Visit to MacKenzie Country

I’m back in Australia after a week’s visit to the ‘homeland’. Ennis and I, with our youngest daughter, spent the week after Easter in the South Island of New Zealand. We spent some time at Lake Tekapo, in the MacKenzie Country, researching for her novel.

Before heading up to Kaikoura we spent two days at Lake Tekapo, experiencing the crispy cold grandeur of the Mackenzie country.

Ennis has written the first draft of a novel exploring the fictional consequences of real events surrounding sheep rustler James Mackenzie. Her novel is online at www.ennisnovel.postkiwi.com. We drove across the Mackenzie Pass, a route discovered by James Mackenzie, to find a stone memorial marking the point at which the rustler was apprehended by John Sidebottom, Taiko and Seventeen on the 4th of March, 1855. Despite his arrest, Mackenzie escaped during the night and fled to the port of Lyttleton, near Christchurch. He was arrested there the next day, tried in Christchurch, and deported back to Australia.

Pictured here is a glimpse of Lake Tekapo, taken through the lense of a matagouri bush beside the Church of the Good Shepherd. Matagouri, a thorny shrub, is the dominant plant form on the hills in this region.