Seven Principles in one day at Baring Head

A few weekends ago I decided I needed a bit of fresh air and exercise, so my flatmate and I decided to go for a walk out to Baring Head Lighthouse. It's about a 3 hour walk through a Regional Park which is currently under grazing.

I took the opportunity to review the seven principles of Leave No trace in relation to the walk:

Plan Ahead and Prepare: we did ensure we had appropriate clothing and footwear. Boots were required, and although it only rained briefly the raincoats did an excellent job of keeping the wind out.

Travel and Camp on Durable Surfaces: applied to some parts of the walk, whre a formed track was present. When walking through farm paddocks we did our best NOT to follow in each others footsteps and form a mud track.

Dispose of Waste Properly: I didn't find any loose muesli bar or lolly wrappers on this trip – so either the visitors have been doing this well, or the wind had removed the evidence.

Leave What You Find: the park does include coastal access, but with a relatively chilly day (have I mentioned the wind?) we didn't go there. So didn't have to make any decisions about beachcombing treasures we may have found! The only things we took home were memories and photographs.

Minimise Campfire Impacts: this was a no brainer. Fires are not permitted in the park anyway.

Respect Wildlife and Farm Animals: this was a major consideration, as we were surrounded by sheep for much of the time. They didn't seem too worried about us, and we made sure we closed the gate as we left.

Be Considerate of Others: there were a few cars in the car park – but we didn't encounter many others- just the farmer and his dog, as we were leaving! I'm therefore going to assume that all the talking we did had no adverse effect on anyone else's experience!

Sharon Alderson, LNTNZ board member