More Mountains

It’s six months since we’ve ventured into the Tararuas behind Levin. The forests up there are massive and untouched, but it’s all a bit of an effort to get to them through the miles of ankle deep mud. But there is an alternative, behind the village of Manakau where we were confidently informed by the tourist office that we could drive straight to the walking track and leave the car in a car park. It sounded too good to be true. Was it too good to be true?

Of course it was. You have to be careful of Kiwis. They don’t have the same sense of danger as the rest of us. What we were told was that we could just drive through the gate to the next gate and then to the car park. Here’s a list of things we were not made aware of:

1. The road was a winding, potholed mud track.

2. The track was on the edge of a narrow precipice.

3. The track was several kilometres long.

4. There was nowhere to turn around.

The chances of sliding off the side of the cliff were therefore higher than expected.

Having said that, the views through the valley were pretty good and there were some cute baby cows on the track. And it probably wasn’t as bad as we thought. The most frightening part about it, apart from the fear of skidding to our deaths, was that we had no idea how long the track was; we were under the impression that it was a few hundred yards but it seemed like it was going to go on forever.

The advantage is of course that you get the place to yourself. No-one else was stupid enough to drive down that road this afternoon. There was a lovely bush walk down to a river bend, clear water bubbling through the gravel and jagged forested hills looming in the background. You almost felt like we were the only people ever to have gone there. Perhaps having to put in a huge effort to get to these places makes them all the more special.

My old boss once said that he thought the area didn’t get many tourists because it didn’t make the most of its assets and I have to agree. The mountains are great but you have to be pretty determined to get to them. I just feel that it would be nice if there was easy access to the forest somewhere in the district. It can’t be much too much to ask can it?

Cheese

Charles de Gaul once asked how you could run a country with 246 different types of cheese. In fact he was wrong; France has more than 400 different types. He would have no such problem here.

New Zealand is famous for its dairy industry, which is responsible for half of its greenhouse gas emissions. With so much milk sloshing around, you’d think the cheese here would be brilliant, in the same way as the chocolate is. But you’d be wrong. Supermarket fridge shelves are full to bursting with cheese but it only come in 4 types, all of which are essentially the same. Mild tastes like mild cheddar. Tasty tastes like strong cheddar. Colby also tastes like mild cheddar, as does Edam.

The bizarre thing is that there are loads of dairy companies all making exactly the same range. At Countdown the other day, in a slightly French fug at the lack variety in cheese, I counted eight different ranges of Colby, Mild, Anchor and Tasty. That’s Mainland, Anchor, Valumetric, Basics, Signiture Range, Alpine, Dairy Fresh and another one as well. That’s 32 different varieties of identical cheese. Is this what Maggie meant by consumer choice?

Wellington

Levin has its good points but it is quite insular. It’s a very small place, and isolated, being 40 minutes by road from anywhere. There is a daily paper published in the town which has one page of national news, with the rest of the paper being devoted to local events and moaning about the council. I realised the other day that after a year here I have no idea what David Beckham has been up to. Living here is like living in the 1970’s, whilst the rest of New Zealand has probably made it to the 90’s by now.

All this is rubbing off on use just a little bit as we realised the other day when we went to Wellington for the day. Wellington is not exactly a big city but compared to Levin it really feels huge and super-sophisticated.

We are so used to small-town living that we were completely thrown by basic things like one way systems and not being able to park right outside the place where we were going to. But there seemed to be a real buzz in the air, a palpable feeling of excitement like this was the kind of place where things really happen, like important decisions being made or buses running on a regular basis.

I have moved jobs now and I am commuting to the next town down the highway from Levin, towards Wellington and closer to the action. I am already feeling like I’ve made steps into a larger world.