This DOC ranger travels the southern surf coast, mixing her battles for biodiversity with sessions at hidden spots. Writer Jose Watson catches up with Melissa McNaughtan on the West Coast.
Surfer Mel McNaughtan is a DOC Biodiversity Monitoring Ranger who works out of Hokitika. She is part of a team that monitors for the presence of pest animals in plots all around the South Island, as part of wider, long-term work to determine trends in the health of the environment.
This work involves quite a bit of travel. Tongue in cheek, Mel says, “it’s one of the benefits of the job, driving up and down the South Island checking out the surf breaks.”
Mel will quite often be away for 14 days straight, then back home to Cobden, at a property she has just bought, just north of Greymouth for a week or so of recuperating and surfing at the Cobden Beach Break and other spots around Greymouth and the Coast.
Mel started bodyboarding as a kid in Waihi and dabbled a bit “on boards you can fit three people on” where she hung out with a surfing crowd while studying at the University of Canterbury. She says after years of dabbling she just got serious in the last year and now makes the effort to get out “as often as the ocean lets me in”. She loves the family aspect the surfing community offers.
“It is a really cool community, it’s part of the attraction, once you are into it, you can go anywhere and be accepted into this extended family – people who froth surfing just froth on it together.”
Mel’s fave spots are the Cobden Tip Head and Beach, Blaketown and Spot X, named such because she’d lose friends if she revealed its location. On the Coast, she also surfs at spots in Punakaiki, Westport, and further north in Karamea.
Wednesday is the busiest day at Cobden when a regular Surfing for Farmers group meets and up to 20 surfers are out on the waves.
Surfing gets Mel out in the environment on a regular basis and gives her an appreciation for the species that live there, as well as some of the issues facing the environment. “I see Hector’s dolphins a lot, you s**t yourself when you first see them so close, then you figure out they are quite friendly, they just like playing in the water, too.”
“We tend to avoid the surf after a heavy rain, because of the concern about contaminants from upstream coming out in the river. On the Cobden Break, we’ve also got some old shipwrecks we try to avoid. My friend got her leash caught around an old propeller, which was a scary moment, especially because she thought it was a shark!”
“Climate change is also having an impact on some breaks on the Coast, with rock protection making the entry to some breaks gnarly and changing how the beach forms and the waves break.”
With a love for the environment, Mel is keen to spread the word about how people can get out naturing, and help the environment, too.
“While you are out and about doing some rubbish pickups is a simple thing you can do for the environment,” Mel explains. “There are also groups everywhere doing trapping and planting, so getting involved in one of them is a way to do your bit. Even learning more about the environment helps, too. A good place to start is attending Conservation Week events where you can meet other people and learn more about the environment you live in.
Mel is also a keen skier, with Temple Basin being her go-to field. She points out climate change is also having an impact here, which pushes her toward the water.
“The snow is running out,” Mel states. “We haven’t had a very good ski season the last few years, so I’ve had to jump ship to find a more reliable hobby.”
Winter surfing is on the cards this year, and, with a thick wetsuit, hood, booties and gloves, Mel is set.
