The Top of the South Writers Trail weaves its way across Te Tauihu, the Top of the South Island of New Zealand. At its heart are several significant sites, honouring writers who have called the region home for all or some of their lives or have a deep connection to the whenua (land) as a result of writing about it.
The Maurice Gee Chair
Maurice Gee enjoying the sunshine while sitting on the chair built to honour his writing legacy.
Nelson locals honour Maurice Gee following his death in 2025 by leaving flowers on the chair.
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Chair on the Maitai River bank honours author, the late Maurice Gee (1931 - 2025)
In May 2011 the NZ Society of Authors Top of the South (ToTS) Branch dedicated a chair on the banks of the Maitai River to honour the group’s most distinguished member, Maurice Gee. The ToTS branch commissioned the high-backed, armed chair, which was hand crafted from macrocarpa by Tony Nightingale of Y-Not Furniture. Nelson City Council agreed to the chair being installed under a dogwood tree on the banks of the Maitai as a work of art. The chair sits near the path where Gee and his wife Margareta walked regularly. At his request, it is angled to face towards the Centre of New Zealand. The plaque bears a quote from Gee’s 2001 novel Ellie and the Shadowman: ‘The plane made a wide curve, banking so Ellie looked into the mudflats, then righted itself; and she saw the black Doubles and the yellow Dun and thought, I’m home.’ The chair’s unveiling on 28 May followed the branch’s 2011 AGM, where Maurice Gee was guest speaker. A large group assembled to watch Gee cut the red ribbon tied around the chair, and toasted him in sparkling grape juice. In his written thanks to the branch Maurice Gee said: ‘I had my doubts about being brought into the open and faced with cameras etc, but now that it is all done, the seat installed, the talk given, the ribbon cut, the cameras put away, I find myself looking back on the occasion with pleasure, and looking forward to passing my seat on the river bank from time to time, and sitting in it for a rest and a little quiet contemplation. I'm pleased that my books have been read and enjoyed and that they and I have received this recognition, in such well-crafted form, from my fellow writers.’ Born in Whakatane in 1931, Gee wrote more than 30 novels, several of which have become films. His works’ realistic descriptions of a sometimes dysfunctional small-town New Zealand society earned Gee numerous accolades and awards. He lived in Nelson in the 1980s and returned there in 2007, where he died in June 2025. Click here to read about a Nelson Mail/Stuff article about the 2020 refurbishment of the chair. |
Maurice Gee plaque at Botanical Reserve, Milton Street, Nelson
In 2012, keen young readers from Tahunanui Primary School’s Room 12 were instrumental in getting a plaque mentioned in a Maurice Gee story placed on a seat at the Botanical Reserve.
Early that year they read Gee’s book The World Around the Corner, which is set in Nelson. In it the main character, Caroline, meets Moon Girl at a seat at the Botanics which has a plaque with the words “Bide a Wee” (meaning Stay a While), where she hands over a pair of magic glasses. In May the class walked around Nelson visiting settings from the story, but were disappointed to find there was no plaque on the seat.
The pupils wrote to the editor of the Nelson Mail saying: “We think the plaque should be on the seat so other children reading the book can also go and look for it, sit on the seat and remember the story.” Nelson City Council took notice, and gave the seat a plaque. The pupils wrote to the Nelson Mail again in September 2012, thanking the Council for making the “Bide a Wee” plaque. They felt a sense of accomplishment to have helped get the plaque installed. “We think it looks fantastic,” they said.
The seat is at the Botanical Reserve, known as the Botanics, on Milton Street, at the beginning of the path leading up to the Centre of NZ. The original plaque was lost, presumably to vandals, and was replaced by the Council in 2025.
Early that year they read Gee’s book The World Around the Corner, which is set in Nelson. In it the main character, Caroline, meets Moon Girl at a seat at the Botanics which has a plaque with the words “Bide a Wee” (meaning Stay a While), where she hands over a pair of magic glasses. In May the class walked around Nelson visiting settings from the story, but were disappointed to find there was no plaque on the seat.
The pupils wrote to the editor of the Nelson Mail saying: “We think the plaque should be on the seat so other children reading the book can also go and look for it, sit on the seat and remember the story.” Nelson City Council took notice, and gave the seat a plaque. The pupils wrote to the Nelson Mail again in September 2012, thanking the Council for making the “Bide a Wee” plaque. They felt a sense of accomplishment to have helped get the plaque installed. “We think it looks fantastic,” they said.
The seat is at the Botanical Reserve, known as the Botanics, on Milton Street, at the beginning of the path leading up to the Centre of NZ. The original plaque was lost, presumably to vandals, and was replaced by the Council in 2025.
