A visit to the wild East Coast of New Zealand's North Island and staying at
the remote Waikawa Lodge in Waipiro Bay plunges the traveller into Lonely
Planet country. You experience a thriving mix of Maori, forestry, arts and
crafts, a champion Maori rugby team, Tolaga Bay knitwear, peerless beaches
and matchless surf.
You get there from Gisborne along Highway 35 ("If you want to feel truly
alive, try Highway 35", sang the novelist Witi Imihaera). You must not
drive with your eyes firmly fixed on the white line on this meandering,
switchback route. You must dawdle, you must peer and poke. You must
swerve down the side roads, whether to the sea or the hills if you are
to
find another New Zealand and glimpses of a past you never learnt at
school. That fine (and largely overlooked) Maori film, "Broken Earth",
(released 2000) depicted its roughness and the hardness of life for
today's inhabitants.
This is an area long in history of the Maori and of early white
settlement. When Paoa, captain of the Hourouta waka (canoe) first
glimpsed Aotearoa, he named the first headland he saw Te Kuri a Paoa -
after the dog he brought with him. Captain Cook came along in 1769
and
named it Young Nick's Head, for Nicholas Young, the cabin boy who saw it
first.
Cook and his crew marvelled at the dense forests and the myriads of
birds
as they sailed along this coast. The trees were the first to be
exploited
by the white man. Logging was in full swing in the early 1800s, mainly
to
provide timbers for sailing ships and Sydney buildings. Then the sheep
and
cattle farmers started moving in and land clearance stepped up as the
Coasters developed a thriving export trade wool, wood and produce for
Auckland, Sydney even Russia.
The massive tree plantings along the way are an indication of an
impending
dawn for an area which has had many false ones. You find mournful
reminders of an early colonial history you never knew existed - massive
Victorian brick warehouses, brick cottages and county buildings, long
empty wharves with nothing on them but the occasional fisherman. You
find
forgotten little settlements. You find poverty, squalor, apathy, too
much appalling housing. This is not a tourist area. Accommodation and
cafes are few and far between.
You also find proud communities doing their best with what they've got;
an
art school at Tokomaru Bay, potters, writers, photographers. You find
Trish Girling-Butcher's luxury merino wool design and production company
in
sleepy Tolaga Bay. You find talented, creative people living outside
the
square; others simply doing their best to survive.
Such as in Waipiro Bay, where we touched down the longest. It's a
couple
of hours north of Gisborne and a steep swerve down from Highway 35.
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Map showing the wild East Coast area
Source Waikawa Lodge
(Click here
for a larger version)
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First stock up at the understandably famous little store at sulphurous
Te
Puia Springs (long famed for its hot springs). Then you drive down a
winding road to the coast. You'll find a long sweep of sands, rolling
breakers that attract surfers from all over the country, an empty
surging
sea and magnificent headlands.
Today's Waipiro is a shadow of its past. Though upwards of two hundred
people live in and around it, you could drive by almost without
noticing
it. The houses are scattered and hidden in the trees. Gardens are few
and far between. Horses eye you over untidy fences. Imperious
piebald
porkers parked in the middle of the roads challenge you to run over
them.
If you look a little harder, you'll see a Maori language primary school,
three marae, a little church. Film magnate Bob Kerridge's very first
cinema is now a marae dining hall. The nearest store, or pub or
business
of any kind is at Te Puia, six kilometres away.
One hundred years ago ten thousand people lived at Waipiro. It was the
administrative centre for the district, with a busy port, a trading
post,
handsome brick shipping offices, and a hospital.
In those days Maori and pakeha worked alongside each other: farming
cattle and sheep, cutting trees, saw milling; packing goods for export,
and
manhandling them onto a multitude of little ships that worked right
along
the coast. It was an exciting time, full of hope for the future.
Horses were the main means of transport then. They were valued for their
uses. It is much the same today. Rough, unkempt (but hopefully
loved),
they are in every paddock, and often on the road. Kids go to school on
them, farmers use them for mustering, they are "wheels" for many social
occasions.
Entering the Lonely Planet world
Four of us stayed at Waikawa Lodge at the southern end of the bay. This
is
a six-person chalet belonging to Anne Bogle (formerly legal advisor to
the
then fledgling MP and Environment Minister Helen Clark) and her partner
Jimmy Chatfield. They and their two children live nearby in a crazy,
book-filled house at the furthest end of an improbable road.
