New Zealand Boondocks

I am typing this up as a well-deserved study break.  I have my final on Wednesday morning at 9:30 AM, so I have been studying for about two days straight now.  I am going away this next weekend, though, so I wanted to get a post up about last weekend before I got it confused with the next!

OK.  Meredith’s host club’s President, Kay Phillips, has a sister (Ann) and brother-in-law (Noel) who live in Whanganui.  Noel is semi-retired.  He has a rural mail run and small tourism business, but he is looking to expand his tourism into more trips into New Zealand bush (otherwise known as the boondocks, or ‘womp-womps’ here in New Zealand).  He needed some guinea pigs for a test run, so Meredith, Amy, and I, along with Kay, travelled up that direction for the weekend.  It was going to be a great opportunity to get out of the city and see rural New Zealand.

I head over to Stafford House (where Amy and Meredith live) around 3 on Friday afternoon to meet them and Kay.  Meredith and I go outside to meet Kay, and what an entrance she made!  It was a beautiful day, and here comes Kay, speeding along in her bright red top-down convertible!  Meredith and I were not expecting that, let me tell you.  The four girls piled in to the convertible, and we were off down the open road, top down, sun streaming in, with some good old Frank Sinatra on the stereo.  It was an excellent beginning to our experience.

We arrived in Whanganui a little later than expected because of traffic, but no matter.  Ann and Noel were very gracious and accommodating.  They have a very nice house.  Very homey, very welcoming.  Everything was brightly coloured and coordinated.  Additionally, Ann is an amazing cook.  She enjoys cooking for other people, and you can tell.  We students ate very well!  We sat around talking and watching the NPC (rugby) semi-finals that night (just so you know, Otago – the underdog – won and will be playing Auckland this weekend in the final).  We turned in rather early because we knew we had a big day ahead of us.  Six people having to get ready to leave by 8:30 with one bathroom meant that there were some very early risers.  I have been waking up early recently, so it didn’t matter, and it was quite nice to wake up to a delicious cooked breakfast.  Gillian joined us, we packed up the car, and rolled out!

Our first stop was the Tawhiti Museum.  This is a great historical museum with lots of vintage artefacts and a detailed Maori history of the area.  We spent about an hour wandering around the museum, learning about early New Zealand life and inspecting a history of tractors in the ‘barn’ section.  We drove in to a city called Stratford, had a quick lunch in a café, and then began the next part of our journey.

State Highway 43 is known as the ‘Forgotten Highway.’  It connects Stratford with Taumarunui, and it takes about 2.5 hours to drive the whole way through.  There is between 10-20 kilometres of unsealed road.  It has lots of historic stops along the way, some political, some environmental.  As guinea pigs, we were just expected to say when we wanted to stop, to shout out when we thought there would be something interesting ahead.  This was really a test run so that Noel could get an idea of what kinds of things people would want to see and what the timing would be like along the road.  Some of the places were run down and not really worthy of a stop, but there was some really beautiful lookouts when passing through saddles.  We were really in the middle of no where on this trip.  I had seen rolling New Zealand hills from the main highways when driving to Taupo and back, but I have never seen anything like this.  The hills just kept going on and on and on.  You would see sheep and goats and cows perched on all kinds of outcrops, some blatantly defying gravity.  There was a running joke between the Kiwis (Ann, Noel, Gillian, and Kay) about how many pictures Meredith, Amy, and I wanted of sheep.  Think along the lines of, ‘Now, there is Amy with a sheep.  Now, Katie with a cow.  Now, Meredith with another sheep.’  I will be interested at the end of my time here to see how many pictures of sheep I actually have.

We stopped about halfway through in the Republic of Whangamomona.  This is a village with about 40 residents, but it has an award-winning country pub and hotel.  You can start at the top of the main street, walk two minutes, and reach the end of the main street.  And by main street I mean only street.  It is called a Republic because in 1988 the area was redistricted from Taranaki to Wanganui, and the residents were extremely upset about not being consulted.  In protest, they formed a republic, elected a president, and now celebrate their independence day every January.  This is a big event, drawing in about 6000 people to experience such activities as gumboot throwing, sheep shearing, passport stamping, and voting in the presidential election.  They have had several presidents over the years, including ‘Billy the Kid,’ a goat who won by eating all his opponents votes, and a poodle who, after an assassination attempt, resigned.  As this was in the middle of October, we didn’t expect much to be going on.  I anticipated a nice dinner and a quiet evening with my book.

