Related posts

Description

NEW TITLE INFORMATION A Lighthouse Keepers Cookbook Stories and Recipes from New Zealand Lighthouses by Paul Trevethick 8x10, soft cover, full colour, 154pp, 55,000 words, 52 photos (of station life), 67 recipes. ISBN-10: 1545046395 ISBN-13: 978-1545046395 Paul Trevethick 2017 Available from Amazon.com, UK and Europe Amazon. PAULUS PUBLISHING 8 Banks Lane, Waikino, RD2 Waihi, 3682, New Zealand. Ph 0064-021-028-10045 Email [email protected] Paul was a relieving lighthouse keeper in the 1980s. He went to stations all over New Zealand taking over from the permanent keepers when they took annual or sick leave. In this book he describes the job, workings of the light, shipwrecks, search and rescue, weather, communications, anecdotes. For each of the 10 lighthouses in the book, from the Hauraki Gulf to Fiordland, he tells of the local food available and his own recipes for cooking that food. The book also covers a brief history of lighthouses worldwide and in New Zealand, automation and demanning, Maori history and legend, and an epilogue about returning to Puysegur Point, Fiordland, in 2015 with Neil Oliver for the Coast NZ television series. Being qualified as a chef (10 years at Fishermans Table, Paekakariki) and as a meteorologist (Flight Briefing Officer, Paraparaumu Airport), he writes with knowledge. Excerpt from the Puysegur Point chapter. It isn't the gusts which make you fall over in a strong wind. It's the lulls. Walking about in hurricane-force winds is like being on a tightrope. Just as you sort out the correct body angle to lean into the wind, it drops 30 knots and you end up on the deck. Puysegur Point is wild. Wild weather, wild seas, wild bush, wild animals and wild men. Located on the south-western tip of the South Island, in Fiordland National Park, it has been a lighthouse station since 1879. Keepers loved and hated Puysegur Point. Most times when I was there the wind was at least gale force (on average over 34 knots). On days when it was relatively calm sandflies would swarm. It was essential to wear a hat to stop the things from crawling through your hair to your scalp. The scenery, though, was spectacular. At sea, long lines of 20-foot swells crashed up against reefs and very rugged coastline. Inland there was original native bush. In summer the flowering rata provided a magnificent splash of red against the many shades of green. Gold to pan, crayfish and whitebait to catch and deer to shoot made the weather somewhat bearable. I loved the place.