Home by Sarah Anderson

I will start by saying that I guess this piece of writing could be described as a celebration of some places in the North Island of New Zealand.

I also will say I have invented the ‘Strangely Surreal North Island Touring Company’ (featured in this piece) for fun and to help explain why I’d describe the places mentioned here.

In any case my invented company only has one guide, who admittedly is not very good, because she has no map. On the up side, she does have a fairly good sense of direction and generally attracts adventures, so the travelling experience could not be described as dull.

To start you off the best place to begin would be in Wellington, because that is where the tour starts from.

Now some might say that there is no point in leaving the city of Wellington, because it’s such a brilliant place, and they would be right. But if by chance you forgot this, perhaps on a day when the wind blew all the thoughts out of your head and you hadn’t yet found them, well, that would be a very good day to go on a Strangely Surreal North Island Tour.

There are two ways out the city, and personally I prefer the coastal road, but your tour won’t go that way. Instead it will go up over the Rimutakas and into that no-mans land on the other side. The main reason for going this way is there is an excellent chocolate store, which I’ve heard is worth a visit. If you have no interest in chocolate I suppose you could visit the many antique or art-crafty type stores instead.

I have heard others talk about the wineries out here too. Possibly they are worth visiting, but I wouldn’t know because I’ve never been to any of them either. More interesting would be the replica that has been built of Stonehenge out this way.

It’s then best to travel fairly quickly up through some of the towns that litter the road as you progress further north. As you will see for yourself, many of the ramshackle villages look as if they harbour mass-murderers or worse.

Continuing up North there used to be a very spectacular but precarious gorge that had a narrow zigzag road running through it, and it was always a gamble to see if you survived the crossing. Unfortunately Transit New Zealand upgraded the road making it safer and it is a far less interesting journey.

Onto Hawkes Bay and you’ll come to many more wineries, summer temperatures you wouldn’t believe and there in fact is the body of a sleeping giant located here too. If you climb to the top of him (Te Mata Peak) there is a stunning view of the ocean on the other side.

Progressing to Napier, which some people call the Art Deco capital of New Zealand, you will find many tourist attractions, including captive dolphins that do tricks and an Art Deco cigarette making factory. Personally I prefer the tourist attraction that includes an earthquake movie and a simulation about how Napier was once almost entirely destroyed by a major quake measuring 7.9 on the Richter scale. They also have a very good miniature railway here that is quite enchanting.

Past this point, is what slowly seems to become the end of colonised civilisation for awhile.  Gisborne is on the edge of the change. Tokomaru Bay has turned into something of a ghost town, filled with shacks that wouldn’t be out of place in a third world country. There is something hauntingly beautiful in its decay.

Around the East Cape, you wonder if you’re in the New Zealand you know any more as it really is an unusual world out there.

After many hours of travel you finally reach Mountt Maunganui and the feeling of foreignness continues. You think perhaps you somehow didn’t notice that an aeroplane hijacked the car and flew you over to Australia and dropped you off in Surfers Paradise. And then you see while there are many similarities, it isn’t quite so flashy here.

It’s a short trip to Tauranga which could officially be classified as vaguely cosmopolitan. The emphasis is on the vague, mind you. They may do boat tours out to White Island (a moderately active volcano) and if they do I would recommend it as worth a trip, not that I’ve been on one, but it should certainly should be added to the Strangely Surreal Tour schedule.

If you’ve never been to Rotorua, or the site of the Mount Tarawera eruption, this is certainly a good next option. There are also many interesting natural sites to stop and visit on the way, with evocative names like Hells Gate and so on to give you an idea of what you are in for.

The next logical point to travel is up to the Coromandel, where you’ll find all sorts of interesting diversions for people in the know, rivers filled with natural crystals, sacred trees, that kind of thing. Additionally the place is rife with hippies who inhabit communes.

Still north and eventually you hit Auckland. The two good things about this city are the shopping and then the shopping. You can buy almost anything here and they do have a better selection of things that most anywhere else in New Zealand.

Quickly though, let’s move on, continuing north and here is where things get mysterious. By that I mean I’ve never been any further north than Auckland so it’s all a mystery to me. I have heard about giant kauri trees up this way, hot water beaches, endless golden stretches of sand, that kind of thing. This part of the tour, I think it’s best to enjoy the experience of discovery.

Now we’ve returned from finding whatever it is we have found up north and are winding our way south again. We pass Hamilton and don’t bother stopping. We keep driving until we get down to the Waitomo caves. I’m sure you must have heard of these, what with the glow worms and stalactites, the peace of being deep under the earth.

We continue south down to Lake Taupo and this is where it all happens really. Some people swear the lake has magical properties. I dunno about that, but I have been told that in some parts of the lake those depth finders have never been able to find a bottom. There is a sacred island in the middle of the lake filled with bones and people are forbidden to set foot on it.

Now up at the top of the lake are all the tourist attractions like the Huka Falls, Craters of the Moon and jetboating. The real adventures lie elsewhere however.

There is a road that has a turn off near the Taupo-Napier highway that turns into shingle until it finally becomes forest. At some point an ancient stone wall emerges. Now no one can explain this wall. Dating on it precedes known human habitation of any kind in New Zealand. Who were the builders of this wall? No one knows, but it sure is interesting to wonder.

Then there is the Tongariro natural park filled with ancient trees and vast empty spaces that leave every part of you soaring with the feeling of freedom. And then those magnificent volcanoes. If you become very still you can feel their presence, so strong, it’s almost as if they are speaking to you.

When you can finally bear to leave, then you have the privilege of driving down one of the North Island’s most breathtaking roads, the Desert Road. Its beauty has to be experienced to be believed.

South, south, into farmland and utterly sad attempts by small towns like Palmerston North (famous for nothing) or Taihape (the gumboot city of New Zealand) or Bulls (which contains many pictures of bulls and maybe some cows too on store fronts) to attract tourists. I suppose you could head east around this point and go see Mountt Taranaki and New Plymouth, but I think this part of New Zealand might be better viewed by aeroplane.

So let’s suppose you concur and we continue south. The dilemma is whether all the continuing chintzy towns that try to advertise exciting wonders contained within them are really worth stopping for, or whether they are a waste of your time. I leave that dilemma for you to solve.

And oh look here we are hitting Levin, Waikanae, the Virgin Mary statue appearing in Paraparaumu and our hearts lift because we know it’s not far till we get home back to Wellington. Down the motorway, round the bend at the bottom of the Ngauranga gorge and Wellington city unfolds before us, hills dotted with houses, the office buildings lining the waterfront, the glorious sky, and we know we are home now and it feels that there could be nothing better in the whole world than this.

About the writer: Sarah Anderson’s work has appeared in many literary journals both in New Zealand and Australia, the most notable being Landfall. She is a Wellington-based writer, and the person who started the literary magazine Viola Beadleton’s Compendium of Seriously Silly and Astoundingly Amazing Stories, which ran for four years. Next up, a published book…

‘Home’ was written for the Memoir & Local History Competition 2011, run annually by the New Zealand Society of Authors (Bay of Plenty Region) with support from Tauranga Writers.