The Top of the South Writers Trail suffers from lack of funding, and the TOTS committee does not have the time or resources to maintain the trail. Following is historical information on the trail.

The Maurice Gee Chair

​Dedicated to Maurice Gee (1931  - 2025) by NZSA Top of the South Branch, a chair on the Maitai River bank honours the author.

Click here to read about the 2020 restoration of the chair.

Cliff Fell Poem, Māpua

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 several years. His poems have won many awards and he has published several collections. He lives on a small farm at Ngātīmoti, in the Moutere Valley.
 
Fell 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

Heritage Panels Central Nelson

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.
 
The smaller panel about Appo 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).

The Crinkum-Crankum Tree at Nelson Central School

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. 
 
 
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.