Maverick
Until 24 March I watched as my family became busier and busier. Running the family and the businesses at the Head of the Lake was one long grind with endless craziness with flooding roads, people coming from everywhere expecting everything and not being satisfied with dirt roads and sandflies. The family drove everywhere trying to get the kids to town for everything, to bring food for the business, driving miles to get the rubbish out and everyone just was in constant turmoil. The times I came to Queenstown we would sit in traffic for hours, have to park a thousand kakapo claws from where we needed to be in town and feeding the big kids became a logistical, expensive and unsatisfying time. There was no chance of finding fresh nuts for me or native flowers in a comfortable place to sit.... it was all about the tourists. It was one big rush and this was in the most beautiful city in the world.Sitting at home with the family, I have had some great Kakapo chats with all the lovely folk here in bubble number one and have plenty of time to reflect on my 50 years of life thus far, on what in my Kakapo opinion we really should do now in our beautiful Wakatipu.
Mavericks Opinion on What Queenstown is and What it wants to be:
My family tell me Queenstown is the tourism capital of New Zealand. People come to do lots of crazy things from jumping off bridges and out of planes, to roaring up rivers, canyoning down them, eating and drinking and adrenalising - not sure that really is a word, though I quite like it. What it means for me as a well-rounded Kakapo is the city is about tourists and not the people that choose to be here and to live here. Now that the tourists aren't here, we can make this the best living city in the world. Well at least in my Kakapo world. The one thing I wonder is rather than all these crazy people flying here from around the world to be here for just two weeks, why don't we make it the best place to be and attract the best of the best (whatever that means though best brains and hearts come to mind) and create an inspirational hub for people and birds to live and work in. As a bird that really shouldn't in theory fly, I know how far it is from New Zealand to the rest of the world. Being a studious bird I also made sure I fully understood the CNN quiz on sustainability so even if people don't fly here, the cost of freight is really really huge for the environment so we need to think really carefully before we export lots of things to faraway lands! Now a little bird told me we have superfast fibre so if we were the best place to live, surely some incredibly bright people might come here that need fast fibre. I'm thinking a Bird biz Dodo I mean Dojo! Instead of teaching English, maybe we can be a hub for coders like Python (that sounds scary) no snakes in NZ, please. Seriously, we have all this knowledge in the world and people really want to live here. Let's leave a little birdseed (Jacinda please) for them to come in for. Perhaps the birdseed could be swapped for a Knowledge, research and development outpost, inspirational office space where we research and develop AI (BI - Bird Intelligence is pretty good) though I understand that we really do need AI, how about genetics and bioengineering and how to engineer the worlds best living city. Let us teach new politics and economics, social science and new city planning. Doughnut anyone? A little bird told me that World College was on the cards to come here at some stage....that tells me as an old Kakapo that we are probably a good place to educate some of the worlds finest bird brains and human ones too. So Let's build the best city in the world.Bird style living
In my opinion, humans are so wasteful. You never pay for the true cost of anything! Now I've said it and I will get off my Birdbox. When we live in the bush we reuse everything. Why do we have to send everything away to be recycled? What do we need to do to use it all here? The magpies reckon that there is so much we could use in our waste piles - it is just so jumbled up. If it was my chance to reinvent things I would start with waste. I can't believe all the food that is thrown away. How about a big churny thing to make new earth from all our newspaper, food, tree bits. Please Jim and David P? Next, we need a way of sorting all the rubbish that gets thrown out. Now, I am thinking that there must be a really clever way to sort all this out and the magpies agree! After the clever sorting has taken place the raw materials could be used in our local 3D printing plant to make all the clever parts we need locally. My bird brain is thinking about how there could be an industry in pre-sorted materials (think Ray's job in Star Wars) and extra birdseed could be earned by local families and kids prepared to sort valuable things properly. Where there's muck there's birdseed as my mum used to say. Now there is a cool chap called Martin who knows a lot about 3d printing of super-duper special parts from knees to plane bits and he would be a great person to consult with. He really quite likes it in the Wakatipu. In my bird brain, I can see lots of things being designed in Softworks and being printed ready to be built right here in town. Now before we leave waste I want to talk about poo!. The bottom bits are great - we should celebrate them. Let's just get this to the right place and think of this as a resource and not disgusting waste. Anything new that needs to be built should be built to regenerate the best gardens and the richest soil. Now talking of gardens. If we don't need all that runway at the airport perhaps we could do a bit of a waste transfer an create a dream garden growing food for Queenstown away from the shade of the mountains. Why are some of the best gardens on high priced property areas? The value is in the soil folk. Any bird brain knows that. Time to keep these amazing places going where they should be. Crystal Gardens of beautiful leaves for healthy birds like me.What do people do all day:
Aviation