I could not have been more wrong.

First of all, I didn’t take into account the fact that this is the only establishment in the area.  All of the locals come in to the bar and lounge area (complete with pool table and also colouring books and toys for the children) to hang out after a hard day’s work.  Also, the second rugby semi-final was being played (Auckland vs. North Harbour), so even more of the residents were out to see it being broadcast.  Finally, they have live music on Saturday, something we were not expecting.  It ended up being a great night.  We got to talk to a lot of the locals and find out how they lived.  They are mainly shepherds and farmers, which was very interesting to me because I have never met a shepherd before.  There was one guy who is my age and in charge of something like 20,000 sheep.  He and his brothers can shear 400 sheep per day!  I was talking with their uncle, and he said they had all gone out the previous day to go pig-hunting, which involves catching wild pigs, cutting off their tails for proof, and letting them go again.  Not something I ever thought I would experience!  Also, I learned a random fact – you don’t typically eat pork from a pig that weighs more than 100lbs because it is too tough.  Anyway, enough about pigs.  We spent the night mixing in with the locals and other guests, enjoying a couple of bottles of wine, and cheering on the rugby teams.  After the semi-final was over (won by the expected team, Auckland), the headmaster of the school set up his speakers and laptop and started in with the live music.  Meredith was busy becoming a pool shark (she and her partner won every game after about 9:30, I believe, no matter who challenged them), and Amy was drawn to the microphone, getting up there to sing with the headmaster.  The hotel owners had just won their awards for ‘Best Country Pub’ and ‘Best Re-Furbished Hotel,’ so there was even more cause for celebration.  We danced and celebrated right up until about 1AM, at which point the ‘second to last drinks’ call was announced.  Towards the end of the night, the first mayor approached Kay with the news that he had heard we were visiting Americans and that he wanted to present us with our official Whangomomona passports.  That was very special and generous of him.  The locals were really great to talk to, to learn about their experiences and impressions.  I heard that normally the bar closes down between 11 and midnight, so this was an extra special night, buoyed by the semi-final, the awards, and the excellent mix of company.

The next morning was the beginning of a long but beautiful day.  We rose early to be dressed and ready for breakfast at 8AM to leave by 8:30 (which turned into 9).  The first thing we did was turn off the highway to go see Mt. Damper falls.  These are supposedly the highest falls in the north island.  It was about a 20 minute drive off of the main road and then a 20 minute hike through farmland and bush.  We had a standoff with some cows across the river, but not other major events.  Several pictures of sheep and lambs later, we entered the bush and hiked down along the trail to the platform overlooking the falls.  It was gorgeous and well worth the hike off the main path.  The morning was bright and sunny, very warm, which made it that much more pleasant.  We observed for awhile and then headed back out, taking pictures of lambs the whole way.  Amy was especially excited about the lambs and sheep.  She is leaving soon, so I think she is feeling like she is experiencing everything one last time.  Last class, last time catching a coffee with someone, last time doing something very New Zealand.  I know I am going to be feeling that way when my time to leave comes around.

But off topic.  Back to the Forgotten Highway!  This day, Sunday, was going to be very long driving-wise, so we didn’t stop at very many historic spots, and none off the road.  We went through some amazing saddles and valleys, got to check out rivers and historic railway tracks, and – of course – take more pictures of sheep.  We reached Taumarunui and stopped for lunch in a café that we had heard was good.  We had some amazing views of the mountains on this day.  We could see Mt. Ruapehu, Mt. Taranaki, Mt. Tongariro, and Mt. Ngauruhoe all from the same vantage point.

