The name Spectre of the Brocken conjures up mysterious images seen
on mountains in Germany. In 1780 the name was given to the phenomenon seen
on Mt Brocken when an enormously magnified shadow of the person watching
was cast on a bank of cloud. It can happen when the sun is low in high
mountain areas. It can happen on New Zealand mountains and I was able to
have this eerie experience on Mt Robert in Nelson Lakes National Park. It
seemed to me at the time that it was a fitting setting for a mysterious
experience as to me Lake Rotoiti and its mountains were places of mystic
wonderment.
My favourite place when I was young was Lake Rotoiti, the beautiful
mountain lake where our family went for many holidays. It is in the Nelson
Lakes National Park about 100 kilometres south of Nelson (the city in which
I spent most of my childhood). To me The Lake, as we called it,
had almost magical qualities. When I hear bellbirds or grey warblers
singing in the bush I can still recapture some of the feelings of
enchantment I experienced when I arrived there as a child.
We stayed in a small cottage nestled in the bush about ten minutes walk
from the lake edge. It was called Robin Cottage because of the curious
robins which frequently visited there especially if any firewood was
being prepared by sawing or chopping dead trees recovered from the
nearby bush.
The mountains around the Lake are clothed in beautiful beech forest
right down to the water's edge for the full distance of the St Arnaud
range and for much of the Mt Robert range. However Mt Robert, which
starts half way down the Lake on the opposite side to St Arnaud, presents
one end which has had a very different and forlorn aspect. In the early
years of last century there was a major fire on the side facing the
foot of the Lake where visitors first see the view. This fire left a forest
of blackened tree trunks where there had been green forest. This is what I
saw in the late 1930s when I started having holidays there.
With the passage of years bush has started regenerating, helped in places
by areas of planting by
conservation staff and volunteers. The view now is of large areas of
manuka trees on the lower slopes and the start of regeneration of beech
and other trees. For those who saw the former desolate view it is a real
joy to see the area regaining its forest cover.
Mt Robert was and is a good place for tramping. On one special occasion
my father took me and a friend of mine on a tramp up the face of Mt
Robert and we had two very notable experiences there.
In those days there was no convenient bridge over the Buller River,
which has its source at the foot of Mt Robert , and there was no road
going some distance up the northern ridge to a parking area as there is
now for the convenience of skiers. The best way of getting there was by
boat to the foot of the mountain.
On the day of our tramp the sky was completely overcast and Mt Robert
was completely covered by cloud. However it was not raining so we decided
to carry on with our planned climb and we set out as soon as it was light
enough.
My father owned a dinghy and we rowed across the smooth waters of the
Lake to the starting point. We pulled the boat across the shingly shore
and into the only remnant of green bush remaining on the face so that it
would not be easily visible to casual passers by. We shouldered our
packs and set off.
At first it was an easy gradient but it soon became very steep and we
had to zig zag across the face to ease the effort. We passed bracken
and grassy areas and were constantly reminded of the fire which had
roared across the area as we passed by towering black tree trunks and
clambered over and around the fallen ones, with their root systems making
interesting lattice-like patterns looming up through the mist.
We had some misgivings as we climbed because cloud remained thick over
the mountain and we were not certain that we would get any view as a
reward for our hard work climbing.
Eventually we decided to make for a ridge as the going seemed to be
easier there. We paused and had some refreshment, but the mist was still
thick. We then followed up the ridge and eventually found that the mist
was getting more patchy and we began to sense that there was a sun above
us somewhere.
As the light grew stronger we suddenly saw a very strange sight. Outlined
on the mist to the side of the ridge we could see some large ghostly
figures enclosed in a huge halo of light with rainbow colours at the edges.
The figures moved and after a time we realised that their movements
mirrored ours,
so they were actually some sort of shadow of us.
Later when telling others of this experience we learned that
there was a name for this phenomenon - Spectre of the Brocken. We
watched it and tried different movements to vary the silhouette, and
prolong the experience. Eventually, thinking that we might get into
sunshine, we carried on up the mountain.
The mists were swirling around us and then quite suddenly we were above
the cloud. What we saw was breathtakingly beautiful. There was a sea
of white woolly clouds and protruding from it were the sharp rocky tops
of the mountains of the area. Aeroplane travellers today probably
become blas? about such sights, but for us at that time it was stunning.
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