Swamp Fever - a Golden Bay memoir

Review by Martin Conway

It is probably safe to say that until now no-one has written about about an open space covenant. This has changed with the publication of Gerard Hindmarsh's book Swamp Fever.

Gerald will be known to many as an author, a writer of travel articles about South-East Asia, and for a cameo role in a television documentary that retraced explorer Heaphy's steps on the West Coast of the South Island.

Swamp Fever is a highly entertaining account of Gerard’s swamp and life in Golden Bay. Soon after purchasing the property, there were plans to drain the land but these were rejected at the eleventh hour and a growing love affair with the swamp began.

Gerard started to explore the swamp and over time its special values were revealed to him. He discovered it was a fernbird habitat and a refuge for rare plants and the native fish, the giant kokopu.

Gerard protected 1.4ha of the wetland with a QEII covenant in 1988. I first met him when I worked for QEII Trust in the top half of the South Island and on my annual visits I was able to share his discoveries and passion for his swamp.

His story reinforces the many advantages of covenanting, the long-term committment to the land and good management of land.

There is more to this book, however, than a story of a swamp. It is an amusing and a remarkably frank account of life in Golden Bay in the 1970s when the counter-culture arrived in force.

It is also a story of initial suspicion by the conservative farming community towards the hundreds of 'hippies' who descended on the Bay and of how these two cultures came to terms with each other, resulting in the diverse and creative community of Golden Bay that we enjoy today.

Photo below: Gerard Hindmarsh doing maintenance in his swamp.

September 2007

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