Australia, she plans on going to see them, while adding to the journey countries she hasn’t been to before.
The No 1 Gallery exhibition in Rawene will run until October 13.
The well-established Walking Weekend started 12 years ago and this year it runs from October 9-12. The walks take place around the Far North to Cape Rēinga.
Around 250 people participated in the walks last year and 466 walks were sold. This year’s tally is down, with around 100 fewer people participating.
Of those who did the walks last year, 60% were from out of the region, which boosted the local hospitality coffers. Spokesman William Fuller said most people travelling for the walks stayed for between three and five nights.
Around 40% of the participants were from all around the North.
There are 24 walks of varying degrees of toughness. These range from the easy grade, which is suitable for anyone and tracks are of a good standard, mainly flat with a few gentle rises, to hard, where a high fitness level is required. Tracks in the hard category are variable to rough, with longer distances and steeper sections.
In between those a medium level of fitness is required for grade two, which ranges from a mix of flat to hilly with well-formed tracks, to medium-to-hard where good fitness levels are required. Tracks are of variable but good quality, including more demanding climbs.
One of the walks includes a kayak section. It starts with catching the ferry from Russell to Paihia, walking along the waterfront to Waitangi Bridge and then paddling up the Waitangi River. This “walk” culminates at the base of the Haruru Falls.
For the more laid-back, there is a dining and imbibing walk at Paroa Bay. Friday is wine-and-dine night, or there is the lunch option on Thursday and Saturday. Omata Estate, closer to Ōkiato, offers afternoon pizzas and wine tasting on Thursday and Friday.
There is a new walk to Cape Brett lighthouse with a visit to Whangamumu Whaling Station and with an overnight stay.
Yet another option is to sail to Moturua Island aboard the Ōpua-based tall ship R. Tucker Thompson on Saturday, October 11.
Bookings essential: www.bayofislandswalkingweekend.co.nz
More than 100 people crowded into Russell Town Hall to hear what Heritage New Zealand Northland manager, Bill Edwards, had to say about Russell potentially being nominated as a Unesco World Heritage site.
He said he’d had two weeks to put a presentation together.
“I got a phone call from Department of Conservation [DoC] and they said I had to explore the option but I’m still unsure how it landed on my desk,” he said.
He wanted the Russell community to first accept the concept and secondly, move it forward to the tentative list for approval.
New Zealand already has three Unesco World Heritage sites. Two are natural wonder sites – the Subantarctic Islands and Te Wāhipounamu – while Tongariro National Park is a combined natural and cultural heritage site. Edwards said he thinks Russell would fit into the mixed sites category.
Why Russell? Edwards said the town and precincts are of proven historical significance, there is architectural integrity, a cultural and heritage interaction, there are a number of pā sites in the area and there is the historical and contemporary maritime connection.
“Aotearoa New Zealand was the last ‘bus stop’ for colonisation in the world,” he said.
He outlined the benefits of becoming a Unesco World Heritage site. These include international recognition of Russell, which gives rise to more tourism and economic development, and this would strengthen Māori identity.
The potential downsides are over-tourism, environmental degradation, gentrification and a loss of local control.
He said what the community needs to do is establish what precincts would be used in any submission for tentative heritage status and what would be included, or not included, in the application. There is a deadline of January 2026 for this to happen.
“This is just the opening,” he said. “There is a much larger process to go through and the community needs to look at the eligibility requirements.”
There is competition, with a reasonably long list of New Zealand sites that have qualified for tentative heritage status, including Auckland’s volcanic fields and the Napier Art Deco precinct. The sites on the tentative list have the strongest potential to be inscribed as globally significant World Heritage sites.
The key partners in the Unesco World Heritage decision-making are DoC, the Ministry of Culture and Heritage, Heritage New Zealand, local government and the National Commission for Unesco.
Edwards suggested the entire process to acceptance to a World Heritage nomination could take 10 years.