Location of Waipori Falls Village

 

Waipori Reflections
Contemplations in Three Locations

Charles Muller

Waipori Reflections
Contemplation in Three Locations

by Charles Muller

Buy from Amazon:

UK price: £9.99   US price: $14.99
Publisher: DIADEM BOOKS
Format: Paperback:
Perfect binding , cream interior
Size : 5.5" x 8.5" (21.6 x 14 x 1.9 cm)
Pages: 350
ISBN: 978-1907294358
Published: December-2009

Also available in hardback £14.24


The “reflections” in this volume were inspired by the author’s acquisition of a house in the splendid isolation of a remote village surrounded by a scenic reserve. In Waipori Falls Village, about an hour's drive from Dunedin, in South Island, New Zealand, the author and his old friend and colleague Dr Garrett Evans could reflect upon life, on their experiences in different parts of the world where they had lived. This is followed by the author’s reflections back in Clashnessie, his home in the Highlands of Scotland, followed by his reflections during the summer of 2008, which he spent at his home in Nova Scotia. The book, which encompasses the three locales, constitutes, in effect, a “trilocation” portmanteau! All the reflections, wherever they are set, were inspired by his time in Waipori, which began the whole process.

Also included are a number of articles by John Kelly, being memories of the early days in Waipori Falls Village, at the time when the hydro-electric scheme was being constructed in the valley.

From the back page:

Perched on a steep, wooded hillside about 60km west of Dunedin, in a South Island rainforest, New Zealand, is a village called Waipori Falls Village. The “reflections” in this volume were inspired by my acquisition of a house, some three years ago, in the splendid isolation of this remote village surrounded by a scenic reserve. Perhaps that’s why I was there – to rediscover my balance, to get things into perspective, and these reflections have this as their main purpose. “As iron sharpeneth iron,” I said to my old friend Garrett, quoting from Proverbs. There in Waipori we could reflect upon life, on our experiences in different parts of the world where we have lived, restoring balance, finding our way again after so much wandering through the world. After our combined Waipori reflections, there are my reflections back in Clashnessie, my home in the Highlands of Scotland, followed by my reflections during the summer of 2008, which I spent at my home in Nova Scotia. The book, which encompasses the three locales, constitutes, in effect, a “trilocation” portmanteau! All the reflections, wherever they are set, have been inspired, one might say, by my time in Waipori, which began the whole process.—Charles Muller.

Extract from the Acknowledgements: It is a great privilege, also, to have received the contributions from John Kelly and Frank Cordemans about Waipori Falls Village in the early days, when it was the accommodation base for the power stations, for which the village was originally built. Their early memories have been included as Appendices to this volume and will certainly add to the book’s value, not just as a source of entertainment but as a valuable record of history.

Cover photographs by the author: Autumn sunset, Upper Port La Tour, Nova Scotia;
Lake Mahinerangi, Waipori; and rainbow over Clashnessie bay.

About the author

The author at the launch of Winston Churchill by his Personal Secretary, at the Churchill Museum, Cabinet War Rooms in Whitehall, in February 2008

Charles Humphrey Muller, MA (Wales), PhD (London), DLitt (OFS), DEd (SA), was Professor and Head of the Department of English at the University of the North in South Africa for ten years, and Senior Lecturer in English at the University of South Africa before that. He is the author of numerous academic textbooks and literary studies published by Oxford University Press and McGraw-Hill, and was editor of Unisa English Studies and Communiqué, literary journals of the University of South Africa and the University of the North. In 1988 he left his academic career to move to Scotland where he bought a small hotel - the Kenmore Bank Hotel in Jedburgh, fifty miles south of Edinburgh  -  to devote more time to creative writing. He has since sold the hotel and written a number of novels (A Twist in Time, The Cage and  the Cross, Wheel of Fortune, Continental Drift), and with his wife Joanne has co-authored two novels (Rapture at Sea and Spirit of Ecstasy by ‘Carolyn Charles’). He wrote the inspirational work Have Anything You Really Really Want , and  served as editor for his wife’s ‘self-help’ book So You Want to Buy a Small Hotel! He also edited  a collection of testimonies titled Touched by God.

 

Links to other parts:

Cemetery       Central Otago         Fjord Land    

Stewart Island           Trips

Memories of Nova Scotia

Clashnessie dreams

The author

Jo and Garret - the other 'reflectors'

Len - King of the Village

Garry - the man in charge!

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