Lessons from the Landscape: Kamberg and a return to wildness

As a kid we visited and fished Kamberg a fair bit.Many of us did.

I have fond memories:

• Jumping out of my skin when concentrating on a rising fish, in my own little world, when a ranger came up on the river bank alongside me  unnoticed and asked “Liseeence?”  Followed by the rattling off of every Trout fly that he knew. He knew a lot of them!
• Booking  Stillerus beat number one, and being excited at being offered beat two in whispered tones by the lady in the office, as no-one had booked it that day. I felt so privileged!
• Mown paths along the course of Stillerus, with beat markers.
• Smartly dressed guards at the gate, with gleaming boots, snapping to attention for every car.
• Creeping through wattles and brambles on Game Pass, trying to get to the river.
• Lots of fishermen.

I could go on.

Now, alongside the broken down Trout hatchery, and having entered a crumbling, abandoned gate house, you will encounter this:

The grass is not mown, and the picnic table is toppled and broken.  No guards. No salutes. No picnickers.  But notice the ring-barked tree. And notice how on Game Pass you don’t need to go creeping through the wattles.  I find wilted, sprayed (treated) bramble there quite often.  And no other fishermen, apart from a very small band who extoll the virtues of the stream on Facebook.

So things fall apart. But not completely. Conservation is still taking place, it just is not being offered on a plate to paying guests. Interesting. Money is being spent on conserving nature, but the source of income to fund it has been abandoned.

Stillerus is wild and unkempt, and the authorities have moved their own staff into the cottage there, that one could once hire, so that there is no longer accommodation for visitors.  The fishing is still excellent.

Heard any news on how Stillerus is fishing lately?

I thought not.  You have to know someone now. In a sense it is more private. You definitely will not encounter other fishermen there.  Try Googling it. You won’t find much, and what you do find is outdated. Did you hear about the four pounder that was caught there this season? 

You need to know someone.

But it is still there, and it is available to those who seek it out.

  Whoever seeks it out might have to get involved in spraying the bramble at some stage, or ring barking a wattle tree, or engaging with the authorities to partner on getting it done.

And while we are in this phase of a return to wildness (I am looking forward to Duncan Brown’s new book!) , restaurants have proliferated  lower down in the catchments. Country restaurants, which people drive out to, and at which they while away the hours on a deck overlooking a mountain or a river.  When Kamberg was in its prime, people didn’t have access to such things, but they would pack sandwiches and go for a walk or some flyfishing in the country.   Kamberg is empty. The restaurants are full. And the one who hikes up to the very upper Mooi to see how far up he can find Trout, is an intrepid explorer, but one who will claim to “go there all the time”, when in fact he was last there three seasons back. The place is empty, and it is there for the taking by a shrunk band of flyfishers.  A band, which I believe are more proficient fly fishers than the droves of casual fishermen who used to visit Kamberg, and fill the coffers of the conservation funds.

Maybe it lends itself to a guide, and there is an opportunity there for the “resort” to be accessible again in that way…….. but experience shows that there are not enough visiting fly-fishers to keep a guide in business in these parts. 

So it is wilder, arguably unkempt, in a way that doesn’t matter, but possibly at risk of a lack of environmental management.  One could get philosophical about what the desired outcome is.

(Read HERE and HERE)

Where to from here?  I don’t know. I have been blamed for giving away “secret spots” like this one, but having done so, it still is not crowded. And if someone called for volunteers to spray the bramble on Stillerus, I wonder how many would put their hands up?