Whanganui River Road

Before you read this and look at the pictures, we want to let you know that it has dead animals in it, so beware if you’re vegetarian (Helen, we’re thinking of you!).

For some reason the Whanganui river has an ‘h’ in its name (pronounced Fanganui), whereas the town at its mouth to the sea doesn’t, that’s Wanganui (don’t know why).

We’ve had a couple of interesting cultural days, including today’s, which has been a visit to a Maori ‘food festival day’ at a settlement called Matahiwi halfway along the Whanganui River Road, a fairly remote twisting road through really picturesque landscape along the banks of the river.

Maori Marae's in one village

On the way we passed through Athens, London and Jerusalem (the Maori names are different and shown along with the English translation, but we were amused that we could get from London to Jerusalem in 20 minutes!). Further along the road is the entrance to the very remote Whanganui National Park, only accessible by jet boat or multi day kayak or tramping trips through the jungle (sounds exciting, but maybe another time!),

but you can continue back out to the main road and return to Wanganui in a big loop, which we did on Thursday, stopping at every point of interest indicated in the leaflet we picked up at the i-site in town, making a thoroughly enjoyable day. It was during this trip that we stopped at the café and gallery at Matahiwi (it’s a Maori settlement, as most of the valley seems to be, and virtually all it comprises is the café and a couple of houses and a farm). It was they that told us about the Maori food festival on Saturday in the field next door, although we had seen a poster about it in town before, so we decided to go.

Chairman Daryn (left) commentating on the butchering

I have to say, we’ve had a really interesting day, as 90% of the people there were Maori, all very friendly and approachable and we think we may have been the only true visitors there. Other people we spoke to (including Kiwi Michele and her English husband Ralph, who live just up the road), were locals (relatively) and we didn’t detect anyone else who appeared to be true ‘visitors’ like us.

We met Daryn who described himself as the ‘chairman’ of his local Maori tribe. He has lived abroad in the Middle East working as a consultant for some years, but has now ‘come home’, following the death of the previous ‘chief’. He told us that the Whanganui River (that has its source on Mount Tongariro) runs through the territory of three tribes. He is now the chairman (for life) of the middle tribe and it is he who organised the day. A hell of a nice guy, probably in his mid thirties (Jackie thinks he may have been a bit older), gregarious and really enthusiastic, making everyone welcome and acting as MC for most of the day – and what a different day it was!

Judging the antlers of one of the kills

We saw the hunting competition, which has been going on since last Thursday in the local hills, a prize being given to the person who brings back the heaviest stag or wild pig. Another prize for the stag with the biggest (or best shaped) antlers (not quite sure how it works, but they measure various aspects of the antlers to determine the winner). A deer butchering competition starting with the whole carcass, first removing the skin (avidly watched by other Maori to see if they could pick up any tips!) and ending with beautiful cuts of meat, some of which were then cooked and we could sample.   

The childrens possum and rabbit competition

A children’s competition for the biggest possum, rabbit (or magpie apparently, unless that was an accident!) they have caught. Many other children’s competitions, one an incomprehensible game with a ball (that we thought was going to be something like rounders, but was much more complicated than that) and, believe it or not a dead possum throwing competition for the kids. Yes, they really got (a very cute looking) dead possum (small cat sized – and not unlike a cat!) and each child (some looking as young as 4) picked it up by its tail and hurled this dead body as far as they could! I had a bit of a personal moral difficulty with that, but who are we to judge what they do?

Ready for the 'dead possum throwing'.....

 

There it goes....

Age is no barrier

Don't forget to let go....

Another good throw!

We had the opportunity to sample a ‘Hangi’ which, we were told, is a meal prepared by cooking various meats (in this case pork, lamb and chicken) and a range of vegetables (carrots, potatoes, pumpkin) in an underground oven. Volcanic rocks (sometimes iron rods) are heated over a fire, then buried in a hole, the meal wrapped and placed in a wire frame, covered with wet sacks and then buried with soil and left for 3 hours to cook. 

The Hangi 'cheat' ovens!

