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“My interest in butterflies started when I had my children – Chris, now 42, and James (38). They would ask me questions I couldn’t answer, so I started reading up about them and became fascinated. The more I learned, the more I wanted to know.
My three grandsons, Detroit (14), Hunter (9) and Rowan (7), have done the same. They’ve learnt about nature and life cycles by watching monarchs on a swan plant. And that’s what the Monarch Butterfly Trust is about – educating people and encouraging the restoration and conservation of habitats.
People coming to New Zealand know about kiwis and kauri trees, but they might never see either of them. If they go outside or into a garden, they’ll realise the environment isn’t a specialist subject, it’s right there and it’s part of us.
I reckon the greatest thing about monarchs is that they are user-friendly. Whereas most other insects and butterflies take off when you get too close, monarchs don’t. And they are pretty special – often when I need to make a decision and if it seems to be the right decision, a monarch will appear.
That might sound really strange, but I’ve heard similar stories from other people – perhaps someone will have lost somebody and a monarch will turn up. They seem to have a knack of touching your soul.
Where I live in Blockhouse Bay in Auckland, some of the locals have created a butterfly habitat in a reserve in the hope it will become a wintering-over sanctuary – a place for them to wait out the cold weather.
It astonishes me how many people will walk by without looking at their surroundings. To really appreciate it, you need to stop and look – even if it’s something nasty, such as an insect devouring a caterpillar.
My garden is pretty crazy. Most people would think it looks overgrown, but so long as there are lots of host plants, then my butterflies are happy. At the moment, there’s about 50 monarchs out there.
I’ve always been up for a challenge. I have three older brothers and my father said I couldn’t go to university because I was a girl, and it would be a waste of money because I’d just get married, have kids and be a housewife. I’ve been rebelling ever since.
I did the length of New Zealand on horseback in 1997. It took me 10 months and 102 days in the saddle. It had been a dream of mine after reading an excerpt from a book by Aimé Tschiffely about his 16,000km trek from Buenos Aires to Washington, when I was 10.
I knew the scenery and the riding would be great, but what I hadn’t counted on was the generosity and hospitality.
I would stay with one family, they’d ask where I was going and next thing I’d have my following night’s bed. I was passed on like that up the country. People would join me, but mostly I rode by myself with my two horses and a dog.
I guess it was a bit of midlife insanity. I’d just divorced and owned a farm near Hunua. The boys had left home and my mortgage was growing, so I just thought I’ll get this horse ride out of my system, then start on a new chapter in my life.
I went to Mexico in January to see the monarchs over-wintering. We had to ride horses up through the mountains to see the colonies. There were millions – it was breathtaking.
I’ve just been to the US on a Winston Churchill Fellowship. Monarchs are at risk of dying out there and schools are now planting pollinator gardens. Some of the bigger companies are also addressing things, such as genetic engineering and the overuse of sprays.
Urbanisation is having a real effect – it means wild, natural spaces are being lost. I’ll be looking at what we can do here to remedy that.”
I’d call a movie about my life:
Adventures of an Ordinary Woman.
The person I’d most like to have a G and T with:
George Clooney – I adore him. We’d have several!
Every garden should have:
Plants for our pollinators, host plants and nectar plants.
As told to Julie Jacobsen
To find out more about the Monarch Butterfly New Zealand Trust, check out monarch.org.nz.
