The Paparoas Guide: Andy Dennis

Forest and Bird, Volume 14, Issue 3, 1 August 1982, Page 6

The Paparoas Guide: Andy Dennis

Professor of Zoology

—John Morton.

Here is a book written with a mission: to show how rich and diverse the Paparoa country is and to commend this largely unknown region for a new national park running from high levels to the sea. The book is beautifully produced, up to the highest standards in editing and printing, and it was absorbing to read to one who hardly yet knows the Paparoas. Andy Dennis over the years has come to know this territory, with bush, landforms, and coast, as well as any one living. His book is one that could never have been written just as a hurried brief for a cause. It comes from a tramping acquaintance experience that is wide and detailed, from a love of the terrain, and a desire that it should belong to all New Zealanders. The guide is practical in arrange-

ment, but there is everything there an inquirer could want. It begins with a thorough description of the tracks, with the many walks close to the main highway, and then the longer tramping tracks of the Razor Back road, Buckland Peaks, Pororari River, and Croesus and Moonlight Valley. You learn the story as you tramp, with efficient introduction of landforms and vegetation. There are other special topic chapters: on the central wilderness and the ways into it; caves and caving in this intriguing karst country; the geological history and landforms; and the flora and fauna. All these are well illustrated with photographs and line drawings from a wealth of sources. The result is one of the most compact and thorough accounts we have from any region of New Zealand.

For good measure there are also appendices: on history and local knowledge; directions how.to get there and where to stay; place names, maps, and tramping information. The appendix that will be most used is the summary of the case for a Paparoa National Park. Every member of the Society ought to become familiar with this and be able to advocate it. The region’s unique features would be that it is the only unmodified lowland karst area left in New Zealand; it has an outstanding unlogged lowland forest rich and diverse in birds; it has a spectacular coastline, including the famous Punakaiki ‘‘pancake’’ rocks; and it contains a wide range of geology and landforms. Andy Dennis and the Native Forests Action Council are to be warmly congratulated on their Paparoas Guide.

Andy Dennis and Native Forests Action Council, $12.