Advertisement
Published: October 2nd 2015
Edit Blog Post
September 2016
If Raglan was a person, he would be a surfer with shoulder length dreds, a wee pointy beard, precariously hanging jeans on wipity hips, barefoot, coffee drinking and always just on the cusp of a really profound statement,
'yeah man... sweet, cool, man'... and never in a hurry. We were lucky to spend a month in Raglan's company. Now neither Drew nor I had heard of Raglan before receiving an email from a house sitting website inviting us to visit this town for 4 weeks when we arrived in New Zealand. Deb, our host, was planning a trip to the states and had liked our profile, she, a English ex pat who built solar powered bikes and as it turns out, has a penchant for vampire literature, among many other things. So we looked up some pictures of this previously unmarked stop on our itinerary (well apart from arriving in Auckland, at that point, we didn't really have one anyway ?). On seeing the stunning coastal images and idyllic bays, we both said
'yeah man'. Raglan welcomed us with sunshine and amazing rolling green hills, hobbit style, leading toward the wild Tasman west coast of the North
Island and famous left hand surf... yes, well I still can't surf so if you don't get what the left hand fuss is about, it's ok, neither do I. However, what was wonderful was turning into Flax Cove, a little inlet on the edge of town to our little converted stable home, wooded, library-lined bach (kiwi holiday home) with little Son, a small cat, our only charge for a month, heaven! We also were given a Raglan style welcome, Deb arranged a BBQ with all the neighbours for our first night, complete with home brewed beer and hooch and oh yeah man, we forgot the food but hey... who cares?! Needless to say, we were a little scratchy headed for our first full day in town.
After being filled in on all of our house sitting duties by Deb, busily readying herself for departure, and us trying not to seem more focussed on going back to bed, always tricky when being demonstrated the inner most workings of a home plumbing system (!), we packed Deb off and headed into town to explore. Our first stop ofcourse was a coffee shop, nigh on impossible to avoid in New Zealand and
Bridal veil falls
Too high too fit it all in the shot! swinging cats will produce many in Raglan. We soothed our sore heads with some particularly good java at the Raglan Social Club. If we were back in the UK, this would have been some kind of youth project, in Raglan it turns out this was the newest café/bistro in town and hey guess what man... they were looking for chefs. So as is want to happen in Raglan, we put out the thought about town that Drew was looking for casual chef work and the owners, Deb's neighbours (oh it's a small town man) said ...
'yeah man'! In fact Drew actually ended up with three job offers in one day, yahoo! Although Drew worked some pretty long hours, I entertained myself by walking with the local ramblers, exploring the beautiful coastline by bike and volunteering with the Whainagoroa Environmental Centre. This entailed planting native trees, helping out in the local school with their veggie garden and trapping (more of that later). The school experience was so much fun, I was really impressed by the kid's knowledge of planting and cultivating their own food. I even got to run my own session which as it was national bee month,
I decided to play a pollination game. This involved my other two environment officers playing the queen bees and the kids 'beeing' the workers, collecting pollen (yellow pots). The workers that brought the most pollen to their queen bee won. It was great fun and fortunately didn't end up in any worker fights or injuries!
A huge part of the any environmental management plan in New Zealand must involve bio security. Being such a small country with many endemic species which have evolved with no natural ground predators, many problems have arisen for native birds and plants with the introduction of invasive species. Stoats and possums are particularly harmful to nesting birds. So another new skill I have picked up is baiting traps for possums and mustelids. This is a much less glamorous side of conservation but essential here in New Zealand if there is to be hope for endangered birds such as the iconic Kiwi. Unfortunately my experience on a hot day checking traps, involved many decomposing rat corpses in the traps! Trying not to breathe in the stench and scrape off remains is a tricky business but something I got better at. So, keen as I to
try out my new skills, Drew and I were able to check all the traps on the local Mt Karioi on a day traversing it's ridge. However, after 8 or so corpses, I was slightly irked that I could not persuade Drew to join in on the removal tasks...eeagghh! Fortunately the climb itself was a great adventure and our trap report also gleaned later that we had actually uncovered relatively few catches on this normally 'busy' transect, showing the trapping effort was going in the right direction.
One major highlight of our stay in Raglan has to be our long drive to the remote harbour town of Kawhia. Although we never learned to pronounce it correctly, after many attempts, we will remember this place with sheer reverence. After a stunning journey looking down from cliff top roads to the wild Tasman deserted beaches below, we arrived in the seemingly forgotten Kawhia township. A short drive beyond we arrived at hot water beach, and spade in hand we crowned the huge dunes to look down on the massive expanse of beach below us. Mountains in the distance shimmered on this startlingly sunny but brisk, almost Spring, New Zealand day. We
scanned the bay for what we had come for, hints of steam rising from the sand. Fortunately, as so often has on this trip, fortune favoured us as a small group of French travellers, the only other humans in sight, were just arising from the their own self-dug hot pool. They kindly offered it to us and so we threw off all but our cozzies and and sank into the sulphurous pool, a mere few meters from the breaking surf. It turns out we had arrived in time, for the tide was coming in. We managed enough time to lie back and scan the distant blue horizon, the hazy mountains and the rapidly approaching surf, looking at each other in wonder. Surely this was paradise and it cost absolutely nothing, something that the natural environment in New Zealand seems to offer so willingly. Ahhh, bliss!
The final crowing and unforgettable moment on such a special day, was arriving back to the car to attempt to change in the car park. Either the euphoria of the hot pool experience had gone to Drew's head or it may simply have been sulphur fumes, whichever it was, he proceeded to leap about
the deserted car park in the manner of a naked bard....!!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.097s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 11; qc: 48; dbt: 0.0512s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Ruth Finn
non-member comment
Gobbsmaked and envious!
David Attenborough should not worry about his replacement - the Sam & Drew Pair are a Producers dream! Good Lookin' Script Writers n Storytellers, Environmentalists, who clean and cook and catch! Keep the stories coming and bye the bye - miss you madly - please do not bring me a rat though - I have had my fill! None-Rodent-lovin' Mama xx