Lighthouse likelys out of luck

Ruapehu Bulletin, Volume 6, Issue 287, 23 May 1989, Page 20

Lighthouse likelys out of luck

If you're thinking of a career as a lighthouse keeper, forget it!

By June 1990 the last of New Zealand's 42 manned lighthouses will be automated, and a romantic tradition dating back 130 years will be lost, reports the second issue of New Zealand Geographic. The last lighthouse to switch to automatic will be the light on The Brothers, a tiny cluster of windswept rocks in Cook Strait. This is New Zealand's only manned rock lighthouse, and because there is no safe landing the keepers have to be winched ashore using a landing crane. "We were lucky enough to be able to visit four of the five remaining manned lighthouses," says Geographic editor Kennedy Warne, "and since the story was written two of those stations have been automated and the keepers made redundant." The four stations visited were Baring Head (Wellington), Nugget Point (near Balclutha), Dog Island and Centre Island (both in Foveaux Strait). Says Kennedy Warne, "The Foveaux Strait light stations are the highlight of the story. The isolation of these

islands is phenomenal. It's hard to imagine how the keepers cope with it, let alone the weather. They tell storics of winds so strong that they burn the tussock black; in one case the wind picked up one of the keepers and nearly threw him over the cliff." The thought of living in a lighthouse has a romantic attraction for many people. The Ministry of Transport, which oversees lighthouse operation, gets telephone calls every week from people wanting to "buy a lighthouse" and get away from it all. "But the reality lighthouse keeping is quite different to our images of circular furniture, telescopes and rescues of shipwrecked sailors," say Kennedy Warne. "We were privileged to get a really close look at what makes these people tick, and it's a very poignant story." Accompanying the article is a full-colour poster entitled Lighthouses of New Zealand, which features a cutaway diagram of Cape Reinga lighthouse as its centrepiece.