Aimee Jules and her partner Oscar Hadley have planned a future together full of high points. It may take a decade or more, but this Nelson couple have set themselves the goal of summiting every one of the 138 knobs across New Zealand.
Words: Alistair Hughes | Photos: Aimee Jules Photography
Topographically speaking, it seems that ‘knob’ has a somewhat loose definition. Not peaks as such, because they tend not to be edged in appearance – so the catch-all description is given as “a prominent, isolated rounded hill, small mountain or protruding bedrock outcrop.”
Although having already climbed 23, Aimee feels she and Oscar aren’t really much closer to a definitive categorisation. “We keep getting asked, and we can't really figure it out either. You'd think it meant that they were small or something, but they range massively. Some of them are 150 to 200 meters high, and then the highest one is 2600 metres, on the side of Mount Ruapehu.”
The inevitable question of ‘why even do this in the first place’ has much to do with Aimee’s own background, and subsequent career.
Her parents immigrated from South Africa to the North Island, but by the time Aimee was five years old, they had settled in this region. “It took them five years to figure out that Nelson was where we were supposed to be.”
Growing up in Richmond, Aimee moved with her family first to the Moutere Valley, and then the Motueka Valley, “So I’ve kind of worked my way further and further out of the city,” she laughs.
She describes Oscar as a country boy, born in Australia but having lived in Ngātīmoti his whole life.
Given the environment which they both grew up in, the pair independently developed a passion for the outdoors. “Since meeting Oscar, I’ve got more and more into outdoor pursuits. I just love getting out there.”
She maintains that tramping is a great way of enjoying nature because it doesn’t involve specialist skills or expensive equipment. “And there's always so many places to go – living in this region we are so privileged to have three national parks (Abel Tasman, Kahurangi and Nelson Lakes) and the Richmond range.”
Although her career began in fashion photography, Aimee had begun to combine her still camera and film making skills with her love of the outdoors. “I do commercial work for outdoor brands and I had made my first two adventure documentaries – so was really keen to do more. Looking around to see what she and Oscar could do together, they discussed the ‘classic’ missions which Kiwis set themselves like the Te Araroa trail. “But it just wasn’t us, we’re not really Great Walk people, we tend to do more remote tramping and that kind of thing.”
Oscar is an outdoor instructor at the Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology, having made his own love of the wilderness his career. Arriving home one day he greeted a bemused Aimee with an unexpected conversation opener: “I looked up ‘knob’ on Topo, (the New Zealand Topographic map) today,” he announced.
Together, they discovered that there were numerous knobs across the country, and compiled their own list, as no formal one existed. “We probably talked about it for six months before deciding that this could be a unique challenge for us, and a great way to explore the country.”
On the face of it, their mission seems analogous to the British climbing activity known as ‘Monro bagging’, (summiting Scottish mountains higher than 914.4 metres), but it would be a mistake to over-emphasise any similarity. While almost all of Scotland’s 282 ‘’Monros’ are arguably easily approached by vehicle, (or even public transport) and have some form of established walking route or trail, many of New Zealand’s knobs are far less tamed.
“Through work, I spend a lot of time in the bush and instruct in off-track navigation,” says Oscar, explaining he and Aimee’s confidence in less travelled natural environments. “I’m not sure if I'd say I’m very skilled, but I seem to know where I am more often than not.”
Aimee recalls that their inaugural trip, to Kahurangi National Park for their first four knobs, turned out to be extremely humbling. Lookout Knob was easily reached by track but didn’t set up accurate expectations for what was to come. “The next three were off track, and straight into really thick Kahurangi bush. We were probably travelling at maybe one kilometre an hour, bush bashing and checking the map to see if we were on top of a knob because you couldn't even tell – you’re just standing in the middle of the bush.”
As planned, Aimee has used her film making skills to document the first year of their adventure. Her short film Knob by Knob covers the couple’s initial 22 climbs, and will premier at the Nelson Adventure Film Festival in mid-July. She and Oscar don’t shy away from the inherent humour in the name of the summits they’ve chosen to climb, as demonstrated when her film opens with a safe search warning popping up on Aimee’s computer screen as soon as she attempts to Google: ‘what is a knob?’. However, she has since concluded that “knobs are no joke.”
A more recent effort, on Aimee’s birthday with friends along, resulted in their first ‘knob fail’. Climbing an alpine ridge near the boundary of the West Coast region, mist shrouded Nugget Knob unfortunately proved elusive “It was a pretty gnarly, steep ridge, and the weather suddenly turned. We were super close, probably only a kilometre away, but it started to sleet sideways and we knew we had to turn back.”
Aimee admits that the experience was ‘gutting’, especially as that attempt was a three-day round trip, but her positivity remains undampened. “At least it's a really cool part of the country, so we’ll just allow ourselves a bit of a bigger window next time.”
It seems it was a valuable learning experience in terms of managing expectations.“Initially, ‘climbing all the knobs’ sounded like something quite easy”, says Aimee. But I think there's going to be lots of attempts when we might have to turn around and take a different approach. But that’s what we’re excited for as well, those places that feel as if no-one else has ever been there before.” Oscar agrees, “We've already found ourselves going to places we otherwise wouldn't have, and that was always the idea.”
Bush bashing in the Kahurangi National Park, kayaking to their destination in the Abel Tasman, tramping by torchlight and clambering on wind torn, misty ridgelines says a lot for their tenacity, and the renowned diversity of the New Zealand landscape. Knobs appear to be literally scattered from one end of the country to the other, but Aimee and Oscar are undaunted by the scale of their undertaking. “We’re not trying to do it fast, or within a time limit, I like that it's something to do just for the fun of it,” she says. “Nowadays people are trying to be the best or the first, or the fastest, but I think it's great just to have an excuse to explore.”
With the arrival of winter, Aimee and Oscar still hope to continue summiting some of the less challenging knobs, and in the longer term staying with friends as they travel to other parts of the country – bringing them along on some of their climbs. “It’s awesome to have a goal that we're working towards together, and we definitely both bring different sides of it,” says Aimee. “Oscar's more of a realist, so when we have to turn around, he's much better at making that call, whereas I’m more emotionally attached.”
With travel, adventure and a gradually diminishing list of unclimbed knobs, this is a ten-year life plan quite different to that of most couples. “I think that's the great part about this being a long-term goal – we’re able to enjoy each one, rather than ‘okay, that's done, on to the next one’. You don't have to be climbing the tallest peak in the world, it’s just getting out there and having an adventure that’s really important.”
