Spring in Queenstown and the Wakatipu has to be the most exciting season. As the world awakes from it’s winter sleep, Spring is a celebration of new life. In my last post I talked about the distinct stages that create a sense of growth, change and evolution.
The first signs as daytime temperatures lose some of their bite and nightfall reaches a more reasonable hour are a green fuzz of buds appearing on trees. Then as we start to experience short bursts of tantalizing warmth, the arrival of spring is heralded by mass of pink.
Apples and cherries, especially ornamental varieties, line roads and byways, bare skeletons clothed in rose and white garlands, like so many balloons – decorations for the coming festival of colour.
While all eyes drink in this celebration of new life, the next color is gathering strength. Over hill and dale, where the green is deep and strong, blushes of yellow are showing. Quickly they spread and become more intense until soon, whole valleys and hillsides are swathes of bright and golden yellow.
The plants are intruders – prickly gorse and fast spreading broom – brought from Europe a century ago as cheap alternatives to fencing, they spread across open land like a plague. A scourge for farmer and conservationist alike, we have to pause, in spring, and savour this gold as it glows in the bright, new sun.
