The Gliding (soaring) Centre of New Zealand. Scene of many world gliding record attempts: a unique opportunity for long distance and high altitude flights. Listen to the audio guide.
Driving south from Mt Cook across the high plateau of the Mackenzie Country, the land is vast, open, brown, empty – more like the outback of Australia than the typical blue-green landscape of New Zealand.
The tiny settlement of Omarama sits at the southern end of this mighty plain, its parched hills climbing up to meet a wide blue sky often streaked with white cirrus cloud. And it is this high, clear sky that has put Omarama on the world map as a prized area for gliding, or soaring, as it is often known.
Having hosted the 1995 World Gliding Championships, the area now draws flying buffs from around the globe to ride its hot thermals. The sky has also played a big part in the Maori traditions of this area. The story is told of how Rakaihautu dug up Lakes Ohau, Tekapo and Pukaki 1000 years ago, his people living in the area through summer to gather food. Elders saw how the moon (marama) affected the waters of these lakes and the moods and retention of ideas of their people. They named Omarama (food of the moon) in recognition of this storing of information.
Southern Maori staunchly decried the purchase of this inland area in 1877 when north Otago was being bought outright from its Maori owners. Te Maiharoa led his people on a protest march and took up occupation of a site by the Ahuriri River. Their protest was over-ruled and they fled to the coast Rivers are also an integral part of Omarama’s identity. It is just east of here that the rivers draining Lakes Ohau, Tekapo and Pukaki converge at Lake Benmore and continue down towards the coast as the mighty Waitaki River.
The Ahuriri River, which drains a vast inland area past Omarama, rumbles through the town along its stony riverbed, and is home to both rainbow and brown trout. It, too, augments Lake Benmore. The rare native black stilt, kaki, lives in this and other local rivers and is benefiting from a concerted conservation effort to restore numbers and protect its endangered habitat from modified land use and predators.
Omarama draws strongly from its physical location. Fuelled by the activities available in the sky, the rivers and on the many walking tracks nearby, the settlement provides a popular stopover for a few hours or a few days. Rakaihautu’s people were right to recognise its potential 1000 years ago.
TWO AND A HALF HOUR GLIDING EXPERIENCE
MOUNTAIN ADVENTURE ONE HOUR TRIAL FLIGHT
Omarama is on the Alps 2 Ocean cycle route. There is a marvellous Golf Course here.
Image credit: Peter Whiteford
Bee Boxes Omarama by Alec Tayler is a print which captures the landscape. Buy it on-line.
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