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Susan
Cook's a Cantabrian (Christchurch native) who
grew up tramping all over the South Island and,
in the process, falling in love with the West Coast.
After an early career reporting for the Christchurch
Press, she attended the University of Missouri on
a Rotary Scholarship, where she earned a Master's
degree in journalism. Recruited by Gannett Corporation
after graduating, she landed in Greenville, South
Carolina, to manage the local newspaper's website.
For fun, she continued to tramp (in the mountains
of the Blue Ridge) and played old-time fiddle. Which
is where Weasel came in ...
Marion "Weasel"
(why Weasel?) Boatwright's
early career was as a teacher and summer camp
director in the North Carolina mountains. After
developing a successful outdoor education centre
with the YMCA, he started his own lodge/outdoor
ed centre in 1990: Earthshine
Mountain Lodge. He still owns and oversees
the operations from here in New Zealand, thanks
to an amazingly dedicated and capable staff team.
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We met in 1997 at an old-time fiddle workshop
in Brevard, North Carolina. Fate intervened,
and while Susan is not a newspaper publisher,
and Marion is living 10,000 miles from where
he was born, we wouldn't have it any other
way!
We were blessed to find this property in
2003, just before moving back to New Zealand.
Like most people who know and love the Mokihinui
River, we'd tramped up the track and had
assumed it was conservation land. Weasel
and his mates were here on a boys' holiday
at our bach nearby. His one work mission
was to find a spot to site a business to
operate upon relocating to New Zealand.
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Susan received a phone call:
"I've found the perfect place. Ten minutes
from the bach. Incredible bush. Wild as it gets!"
Marion shook hands on the property the next day,
having neglected to tell Susan there were two
volatile creeks to ford, no power or phones for
two kilometres, and, oh yeah, not much in the
way of roading.
Nonetheless, the Rough and Tumble
Bush Lodge began its crooked journey into reality.
Once we moved over, it quickly became clear the
project was way beyond our means. So rather than
do the sane thing and hang it up, we extended
ourselves further, purchased the neighbouring
100 acre block, and created an 11 section, highly
environmentally covenanted subdivision. Our goal
was simple, to make it feasible to build the required
roading and bring in infrastructure for the lodge.
Finally, in June 2005,
we started digging the footings -- by hand --
all 128 of them. And ... long story short (we'll
be happy to fill in the details during your stay)
... we opened on December 1, 2006!
Why Weasel
... Weasel has been around for 35 years; as
long as Marion has been in the Outdoor Education
business. He's a wild and rollicking character
from 1840s pioneering days, who came to life in
living history programmes. Quite unlike our Marion,
but the name has strangely stuck ...
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