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Drawing of Waikawa Lodge
Source Waikawa Lodge
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Anne and Jimmy make a living by taking guests, breeding horses,
breaking
them in and selling them. Anne keeps her hand in the law business,
especially in environmental matters. She's also a valued member of the
area's District Health Board. Jimmy is a great horseman, big, very
strong
and seemingly tireless. He was the leading Black Horseman in
"Fellowship
of the Ring".
They offer horse trekking to their guests, and general riding along the
spectacular beaches, on tracks through the bush covered hills or on the
quiet road through the little Maori settlements. That Waikawa Lodge
features favourably in the latest Lonely Planet guide to New Zealand,
indicates that this will be a holiday with a difference.
Jimmy met us outside the general store at Te Puia and led the way to
"Lee
Tamahori's place", where we left our cars. Lee is a noted film
director
who cut his teeth on films like "Once Were Warriors" and is directing
the
next James Bond film. This area is his turangawaewae the place of
his
family, his home and his heart.
We'd been warned before that we would be wise to take the offer of being
driven in. At first we thought Jimmy was exaggerating. Not so. Reality
struck after the big 4WD turned off the tar seal at Waipiro. We held
on
like nervous clams, thankful to have left our late model town cars up
the
hill. In places the track negotiates rocky outcrops on the beach,
crosses
nasty streams, and lumbers up steep bluffs. Gates in awkward places add
to
the challenge.
So what was it like to stay there? A welcome dinner with the
biggest,
juiciest crayfish imaginable - freshly caught by Jimmy. Comfortable
beds, cozy lounge with a fabulous view, diesel generated electricity, a
shower out of Beverley Hillbillies.
There's an outdoor long-drop with no door and a view straight into the
treetops, and over them to the headlands and the sea. Friendly
fantails
flutter around, even inside the edifice. At night moreporks (little
native owls) call to one another - a haunting cry that is now but
rarely
heard. The biggest, brightest moon in all the world shone down for us
on
that empty sea and eerie land.
A land not for riding
It is unstable land, constantly shifting and falling down. Much of the
countryside turned, literally, to lumpy custard as a result of Cyclone
Bola in 1988. We learnt this for ourselves when looking for lost
horses.
Holes and hillocks everywhere - and because there are few livestock
to
keep the grass down, waist high paspalum smothers everything.
Fortunately, that same grass made a soft landing when we fell into
holes.
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Horse riding along the beach
Source Waikawa Lodge
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The next day, it was up the coast to find those horses. A swim helped
us
on our way. How far can horses wander without someone giving them
ideas,
we wondered as we trudged on up the beach. We asked at a Maori enclave
with a small stockade around the few makeshift buildings above the
beach.
The flag of Aotearoa, a handsome, two-colour Maori design, flew proudly
from a little watch tower. It is not often seen, and to our minds,
looked
wonderful.
This small family settlement was on undeveloped Maori land with access
from the beach only. No power, no telephone, no sewage, and with
water
supplies that had vanished after a long dry summer. The residents, true
survivors on their own ancestral lands, were doing their best to create
incomes by rearing day-old chicks and pigs. The pigs were having a
great
life - some were having a dip in the sea as we arrived.
We warned the residents that Jimmy would be coming out on horseback to
look for the horses very soon. Such a warning is politically correct
in
the area. No-one wants unwary intruders tripping over their marijuana
patches.
Jimmy rode out the next evening to bring the missing horses in. By the
time he reached this enclave, the tide was up and the route was
blocked.
So he was invited in for a meal - sausages cooked up in tomato soup and
freeze-dried vegetables, washed down with Coke or Fanta. Then on up the
coast, until the horses came down from the hills to meet him. His
ride
home with them on this balmy night beside the sparkling sea was lit by
that brilliant moon.
So what of the future?
There is massive forestation going on everywhere - just about the only
thing possible after the damage caused by Cyclone Bola. So almost
every
piece of open ground is covered with immature pines. The owners are
largely Asian - companies like Hikurangi Forest Farms, and an Asian
joint
venture company with the local people, Ngati Porou. The old wharves
are
being strengthened. Gisborne Harbour is being improved, and a major
timber processing plant has just been approved for the city.
Yes, a new dawn is on the way for the East Coast as the wheel turns
full
circle. First the forests are felled, and then they are planted again.
Let us hope this dawn will not be as short-lived as those which were
promised in the past.
