Report 18

I was invited to give a seminar Monday, 4/28, at Waikato U, in Hamilton which is about 1.5 hrs. south of here, so we decided to make a long weekend of it – the last weekend of the school holiday – and see a part of the island we hadn’t seen. The goal was New Plymouth, on the SW coast of the island. I wanted to see Mt. Egmont, aka Taranaki, a solitary volcanic peak rising from the sea to 8400 ft. that causes the jut you see on the SW coast of the North Island, and Susie hoped for a glimpse of Tom Cruise, who has been living in this area since January while making the movie, The Last Samurai. (Susie—I keep saying if he (Tom) knew I was in these parts he’d make an effort to see me. However, I am mad at him for leaving Nicole for his new girl even though their names are homophonic. An aside: my own children, who know me well, say that they can really tell which parts of these reports Rob writes and which parts I write. Could it have anything to do with lack of seriousness and intellectualism?) We also wanted to check out a farmstay near Hamilton where we have reservations for when the kids (Mandi and Paul Venable, Jeff Easterling) are here.

We left early Sat. morning and got to New Plymouth in early afternoon. No Mt. Egmont – clouds; no Tom – didn’t know where to look. Plan was to spend the night in this area, but we didn’t see much to occupy us the rest of the day. This is known as the energy region so the dominant features, after Taranaki and Tom, are power plants. We have one guidebook that doesn’t even mention this corner of the country. However, some of the best surfing is found on this coast and the scenery, hills and sheep, is as nice as anywhere else. We studied the map and decided to go on down the coast to the town of Wanganui. On the way, though, I glanced to my right and saw the clouds had briefly cleared from the top of Taranaki. Was an impressive sight. It’s also interesting to look at the map of this area. There are concentric ring roads at different elevations around the base of the mountain, interconnected, so it looks like a spider web, or a bloodshot eyeball.

Wanganui, we found, is quite a nice town, situated at the mouth of the Whanganui River – the h is variable, and silent, so take your choice. The W river is the longest navigable river in NZ. You might think that a minor distinction in a modest-size island, but the river is about 200 miles long, the lower 50 miles being navigable by steamboat, somewhat more than that now via jet-boat (which we learned in Queenstown can operate in 3-4 inches of water). We found a nice motel and a nice restored old hotel for a nice dinner. (Frank Burns once told Hotlips that, ”It’s nice to be nice to the nice.”) Downtown W was quite charming.

In on-the-spot planning our return trip I found a description in our guidebook of a backroad drive along the W river of about 70 miles. Turned out to be one of the best discoveries of our time here. Beautiful canyon, golden fall foliage, bright green paddocks (pastures), blue sky, white sheep, intriguing Maori and missionary settlements along the way, narrow, winding road, … this is New Zealand! My pictures don’t do it justice (note the power line in this one), but maybe you get the idea. This church is at a Catholic convent in a settlement once named Jerusalem by missionaries, now named Hiruharama.

(Susie: Remember how I said that the passes in the South Island were nothing compared to Colorado, etc.,,,,,Well, this “little off the road drive” was SOMETHING ELSE. Why am I always on the side looking WAY down into the abyss? The road was paved, dirt, gravel, at times and NARROW. At one point, we were questioning our decision to “you take the high road and I’ll take the low road”—well, we took the low road. Do we know where we are? Ah! Ha! We came upon two farmers who were conversing about the truck that was in the ditch (not stuck, I guess). Anyway, Rob rejected the manly thing of NEVER asking directions and said, “Is this the way to Pipiriki”—expecting a reply like, “Yep, just over yonder.” Instead, the quite elegant reply was “You’re on the right track—The road gets narrower and narrower as you go”—wish I could imitate this charming NZ speech, but just think British with a little longer vowel sound. Well, narrower and narrower it was. The only thing wrong is I keep saying to Rob, “Oh my gosh, look over there,” and then when he does I say, “Don’t you dare take your eyes off the road.” I do regret that he doesn’t get the whole effect of this beautiful scenery since he is the driver, but I try not to gloat too much.

We spent Sunday night at the farmstay mentioned above, found it to be quite a good choice for our outing with the kids, then went on to Hamilton and had a nice afternoon visit there. Seminar went well and we returned home in early evening. Have I said we’re eagerly awaiting the arrival of our kids. Lots planned, and we’ll report on that in a couple of weeks.

Cheers.

Rob and Susie in Sheepland

T OF C