Air New Zealand was definitely my favourite way to fly as one of the worlds first flying Kakapos. Now, they have been quite clever and have been joining with Wisk to fly electric air taxis. Wouldn't it be great if you didn't have to maintain roads, could stop the noise in my poor kakapo ears and fly to all sorts of places like Milford in an Air Taxi? Now, Jim, we need to make provision in the district plan to land these things and other than thinking this is a solution to all the erosion happening onto these expensive roads, I don't know what they need to land! So aviation of a different kind and something that isn't frightening to us birds. I hear electric planes can fly nearly 1000 km now - how cool is that! As quiet as a bird - well except for those noisy tuis! Where could we land some of those? We need to fly our residents in and out after all.On the lake
The craziest thing about our lake is that to my bird brain it seems like a no brainer, though I have been told how crazily hard and expensive it all is. When the Kinloch wharf was no longer viable, John Glover (one of my humans) had to organise a new wharf quick smart to be able to land people safely when they came to Kinloch by boat as well as bring the children to Glenorchy for school. It took a week of Rene's time and a bit of number 8 wire and recycled timber to build a suitable new one. It was sturdy enough to be used on many occasion for civil defence emergencies and yet, to in theory do it properly it is a gazillion pounds of birdseed in consultants fees, designers etc. Let's get down and dirty together and build some wharves so everyone can get around by lake and not worry so much about these expensive roads. Perhaps we could have the pontoon variety so we can move them when things get a little crazy with rivers filling up our beautiful lake. Talking of pontoons - and talking of bubbles. Electric Sea bubbles are in production with the first 40 coming this year. Go Orange could Go Green and run Sea bubbles around the Queenstown area to Lake Hayes, Shotover Country and beyond. Electric ferries could run the length of the lake.Before the birdseed has been laid there will be time to kill, as the tourists aren't here to grind us down and we need things to do. Let's link our communities further with more cycleways and pedestrian areas. Let's get into the backcountry, learn about our nature deeply and really work on conservation and pest control. Let's grow our community with all the links we have now and more so we can become lifelong learners, focus on our best physical and mental health. Travel Agents can become lifestyle agents helping people link with the things that will fulfil them through sport, wellness, education, social and love. Let's pioneer new ways of connecting. Let's not use Booking.com and Expedia. Let's create a new Queenstown or NZ hub and a new NZ media hub that links us with other kiwis and then unite to spread our message to the world on other networks as the best place to live in the world. Let's keep great media alive by linking this with the NZ based booking channel. Let's make this the hub for online shopping, media, travel and all other services.
Medicine and Well-being
Building
Queenstown is filled with people who reimagine our space, though what say the brief included making and sourcing all material from the area. How do we use the wilding pine? As a bird, I much prefer to be in our beautiful natives, though I could use some of the pine material for nesting. Kakapo nests are generally hidden away in tree trunks though we always have plenty of stuff to snuggle on. Pine Needles aren't much fun when they prick your butt though there must be a use for the stuff. Now the trees really know something and I think we need to follow the trees. James Cameron understood this when he created the tree of souls. Let's work out how to listen to the trees through their mycorrhizal network and understand how to grow and use in a way that preserves my forest home. Let's focus on making our buildings so smart that the cost is in the build and the running cost is virtually nothing. Let's work out how we can integrate solar networks to back up our sustainable hydro. Let's make sure the water we use is reusable when it leaves our properties. Let's science the hell out of the building industry. Thanks, Andy Weir!Communication and currency
Talking of Andy Weir. I happened to listen to Artemis and here they were using Gizmos. What is the next thing after the mobile phone and do we really really want to use these germ-infested things? Let's reimagine something we don't need to touch all the time. Let's have a watch we can ask questions to and glasses as our screens. Let's stop touching things. Then there is currency. Could we have a dual currency? One for the basic needs that we receive our UBI in and then the street currency we use to choose and pay credence to our favourite artists, bands, musicians, speakers and imaginers. A currency that has kudos and is earned through passionate pursuit.Our village collective and social spaces
Every accommodation type, family, group areas need their social spaces. Let's build social spaces for each area connected by Sea bubbles that everyone can come together to. Where art, dance and music classes can be held and collective learning and socialness can take place. What space do we need in our homes for our personal wellbeing? Let's make this a science, let's turn to Biomimicry to find the answers and not try and reinvent the wheel. Let's pay for dance and music with our kudos currency. Kudos consultants can help with communications and the building of personal brand - Thanks David Glover Don't worry about the Robots!Governance
Well, interesting times are ahead. Now we can all watch ORC meetings live and more entertainment lies ahead with QLDC meetings recorded and available on YouTube. If I was a magical bird like a phoenix I would ensure these were popularised and a running poll was taken for the council to ensure we constantly had the best people for the job. People who consistently behaved badly, were self-serving and not a good pick for the job could be automatically ousted when their ratings remained low for 3 months and new people could come in based on upvoting of candidates willing to serve. Let's keep our council honest and highly communicative. Imagine being able to oust that carrot top twerper in the US this way!Well, the bird brain is tired and I need to get this done so I can sit in the sun and birdseye glaze across the lake to Glenorchy. I wonder what those pigeons are doing in Pigeon Place. Time to tweet and see.
