This work is I suppose the subjective product of a curious mind and a compulsive drawer. –Desmond Bovey
by Tony Orman
Spotting a falcon in the Park
Growing up in W’anganui, Desmond Bovey, knew the Tongariro National Park well. So when he returned to New Zealand after thirty years in France, there was an urge to revisit the landscapes that he had known as a teenager. On his return in later years, when walking the Whakapapa section of the Te Araroa Trail on the western side of Mt Ruapehu, he chanced upon a native falcon. Fascinated, he sketched the bird on an old envelope using a biro.
A skilled artist, Desmond Bovey discovered — not for the first time in his life — “a satisfying technique for seizing moments that are at once both commonplace and special, even dream-like.”
That five minute sketch of the falcon (karearea) would be the genesis of a book. Over the next year he returned to the park repeatedly, equipped with sketchbooks and pencils.
The author had no pretensions about being a scientist, even a pseudo one and of producing a scholarly study of Tongariro National Park.
A beautifully presented book
The end product, so well presented by the publishers, is a revealing, beautifully written and delightfully illustrated perception of the Tongariro National Park. Revealing is a key word to the subject.
Most people travelling the Desert Road from Waiouru to Turangi, intent on the journey and destination would see little to note or even admire. It’s likely most would describe it as desolate, hence the name Desert Road. However Desmond Bovey has a nice style with words and as he says, avoiding “superlatives – grandiose, majestic, magnificent”
Tongariro is all of these, but if the road traveller, angler, hunter or hiker looks hard enough, there is a unique ecosystem with subdued, and subtle hues.
A unique landscape of many hues
The author writes,” Tongariro’s essence, its uniqueness, lies in its colours – the brooding lives and ochres of upland vegetation, the stony greys of scree and lichen, the light-absorbing green of beech and the startling postcard blues of its lakes.”
In his art work he found he only had to use “a very limited palette, returning again and again to only four or five colours – olive, natural sepia, sap green and here and there daubs of Naples yellow and Venetian red”.
“These are the colours of Tongariro’s landscapes; manuka, tussock, lichen, lava, clay, scoria and scree.”
Desmond Bovey adeptly paints both with prose and his art work the vegetation, landscapes, insects, birds and animals that inhabit the park.
I did like his recognition of the undeniable fact that New Zealand’s vegetation has been browsed and evolved over millions of years. “The bush – forest – has lost most of its surface and many of its original birds. It now has deer and goats nibbling its saplings instead of moa and takahe.”
The dust jacket describes the book as exquisite. Indeed it is.
A great price for a classy book
At the bookshop price, it is a terrific book to buy for your bookshelf.
And next time you travel the Desert Road or round by the Whakapapa- National Park side, you’ll very probably see the Tongariro National Park in a different light as a place of its own unique beauty and wild life.
Yet even if you don’t visit the area, the information and art work portraying the animals, birds, insects, trees and shrubs applies to other regions.
Very highly recommended.
Tongariro National Park: An artist’s field guide by Desmond Covey, 200 pages with over 400 illustrations is published by Potton and Burton, Recommended Retail Price $39.99.