After this stop, we took the River Road back to Whanganui.  Rather than being an often-used state highway, this road was more rural and skirted the Whanganui River.  This is the road along which Noel has his rural mail run.  He doesn’t only bring mail to the people in the settlements along the road; he will bring in their shopping (one person had him bring in a double bed not too long ago, and he has had women hand him credit cards, pin numbers, and their shopping list!) as well as transport passengers from one point to another.  This road is very typical back-country New Zealand; it is mainly one lane, although it is two-way, and much of it is unsealed.  I was sitting in the front seat at this point, and I was very nervous sometimes!  Noel is a local driver, so he knew what he was doing and where he could go fast and where he had to be more careful, but I was always nervous going around blind corners, especially after we suddenly met another couple coming the opposite way!

We made a couple of stops along the road.  There are several Maori settlements, each with their own marae and worship area.  We stopped at one of the cleaner, well put-together ones.  This was just a quick stop, with only Amy and me leaping out of the van to take pictures of the traditional Maori figures and the church.  We were a bit pressed for time.  The pakeha (= white Kiwi) settlements along the river had interesting names: Jerusalem, Corinth, London, etc.  Someone had an obsession with cities of historic importance.  One of our last stops was in Jerusalem.  We stopped at a small convent/church that Noel frequents on his mail run.  The church is a catholic church, but it was built for the Maoris, so there is a definite Island influence.  There is a Maori statue, Maori paintings on the wall, and the other wall decorations were not like any catholic church I have been in.  Meredith is catholic, so it was especially different for her.  On our way out, we ran into Sister Sue.  This is the most modern nun I have ever met.  She had just come up from the marae, saying they had been making a lot of noise that day and she had to see what was going on.  She told us stories about her and her sister in the pub drinking beer-and-lemonades.  She was very friendly and very interested to meet the postman’s wife (Ann).  As we were driving away, Meredith noticed that Sister Sue was wearing gumboots, and made a comment to the effect of, ‘I just saw I nun wearing gumboots who was drinking in a pub.  I love this country!’  We really enjoyed meeting Sister Sue.

We made it back to Whanganui sometime around 7 or so.  This was too late to pick up Kay and Ann’s father to bring him to tea (he is 96 years old and still lives independently!), but we made the best of it.  Ann made some great curried sausage and vegetables, and even used silver something-or-other because we had mentioned over the weekend that we hadn’t ever had it before.  She was so nice for accommodating us so well and just taking us in.  Roundabout 8 or so, the four of us Wellingtonians piled into Kay’s convertible (top up this time) to begin the trip back into town.  We had some great conversations in the car on the way home.  Well, Amy passed out for awhile, but she contributed her bit, too.  We talked about everything from music to car wrecks to police systems and the ACC and suing people.  Very varied, very interesting.  I ended up home somewhere in the neighbourhood of 10:30 or so.  Exhausted, I unpacked, responded to urgent emails, and collapsed into bed by 11:30.

I have spent the two ensuing days holed up in the library studying for my final tomorrow morning.  Don’t worry, I am not being crazy; I took an excellent 3-hour shoe shopping and sun-bathing break yesterday, and today I went and got tea and coffee with my friend Dan and sat by the waterfront for about an hour, enjoying the sun and good conversation.  Nevertheless, I will be glad when my final is over tomorrow.  I already have a lunch with Amy and Paula as well as some celebrations with my flatmate V (who also has her last exam at the same time as me tomorrow) planned, and then I am also going out with some friends later that night.  Then off to Woodville on Thursday!

All you Techies: I hope you are enjoying your fall break!  Take advantage of the relaxation; I know I wish I had some when my life is crazy like it has been recently!

Quick update:  I have just read the beginning part of the paper, and it seems that New Zealand has an official government.  Helen Clark will be the prime minister leading a fractured Labour-led government.  Jim Anderton and his Progressives continue to be coalition partners, and he remains in Cabinet.  Winston Peters (leader of the 7-seat NZ First) has received the prestigious Foreign Affairs Minister position, and Peter Dunne (3-seat United Future) will be Revenue Minister.  Both parties will support on confidence and supply.  The Greens have been shut out of cabinet by these two parties but will most likely still support policies.  The Maori party remains independent, voting issue by issue, and National and ACT comprise the Formal Opposition.  The big fracture in this is that Winston Peters promised to stay neutral and not go after the bauble of office, and the fracture runs deep enough for NZ First President Doug Woolerton resigned, apparently in protest of Winston Peters actions (so says the Dominion Post).  We’ll see how this all works out!