Hukawai Lodge Art Gallery is a small private gallery that opens for three months from December 1 to February 28, during which time three NZ Artists will exhibit in the Hine Hukatere space, each for one months duration from the first of the month to the last day of the month, culminating in exhibitions.  Tickets sold by Hukawai Lodge.  The value of exhibiting in the Hine Hukatere Space is NZD2 000.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

HINE HUKATERE 

One day when Hine Hukatere came down out of the mountains she came across a young man walking in the foothills of Aorangi (Mt Cook) searching for cutting stones. He was very charming, as a man must be.  And she so beautiful, also prerequisite.  Fated to meet, fated to love, fated to build monuments.

The warmth of Wawe’s mortal hands testament to life now the harbinger of death. The flesh of a Snow Maiden though suited to living on the roof of the world, humans had yet to evolve the necessary adaptations.  But the nature of fated love is its tsunami proportions.

Agreeing they seek the council of Aorangi, Hine and Wawe climbed toward the home of the tribal guardians, higher and higher. The air grew colder and thinner.  Hine became more animated and energised while Wawe’s face was blue and his footsteps heavy.  Simultaneously uplifted and delighted by Hine’s vitality and bliss, he propelled himself forward.  Out of nowhere, Tawhirimatea (God of Wind) surged up screaming ice, and snow.  Wawe felt Hine touch his hand as Tawhirimatea pushed him over the mountains edge.  Desperate and wretched, Hine cast from her fingertips, millions of silver snowflakes in the hope they might break her hearts fall.  But Tawhirimatea’s rage blasted the snowflakes scattering them over the mountain, leaving Wawe defenceless.  Unleashing her heartbreak and sorrow, Hine cried the monument and memorial we know today as ‘Ka Roimata o Hine Hukatere’ (The Tears of Hine Hukatere) which would later be dedicated to Franz Josef 1 of Austria by Julius von Haast for whom the settlement of Haast is named.

She no longer leaves the mountains nor seeks the company of humans.  Like all fated love now unrequited and locked in loves obsessions grasp she wanders the powder blue river of ice peering between the thick blocks and walls hoping to be made whole once again.  As she goes ever tormented and hopelessly driven, her tears are the life that sustains the glacier.

Franz Josef Glacier a rare geological gem plunging through temperate rainforest to nearly sea level and monument to the greatest of all loves, to poetry, to literature, to art.