The hearth roars inside Sugarloaf, the lodge’s restaurant, set inside a long hall whose vaulted ceiling and sun-drenched windows resemble a modern take on a Māori marae (gathering house). Opposite the open kitchen, on top of a fridge filled with cured beef, mackerel and duck, sit rows of hand-labelled jars containing pickled walnuts, strawberries, onion flowers and fennel. Head chef Taylor Cullen tells me that his team cultivate and forage what they can from the kitchen’s gardens during the summer months, then ferment, cure and preserve everything they can to make it last the distance in winter.
The tough alpine conditions mean creative solutions are needed for survival. It’s a challenge Keefe tells me his ancestors would have faced as they braved the mountain. While they would have traversed longer, lower-altitude trails most of the year and outside winter, in some cases necessity and speed would have driven them to brave the higher and shorter Arthur’s Pass. It was the Southern Alps’ most difficult crossing.
To see how they survived, we head to nearby Kura Tawhiti, a hill crowned with weathered karst boulders overlooking the golden tundra. Sculpted by millions of years of wind and rain, and buckling in parts where the limestone has worn thin, Kura Tawhiti’s countless cracks and overhangs sheltered iwi families and war parties traversing Arthur’s Pass. By the 1860s, during New Zealand’s gold rush, European settlers rode through in horse-drawn wagons, ever on the lookout for gold robbers. Today, young New Zealanders haul mattresses up from the car park to practise bouldering under the imperious gaze of golden-winged falcons.
The views from the open-air carriage of the TranzAlpine train show the breathtaking landscapes between Moana and the Arthur’s Pass.
Photograph by Adrienne Pitts
It’s a fantastical place, and it’s easy to lose yourself exploring. As Keefe and I climb up and down and shimmy between boulders, he explains how the hill served a vital purpose for Ngāi Tahu travelling along pounamu trails as a mahinga kai — a reliable stopping place for food and shelter. “Kura Tawhiti means ‘a distant place where you find treasure’,” he says. “It was where east and west coast families could meet to share kai (food) and resources.”
For the Ngāi Tahu who rested here, the resident Haast’s eagle would have been on the menu. An immense 40lb bird of prey with a 10ft wingspan, it inspired legends of man-eating monsters before it was hunted to extinction. Iwi would also have hunted the bright-green kākāpo, the world’s largest (and flightless) parrot. Now critically endangered, the bird is a target for conservation instead of dinner.