Welcome to the Midnight Collective Broadsheet 116
Actively
supporting NZ’s endangered wetland birds
Ridgway Lythgoe The Early years
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| Ridgway and friend (Kaka)...Kapiti Island 2016 |
Ridgway was born in Wellington
NZ in the war years, 1944, then went to school in the Hutt Valley. He has been
involved in conservation work throughout his working life; initially with the
Dept of Lands and Survey before transferring to the Conservation Department following it’s establishment by Helen Clarke in 1989.
Much of his spare time has been utilised in traversing the wild areas of New Zealand and he has lived and worked out of Whanganui for many years now. He is a legend in his part of the world, lauded for his volunteer work with a range of organisations including Forest & Bird, Bushy Park, the Tramping Club and Friends of the Whanganui River.
Much of his spare time has been utilised in traversing the wild areas of New Zealand and he has lived and worked out of Whanganui for many years now. He is a legend in his part of the world, lauded for his volunteer work with a range of organisations including Forest & Bird, Bushy Park, the Tramping Club and Friends of the Whanganui River.
Early in his career he undertook
two stints at Scott Base in Antarctica, the first from October1967- January 1968.
He then put in the full year 1977-78, first as deputy leader and then leader
over the winter months at the base.
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| Antarctic ice fall 1978 -foto RL |
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| Cape Hallett, looking across Edisto Inlet |
He was a 23
year old in 1967 when he worked as part of the New Zealand Antarctic research
programme. Transported down in a US
Hercules he was involved in providing summer support. He was initially occupied
with the construction of buildings at Lake Vanda in the Wright Valley. This NZ base was established at this time. Then he journeyed out to Cape Hallett.
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| Weddell Seal |
This was a joint NZ US Base (now closed). Here
he tagged Weddell seals and undertook a census survey. The workers were
transported to the colony in a US icebreaker which ferried them in by helicopter
for 5 hours at a time. The census
took a week.
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| Scott Base vista -foto RL |
He then took off on his OE
for four years before returning to Lands and Survey. In his second stint, from
which this selection of images is drawn, he spent a full year on the ice from
October 1977 to October 1978. Here
he was seconded to the DSIR as Deputy to Rob Straight, and then stayed on as
leader through those long dark winter months.
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| Scott Base 1978 -foto RL |
There were 65 at the Base, then another
65 in the field and he spent the summer managing the field parties,
maintaining the radio schedules and overseeing, transport logistics. It was
also his job to keep tabs on health and safety, before there was a healthy and
safety; a critical responsibility in such extreme conditions.
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| Dry Valley Antarctica 1978 - foto RL |
In winter
all this activity stopped, and there followed the haul through that long Antarctic
night until the sun once more lifted up above the horizon.
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| Port - McMurdo Sound 1978 -foto RL |
It was short walk to
the US McMurdo base however where there was always a welcome and this led to
some memorable nights with the
Yanks, especially on reaching Mid-winter, and then through July 4.
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| Scott Base - 1978 foto -RL |
Ridgway used
to give a summer lecture on Antarctica in the DoC Summer Nature Programme, which
would pack out early, so you had to reserve your seat. He is a droll speaker and one of his most
memorable anecdotes concerned the decision to allow women on the base for the
first time. This was taken by a cautious New Zealand bureaucracy which decided
to add one female to a party of eleven males as an experiment to see how things
went. She had the pick of the party and soon settled into a top bunk with a
beau; causing the usual consternation in the rest of the party.
They never
sent a woman down on her own again.
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| Guiding the tour - Ridgway at Pipiriki - Whanganui River 2006 |
To
be continued…
Track we were listening to while posting this Eddie Cochranes Summertime Blues because, though its mid winter over here, it still feels like autumn or early spring. Is global warming really starting to show its hand down here?
I'm gonna take my problem to the United Nations
Well I called my congressman and he said quote:
"I'd like to help you son but you're too young to vote"
Sometimes I wonder what I'm a gonna do
But there ain't no cure for the summertime blues
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