Cliff Fell Poem, Māpua
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Poem evokes mood of Māpua Estuary
The waterfront park at Māpua includes a tiered concrete amphitheatre leading down to the water with a series of linking paths, a boardwalk along the water’s edge and a viewing platform. Sand-blasted into the back row of the seating in the amphitheatre is the poem “Quietude of the Inlet” by Tasman poet, Cliff Fell. Fell was the winner of a competition organised by Māpua Community Library. Entrants were invited to create a poem which evoked the estuary and its many moods, all within four lines of a specified length. Read more about this in a Nelson Mail article published in September 2011 The park’s development was part of Tasman District Council’s remediation of the former Fruitgrower’s Chemical Company site, which was heavily polluted after years of pesticide manufacture. Park designer and landscape architect Robin Simpson incorporated layers of meaning into the park: the relationship of Māpua people to their community and the landscape, while recognising its history. The poem is part of this concept. It reads: To feel the breeze and lapping of a wave In the springtime they will come, Wandering out of the sun: the birds The smell of salt (and vinegar), a pied stilt picking at a shell: as I will wait and watch for you: spoonbill and godwit, heron on the foreshore, don’t be shy. Turn me tides, into this again: the light that leads to the sea. Born in 1955, Cliff Fell taught Creative Writing at Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology for many years. His poems have won many awards and he has published several collections. After living on a small farm at Ngātīmoti, in the Moutere Valley, for several decades, he now lives on the Kāpiti Coast. Cliff read his poem on 2 October 2011 during the blessing of the Rabbit Island Mapua Ferry, which is part of the Great Taste Cycle Trail. |
Cliff Fell’s poem on the amphitheatre seating
From the amphitheatre looking across the inlet
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Heritage Panels, Central Nelson
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Karen Stade is a researcher and writer of Nelson history, with more than 30 years of professional writing experience. She is a twice former president of the Nelson Historical Society and in 2017 she was awarded a Queen’s Service Medal for services to historical research and the community. Click here to read more about her.
Three heritage panels in the suburbs of Nelson city draw extensively on her work: one a double-sided panel telling the story of the central city suburb, The Wood, and its Italian settlement, and the other two documenting the life of New Zealand’s first naturalised Chinese immigrant, Appo Hocton. Karen describes the unveiling of the panel in The Wood in July 2020: ‘Five years after Karen Price and I co-wrote and published Pasta, Prayer & Promise: the story of Nelson’s Italian Community 1860 - 2014, we were both on hand for the official unveiling of a heritage panel celebrating the community. As it happened, I was wearing two hats at the ceremony, both Italian historian and speaking on behalf of the City of Nelson Civic Trust, which jointly funded the panel with the Nelson City Council and of which I am a trustee. ‘The panel is on the corner of Tasman and Grove Streets, right in the heart of The Wood – Nelson's own Little Italy. On one side is the story of The Wood and on the other, the Italians who called it home. On hand to share the occasion was a large representation of the Italian community and Wood residents, including our good friend Belinda Wheatley, who promoted the panel to the council and wrote the text using Pasta, Prayer & Promise. Speaking were the Italian Ambassador Fabrizio Marcelli, City Councillor Gaile Noonan, Club Italia president John Esposito, Italian senior Francie de Leva, and me.’ The panels describing Appo Hocton – full name Wong Ah Poo Hoc Ting – use information drawn from Karen’s book Appo Hocton: New Zealand’s First Chinese Immigrant, Nelson 1842 – 1920, which was published by the Nelson Provincial Museum in 2010. Both panels are in the Washington Valley area, where Appo first hid out after jumping ship in October 1842. He was the first recorded Chinese immigrant to New Zealand, and in 1853 was the first naturalised Chinese. Appo became a successful trader and landlord and owned multiple properties in Washington Valley, some of which still exist. The larger panel gives an overview of his life and successes. In 2017 Appo’s descendants approached Nelson City Council asking to have a previously unnamed walkway running between Pioneer Crescent and Valley Heights named after him. It became Appo Hocton Way in 2019, and in August 2020 a small panel giving some information about him was attached to the street sign. |
The panel about Italian settlement in The Wood is on the corner of Tasman and Grove Streets (nearest dwelling 71 Grove Street)
The larger panel featuring information about Appo Hocton is on the edge of Pioneer Park, a triangular area bordered by Washington Valley Road, Hastings Street and St Vincent Street. The panel stands on St Vincent Street, very near the intersection with Hastings Street.
A third, smaller panel about Appo (not pictured) is at the Pioneer Crescent end of Appo Hocton Way. Pioneer Crescent runs off Hastings Street (the nearest dwelling to the panel is 5 Pioneer Crescent).
