Two years and one month after the process kicked off, a sign advising travellers they’re entering Wairarapa Dark Sky Reserve
has finally been installed on Remutaka Hill.
Since March 2023, the Dark Sky Reserve group has been working with: two district councils and Waka Kotahi/NZTA for consents and positioning, an art designer, environmental planning group, land owners, installers, traffic management and several others, Wairarapa Dark Sky Reserve coordinator Charlotte Harding told The Star.
Involving all these agencies and groups and the time expended was essential to meet a formal requirement of DarkSky International – the body which registers and accredits dark sky entities across the world.
DSI as it’s known, requires such dark sky signage to be installed at key boundary points – hence the signs atop Remutaka Hill and on Agribalance land at Waingawa, the current northern boundary of the reserve, she said.
Part of the long time-frame was taken up by what Harding called “the long process of following strict criteria such as fonts (letter shapes), font sizes (letter heights), even how much wording could be used due to the signs being sited on a state highway (SH 2).”
These requirements then went to graphic design, to art creators, returned for approvals, await sign construction, consent sign-off by councils and NZTA – and thence to installation.
Even that was delayed until road works closed the hill overnight – thus providing access to the site without the need for a road cone blitz, and significantly cutting costs.
Finally, 25 months later, a noticeboard announcing a dark skies reserve – one of just 20 in the world.
Wairarapa’s dark sky provides the background to the new signage.
