A thoughtful TRM inmate sent me a finely crafted you-tube called: Richard Le Fort Autumn Song. A beautiful melody of Autumn colours enhanced by soulful piano music. He must have known – that after many Autumn colours were unfortunately permanently destroyed in Turangi by the swish of a council pen, he was trying to cheer me up!

Dick reminded us that TRM was planning to “compose” our own version of Autumn in Turangi – we are not pretending we can achieve his professional presentation standards, but believed something was needed before the Toe-paw Council decided to remove over 100 deciduous trees throughout the Turangi residential area.

By the time the Autumn colour parade arrived, it was too late. Many trees in town had been removed and the streets replanted with more suitable native non-leaf-shredding species. We are advised this was all part of finding “shovel ready” projects to use Government funds allocated to local authorities i.e. if it was not used it would be lost? Sadly, since then many of the seedlings have been vandalised. Worse, even the replanted larger specimens have since been attacked – sawn through – by local feral kids who seem to delight in wrecking everything. The brats even remind us, skiting they are immune from police prosecution as they are under-age.

The residents in our little tourist town appeared divided by the decision. Toe-paw Council blamed the tree’s roots for blocking water pipes and pushing up the footpaths. They claimed it was essential works? Objectors to Council’s plans provided evidence in other towns where they moved the footpaths rather than destroying the trees. Indeed, anywhere else councils would do all they could to retain such mature fifty year old trees lining the streets and creating such a restful natural beautiful environment.

Those in the new town – developed on the western side of SH1 about 50 years ago – claimed they were tired of cleaning up leaves and generally appeared pleased to see them cut down. They easily outnumbered us ancient tree huggers. They preferred native trees rather than colonial imports. But the visual “before and after” views were disappointing.

Residents in the older part of Turangi were more critical and defensive about making sure the huge oaks along Taupahi Road would be retained as they provide so much mature character to the sleepy fishing village. They questioned how the residents of other smaller tourist towns like Arrowtown or Cambridge would react if their council decided to remove their deciduous trees that were highly valued as visual landmarks for other towns.

Regular tourist visitors, aka anglers, were horrified that Turangi allowed the council to remove them. They could not believe we did not try harder to stop them. The mature trees provided the very leafy character which lifted Turangi out of an ordinary 1970’s suburbia to create something special. Now some streets have reverted to a tired bare appearance revealing poorly maintained rental housing stock which was previously dominated or hidden by the rows of mature trees along the kerbs.

So this Autumn review is offered as a parade of Autumn in Turangi as it used to be, to refresh the fading memory of what it used to look like, what made it so special, with so many 60 year old trees celebrating the changes of the seasons. Some of these photos date from 2006. Fortunately for visitors, the mature deciduous trees on the tourist side of town have survived.

The huge size and varying seasonal shades of the trees, particularly on the Tongariro River side of SH1, are confirmation of the mild temperate climate in Turangi. Excellent drainage is evident on a river delta through pumice soils to a stony sub-strata river bed. Almost perfect arboretum conditions. They add so much emotional and saleability value to living here.

At the moment the rest of the country is being lashed by rain arriving in late Autumn or early Winter blasts. Our new staff member, Juno, is hiding from the thunder under my desk as I try to post this. Meanwhile, in Turangi, the superb trout fishing season continues as usual with the surrounding trees grimly just clinging on to the remaining leaves. Tourist guests adore them. We love them too.