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Poem on a boulder at Rototai Beach, Mōhua Golden Bay
As part of the Top of the South Writers Trail, Helen McKinlay’s poem, ‘Low Tide at Rototai’, was unveiled on what is now known as the ‘Kaitiaki Boulder’ at Rototai Beach in Mōhua Golden Bay in July 2019.
Helen McKinlay tells the story of this Rototai Environmental Arts Project (as told to Chrissie Ward, former chair of the NZ Society of Authors Top of the South Branch):
I have been a regular visitor to Rototai Beach since 1981. Back then, it was dominated by the adjoining rubbish dump and the smoke from the Golden Bay Cement Works. But there were always those who appreciated its natural beauty; who loved the wonderful feeling of walking way out at low tide. Looking back from out there, one is in the centre of Golden Bay; encircled (from left to right) by the mountains of Abel Tasman National Park, the Pikikiruna Ranges, Rameka and the Takaka Hill, the view up the Motupipi inlet to Mount Arthur, and the mountains of Kahurangi National Park, which stretch round into the West Coast. And always, beyond the horizon lies the long length of Onetahua, Farewell Spit, with Mount Taranaki looming in the background. Lastly, there are the mysteries of the ocean bed and the multitudes of birds who feed there; royal spoonbills, white faced herons, pied oyster catchers, pied stilts, black shags and the rare kotuku, to name but a few.
'Three years ago, I had a strong urge to gift my poem 'Low Tide at Rototai' as a gesture of aroha to this place which had suffered so much. After much thought, I chose a boulder as its frame. I searched for a boulder people could touch and enjoy, one they could lean on as they stared out to the ever-changing views of tide and inlet. One that would have a space to place my poem on, in letters big enough for those who had left their reading glasses at home.
'I had no idea how to find a boulder, how many hours of work it would entail, how many people I would talk to, how many emails I would write, how many permissions I would need, how to approach the funding. Or, that the project would increase exponentially until it became more about the spiritual connections between people, arts and the environment. An act of kaitiakitanga.
'On 13 July 2019 the boulder, an ancient piece of Papatūānuku from the Jurassic period, and the poem, not quite so old, were finally unveiled before a large gathering of people. Members of the Manawhenua Ki Mohua performed a karanga and waiata, and it was time for my daughters, granddaughters, and myself to lift off the harakeke covering made by Sarah Homibrooke. I talked about the project, and then all present joined in the singing of Mozart's version of 'Oona Nobis Pacem' (Give Us Peace). Flautist Patrick Riddett played 'Her Mantle is Green' (an old Irish air), and there was a final karakia before kaumatua John Ward Holmes asked people to walk up to the boulder, touch it and read the poem. My greatest wish had been that this gathering of people would be like a large dose of aroha for this place and I felt it was. There were a few teary eyes and a lot of emotion expressed before we all chatted over our cuppas under the warm winter sun. All in all it was a gorgeous Rototai Day.'
The project was funded by Golden Bay Community Trust and Tasman District Creative Communities.
Helen McKinlay tells the story of this Rototai Environmental Arts Project (as told to Chrissie Ward, former chair of the NZ Society of Authors Top of the South Branch):
I have been a regular visitor to Rototai Beach since 1981. Back then, it was dominated by the adjoining rubbish dump and the smoke from the Golden Bay Cement Works. But there were always those who appreciated its natural beauty; who loved the wonderful feeling of walking way out at low tide. Looking back from out there, one is in the centre of Golden Bay; encircled (from left to right) by the mountains of Abel Tasman National Park, the Pikikiruna Ranges, Rameka and the Takaka Hill, the view up the Motupipi inlet to Mount Arthur, and the mountains of Kahurangi National Park, which stretch round into the West Coast. And always, beyond the horizon lies the long length of Onetahua, Farewell Spit, with Mount Taranaki looming in the background. Lastly, there are the mysteries of the ocean bed and the multitudes of birds who feed there; royal spoonbills, white faced herons, pied oyster catchers, pied stilts, black shags and the rare kotuku, to name but a few.
'Three years ago, I had a strong urge to gift my poem 'Low Tide at Rototai' as a gesture of aroha to this place which had suffered so much. After much thought, I chose a boulder as its frame. I searched for a boulder people could touch and enjoy, one they could lean on as they stared out to the ever-changing views of tide and inlet. One that would have a space to place my poem on, in letters big enough for those who had left their reading glasses at home.
'I had no idea how to find a boulder, how many hours of work it would entail, how many people I would talk to, how many emails I would write, how many permissions I would need, how to approach the funding. Or, that the project would increase exponentially until it became more about the spiritual connections between people, arts and the environment. An act of kaitiakitanga.
