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Geoff Chapple from Te Araroa to Terrain
The answer is writing a book. But it is not just any book.
Terrain: Travels through a deep landscape is “a quest for New Zealand’s tectonic secrets” and travels the length of Aotearoa New Zealand’s geological landscape.
From basalt in Northland to the black gabbo of Bluff Hill, and beyond, Terrain digs deep into the 300 kilometres of Te Araroa and Aotearoa’s range of landscapes.
Chapple spent a year researching the book, travelling the country meeting scientists, experts and aficionados from the world of geology and uncovering the story of how our country was created and has matured.
“I call the book a quest for New Zealand’s tectonic secrets,” Chapple says. “It’s my quest really. The professionals understand – well they understand some of it – but the story isn’t widely known beyond that. I had a reasonable amateur knowledge of the tectonics, but I didn’t know it well either. So I went into their realm, and wrote about that, and about them as people. I didn’t simplify any of it particularly, but I hope I’ve conveyed the force and circumstance and dimension, and turned it into a kind of trail literature.
Chapple was route-finding for Te Araroa through the Richmond Range, behind Nelson, in 2002 when he saw the Red Hills for the first time.
“I think that was the growing point for the book itself,” he says now. “I could see those rust-red hills through the trees ahead, glowing like a sunrise. I learned later they were sea-bed rock that lay on the land like a wrecked ship. The forest had recoiled at the edge of those hills. Beech hadn’t evolved to cope with the magnesium-rich soils the rock produces. So how did the Red Hills get there? It took a geologist to tell me. I found that fascinating, and I knew then I’d go back and find out as much as I could about all the trail landscapes.”
Terrain: Travels through a deep landscape was published in 2015 by Random House.
The question to ask now is what will Geoff Chapple do next?
