My Account
Vern Rule’s lifelong fascination for wind technology, including sports, has seen him involved in atmospheric research, hang gliding and land yachting. The 76-year-old Stanmore Bay resident retired a few years ago, and says he’s had time to ‘twiddle his thumbs’, which involves cruising on his boat and taking care of native plantings along the Weiti River – a broken arm was not enough to stop him lending a hand at recent community plantings. He spoke with Terry Moore
I enjoy tinkering with technology and back in 1973 I was a radio ‘ham’, providing shore-based communications from NZ to two boats of protestors fighting the French nuclear testing in the Pacific. This became important for organising supplies and conveying messages from the crew at sea to family, friends and media in NZ. As an electronics technician, I worked for eight years with the RNZ Navy, then at Auckland University, which is how I became involved in a major atmospheric research project. An American research team called SeaAir Exchange came to NZ in the 1980s in search of a baseline definition of clean air. They ended up choosing to take samples at the top of 90 Mile Beach and called on the university to second somebody to help them establish a portable research station. That became my job. It was very exact and detailed scientific work they were doing from a clean-lab container, and two stainless steel towers with dozens of air samplers. The equipment was so sensitive that we could ‘smell’ the diesel fumes of ships that were passing the coast, out of sight. We also picked up emissions from coal-fired power stations in Sydney. Some strange organic sulphur compounds were being collected at low tide and these proved to be pipis belching down on the beach in front of us!
I was then invited to work in the States in the University of Rhode Island’s research reactor, making atmospheric sampling control panels for their next phase of sampling in the mid-Pacific. I was able to take my wife Jeanette and family, and together we traveled 35,000 miles around the States, visiting most of their wonderful National Parks. I also sailed on the vessel Moana Wave, carrying out research northwest of Hawaii. As with the work at 90 Mile Beach, we collected atmospheric samples over many months, eventually irradiating these at the University of Rhode Island in the 2-MW Neutron Reactor. The samples were spectrographed, to analyse their organic or mineral content. Early one morning while I was on watch, we noticed the radiation monitors starting to ‘pop’. This turned out to be the first round of Chernobyl radio-active fallout across the central-north Pacific. Even then, in the mid-Pacific gyre, vast amounts of floating plastics were accumulating and wildlife, in particular bird-life, was being badly affected.
While I was living in Dairy Flat I was doing quite a lot of hang gliding. I took up the sport after a work colleague at Auckland University took me along to try it and I ended up flying for 5-6 years. It’s a different perspective, floating from thermal to thermal with the seagulls – and I also enjoyed cross-country hang gliding competitions. It was largely incident-free, apart from a bit of a smack on the shoulder while landing in turbulent conditions at Mangere. I also developed the Visual Flight Rules exam that hang glider pilots were required to answer correctly to be permitted to fly in shared airspace. Later I took up land yachting and in 1991 I won one of the classes in the land yachting championships at 90 Mile Beach. I took, on average, 100 minutes to do a 100km race, so it was pretty exhilarating.
I spent some of my youth in the Ruahine Ranges and from there grew a deep love of native bush. I became increasingly aware of the threats to our native species, through loss of habitat particularly. In my view the checks and balances are inadequate and despite all this planting there is, I am sure, a net loss of native forest. I am a member of Forest & Bird and have been involved with community replanting projects for decades. My involvement with the Weiti riverbank replanting project in Silverdale came about after I saw an advertisement in Hibiscus Matters about the large scale clean up and replanting project that was starting there. I now know that site like the back of my hand, but was barely even conscious of it before, although I’d been down the river in my dingy a few times.
I ended up staying on at the Weiti, as I could see there was a lot of work to be done to ensure all the valuable planting done by hundreds of volunteers did not go to waste. I spent around 20 hours per week on weed control, establishing minor drains and pathways and looked after pest control – with the help of a roster of trappers. Over summer it got very dry and I was taking in 100 or so litres of water in my 4WD every week and watering all the young plants, as well as barrow loading two truckloads of mulch, which I paid for myself. I’ve also been doing a small amount of top up planting – probably several hundred trees – including some that SOSSI had left over. That work is still ongoing. Some of the original trees we planted are 3-4 metres high now. One of the benefits of this riparian work is to improve water quality and although I haven’t seen it myself, others who go down the river regularly say the water is looking cleaner. There are more insects and skinks around and the birdlife has also improved slightly but you won’t see big changes in bird numbers until the trees mature and start fruiting. The riparian strip is currently interrupted by private properties with riparian rights. What we ultimately hope is to develop a continuation of the strip as a walkway and cycleway with a footbridge to connect with Whangaparaoa Road and Red Beach corner.
Possum strike – established trees dying because of over grazing by possums – is a huge problem along the Weiti River. Right now I am trying to get Hibiscus Coast Forest & Bird involved in another patch that is declining, but there are only so many traps and trappers to go around. I’d call the Chenery Road part of the Weiti a current hot spot for possums. We have taken out more than 100 over three years, but most of them now are coming from the Oxbow Bend Reserve, near Silverdale Pak ‘n’ Save. I’ve managed to get a new volunteer to help me manage pest control down there – after doing it myself for over a year. Initially, all five traps would have a possum in them every week and we’re still taking out two possums a week. As much as I love cats, there’s no doubt that there’s also a cat problem. I have seen cats stalking pukeko chicks and we haven’t had any new pukekos there for several years, despite the presence of adult birds. Local conservationists, including me, are angry that there is feeding of feral cats taking place in Silverdale, which is part of the Northwest Wildlink. Cats do keep the number of rodents down, but we can deal with rodents through pest control, without sacrificing native wildlife to cats.