'On 13 July 2019 the boulder, an ancient piece of Papatūānuku from the Jurassic period, and the poem, not quite so old, were finally unveiled before a large gathering of people. Members of the Manawhenua Ki Mohua performed a karanga and waiata, and it was time for my daughters, granddaughters, and myself to lift off the harakeke covering made by Sarah Homibrooke. I talked about the project, and then all present joined in the singing of Mozart's version of 'Oona Nobis Pacem' (Give Us Peace). Flautist Patrick Riddett played 'Her Mantle is Green' (an old Irish air), and there was a final karakia before kaumatua John Ward Holmes asked people to walk up to the boulder, touch it and read the poem. My greatest wish had been that this gathering of people would be like a large dose of aroha for this place and I felt it was. There were a few teary eyes and a lot of emotion expressed before we all chatted over our cuppas under the warm winter sun. All in all it was a gorgeous Rototai Day.'
The project was funded by Golden Bay Community Trust and Tasman District Creative Communities.
Kaitiaki Boulder featuring a poem by Helen McKinlay
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The plaque featuring Helen McKinlay’s poem, ‘Low Tide at Rototai’
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The boulder in its harakeke veil
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Helen McKinlay speaking at the unveiling
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The Crinkum-Crankum Tree at Nelson Central School
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In the grounds of Nelson Central School there is a tree that has been immortalised in children’s literature as the Crinkum Crankum tree.
The tree, a bougainvillea vine, is in front of historic Renwick House. The house dates from the 1870s and has been part of Nelson Central School since 1939. The tree is thought to be nearly as old as the house. It was the inspiration for Robyn Belton’s illustrations for Margaret Mahy’s book Crinkum-Crankum. Published in 1983, Crinkum-Crankum is about a witch who curses a tree so that it grows ‘crooked and lazy-crazy.’ Robyn Belton didn’t have far to look when Margaret Mahy asked her to illustrate the story. The Beltons lived in Nelson from 1967 to 1992, and their three children attended Central School. Robyn said: ‘I heard the part about the twisting branches and the tree being covered in flowers, and I knew the perfect tree.’ She took her coloured pencils and sketched the tree while children climbed in its branches. The tree’s importance was recognised in a ceremony in October 2006, when a plaque was placed next to it on the side of Renwick House. Robyn Belton attended the occasion, for which pupils decorated the tree with ribbons, toys and letters of thanks, and they sang a specially-written song. Margaret Mahy (1936 – 2012) is the most acclaimed of New Zealand’s writers for children. She was the author of more than 120 titles and received numerous awards, both nationally and internationally. Read more about her here. Robyn Belton (1947 – ) has illustrated many New Zealand children’s books, including Joy Cowley’s stories about Greedy Cat. Read more about her here. |
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GETTING THERE
Enter the Central School grounds from Alton Street, next to the large redwood. Go straight ahead, past the red-painted library building (Te Ipu Matauranga). Take the path curving slightly uphill on the left, which leads to Renwick House. The Crinkum Crankum tree is at the western corner of the verandah.
Enter the Central School grounds from Alton Street, next to the large redwood. Go straight ahead, past the red-painted library building (Te Ipu Matauranga). Take the path curving slightly uphill on the left, which leads to Renwick House. The Crinkum Crankum tree is at the western corner of the verandah.
Denniston Literary Trail honouring Jenny Pattrick
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This trail guides readers to the place that inspired two best-selling novels.
Jenny Pattrick's writings about the hard life on the Denniston hills, a coal mining settlement on the West Coast, captured readers' imagination. The Denniston Rose (2003) and its sequel Heart of Coal (2004) are among New Zealand’s most popular novels. For many decades Denniston was the country’s largest producing coal mine. The coal was loaded into railway wagons and lowered by cable down a dramatically steep incline railway – the Denniston Incline, an extraordinary engineering feat. The miners and their families lived on the windswept plateau, where their isolation forged a close-knit community of up to 1500 residents. Two houses and restored mining relics are all that remain today. While researching her books, Jenny Pattrick spent considerable time at Denniston, talking to locals and acquainting herself with the geography of the old mining town. People are now able to visit key sites featured in Jenny Pattrick’s novels thanks to a self-guided trail developed by the Denniston Heritage Trust, supported by the Department of Conservation and Jenny Pattrick. It takes visitors along 17 key locations from the books, presents the author reading extracts from them, and provides quick and easy access to historical photographs and video clips, plus oral history from ex residents and former miners. The official opening of the trail took place at Denniston on 31 March 2012. Jenny Pattrick introduced the tour, performed live readings and guided visitors to the locations of her novels. The Denniston Literary Trail is available for self-paced visitors in a printed brochure and as a free downloadable app (pictured), which you can download from here. Jenny Pattrick (born 1936) has written a number of other titles as well as the two set in Denniston, and is considered one of NZ’s most popular contemporary novelists. She has been awarded the OBE for services to the arts, and has received the NZ Post Mansfield Fellowship. |
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