I wanted to see it cooking, asked someone where it was and went to look. Unfortunately today’s was a bit of a cheat as they were using metal containers heated by gas! The cook was a bit apologetic when we saw it, but showed us the hole outside and volcanic rocks they would normally use. Ah well, it was still very tasty!

We left to the music of a local reggae band who had just started playing, it looked like the day was going on for a while yet, but we’d spent 4 hours there, met and talked to a lot of very friendly people and were absolutely full of hangi and the various food samples we had tried (including venison steak sandwich – yummy!).

Here is the news from Wanganui…..

We’re feeling a bit more ‘at home’ here in Wanganui and, as a result, not doing a huge amount. We’ve had a couple of afternoons looking around the vicinity, but other than that we’ve been catching up on the news, both in newspapers and on TV (what a luxury!) reading a lot and cooking some excellent meals with the help of a kitchen and oven. 

Brinny the cat seems to really like us being around and, as he’s not supposed to be inside, we’ve been sitting outside on our garden chairs on the patio (what a hardship in the clear blue sky and mid 20’s C temperature!). Today we spent at least half the day reading and he was with us the whole time, just chilling out, lying in the sun until it was too hot, coming over for strokes etc and generally enjoying our company. I took a few photos of Mr. Cutie and this was the best.

Wanganui from the top of Durie Tower

The couple of walks we have done have been to viewpoints giving good views of the town and surrounding area. One was up onto Durie Hill via a lift! Built in 1906 it takes you up in a very rickety lift after walking through a 200 ft long tunnel, all for $2. After alighting at the top it’s possible to walk up the 176 steps of the Durie Tower to get very good views of the town, surrounding countryside – and two volcanos (one of them quite active – how scary is that!). 

Another view from Durie Hill. Mount Ruapehu is in the distance

 Mount Taranaki out to the north west I don’t think is particularly active (I hope not as I want to climb to the top of it in the next week or so) and, in the east Mount Ruapehu, very much active, having erupted within the last few years (I want to climb that as well if I’m allowed to!). Today we did another walk (a very easy 20 minute walk) up to another viewpoint on our side of the town, which gave another quite different view of the area.

Wanganui out to the sea from our other viewpoint

 And now for the news: it’s all local stuff, but interesting (I think), except for the last bit as it’s about the BBC series Top Gear (I’ve said that so you’ll read to the end!)

Did you know, New Zealand is in the middle of the worst drought it has had for about 35 years. It’s just hot and sunny here and has been (other than odd slightly cloudy and drizzly days) since early January. This has had a couple of very negative effects and one positive.

 The negatives are on dairy and sheep farming – a big part of the economy, which is likely to cost the country up to $1billion and is causing great hardship to farmers. The lack of rain means the reservoirs are very low and, as up to 25% of NZ electricity is from hydro-electric, it’s had a major effect on prices.

The positive side is for the wine growers who are saying the warm sunny days and cooler nights is the perfect condition for an excellent wine vintage. They are holding their breath that it lasts another couple of weeks up to harvest, which could make 2013 one of their best recent years and will produce many first class wines. They might be disappointed as the weather forecast is hinting it might break by this weekend, with the remains of tropical cyclone Sandra heading our way bringing rain and wind. We’ll see.

Now the bit about BBC’s Top Gear (this is the UK one, not the Australian variant), Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond are here in the North Island filming for the next series and they are being very secretive about what they are doing. Three News (one of the TV channels here) have been following them around trying to find out. They are filming on 90 mile beach, which is right up in Northland above Auckland and is a beach that is very long (it isn’t quite 90 miles, but I haven’t got our Rough Guide in the house which would tell me exactly and I can’t be bothered to go outside to get it!). Today they filmed a race between Jeremy, driving apparently a red Toyota Corolla along the beach (shadowed by a helicopter filming) and a yacht. One guy who saw it wouldn’t say who won, but the general feeling was that the yacht won. Jeremy and James were followed by the TV reporters and got very little out of them, Jeremy walking (gently) into the TV camera and saying ‘no comment!’. Be interesting to watch it when it comes out.

That’s it for now, don’t we lead exciting lives!