I’ve always enjoyed tall stories like the report of a political meeting on the Crown Terrace in the winter of 1880.

A journalist reported: “It was so cold the politicians’ words came out as blocks of ice. The audience hastily lit the stove to melt the ice in a frying pan to hear what each candidate had said.”

Another story of that winter revealed a cow had been frozen stiff in mid-air while jumping a low fence.

Debunking the tale, a critic stated: “That’s impossible – what about the law of gravity?” The retort was instantaneous – gravity was frozen too.

It’s clear that from time to time our district needs a reality check.

We have a history of schemers and dreamers who create visions of Queenstown’s future which are incapable of realisation.

Paradoxically, Walter Peak Station and Kawarau Falls both feature as centrepieces. Heading the charge at Walter Peak 40 years ago was George Wiles, a distinguished-looking Englishman from Yorkshire, accompanied by his attractive partner, Mrs De Grouchy.

Tall and quite debonair, George ensconced himself in Beach House to hold court enthralling eager listeners with his plans for the sun-baked station. Tea and cake for suckered-in devotees.

Large luxury hotel, private airport to disgorge visitors, 1000-plus seat cinema, Merino sheep descending mountain tracks with bells jingling from their necks. A fledgling Disneyland.

I avoided George like the plague, fearful a nod to him may be seen as acquiescence to his lofty rhetoric.

Time passed and so did George – off to the New Hebrides to become a pig farmer.

Other miracle workers followed him. The American senator from New Mexico, then the ebullient John Reid.

George was the first of those who mesmerised dreamers with a touch of Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, Halloween and Alice in Wonderland all wrapped in a litany of hope.

But bad news for the bankers, who were badly burnt. Not surprisingly, in physical terms, Walter Peak is little different now to nearly half a century ago.

The spotlight falls nowadays on Kawarau Falls – just as it did in 1924.

In the search for gold, tall stories abound. Below the sill of the Kawarau Falls bridge, it was believed, lay vast quantities of gold.

Build the bridge, engineer the gates, shut the river flow – grab the gold. Punters initially risked $30,000 and finally $100,000 to stem the flow but alas – the best days provided slim pickings.

The naivety in failing to recognise gold, a heavy metal, couldn’t leap like salmon from the depths of Lake Wakatipu on to the Kawarau Bridge sill is, in retrospect, unbelievable.

Since those times the list of foundering projects has lengthened:

• Tunnels to Milford Sound
• A submarine in Lake Wakatipu
• The Kingston Flyer relocated to Queenstown Hill
• A bridge, tunnel or aerial cableway to Kelvin Heights
• An airport at Castlerock.

All came to nothing. All spin – no substance. Then came the arrival of Kawarau Falls Mark II.

About two years ago, a friend showed me a stylised design of Nigel McKenna’s dream – a concrete jungle, the magnitude of which astounded me. And accessed by a long one-way bridge?

They’ve certainly made progress and it’ll surprise me if it’s mothballed in its present state.

But in describing it as a billion-dollar development, promoters were hyping up another piece of pure over-
indulgent fantisisation.

Queenstown isn’t Dubai, we’re not swilling in oil reserves. Kawarau Falls in its full concept could have become a cot case, the biggest lily ever gilded.

The suggestion from City Hall that major council projects should be brought forward as work schemes to take up the void created doesn’t wash.

Those in Queenstown Lakes District Council promoting that course of action should take a few deep breaths and rationalise their thinking.

Excesses of developers cannot and should not be cured by filching from the pockets of people already hard-pressed to find the necessities of life.

This Obama-like reaction won’t work. QLDC can’t print money as the US president does.

It’s certainly not a time for pork-barrel politics.