A hundred and twelve years ago, Mr Bill Topp obtained a license from the Post Office to carry the mail once a week across a precipitous muddy track from one tiny settlement to another, using one horse. It took him three hours and nine minutes to traverse the fourteen miles of steep hairpin bends rising to 1,410 feet, and thus, over time the rough track acquired the name The 309 Road.
There are just under 300 of these steep hairpin bends. A river winds fifty feet below, and in the years since we moved here, the increasingly violent storms have made it an increasingly dangerous drive, with steep slips into the river below, making it narrower and narrower, as we negotiate what is left of the road. It is still unpaved, dusty in summer, muddy in winter.
We live halfway along it, at the very top of the range, in our protected forest. When we reach the high wrought iron gates and the civilized paved road inside, which leads to our little home another mile and a half further on, we heave a sigh of relief. Home safely !
The 309 is famous in these parts for its horrors. We have a joke whenever we see a spanking new clean car creeping around the bends ( often on the wrong side of the road because they think it’s safer) we call them TT’s – Terrified Tourists. They are a menace to our safety, as are the tradies’ cars, tearing around the bends often on the wrong side too.
If we turn left when we drive out of our gates, we head down to an old gold mining town, still full of Victorian settler charm, with a population of 2,000, and reliant on summer tourism with its beautiful harbour, enticing little shops and cafes, and famous potters. On the drive down, there are waterfalls and forest glades with giant kauri trees where tourists visit, and a farm which is bisected by the road. Here until two years ago, dozens of wild black pigs roamed around the farm, and across the road with their tiny black piglets.
Tourists used to stop to pet them and talk to the gentle, eccentric, white haired old man who cherished them until one day just before Christmas, when he unwittingly became a murderer. A rustler described by his mother as ‘a loveable ratbag’, descended on the farm yet again, to help himself to a free Christmas ham. The frantic old farmer chased after him, beside himself from guarding the pigs night and day from thieves. He heard the terrible screams of his pet pig being butchered, snapped, and shot the man. He is now in his eighties, awaiting trial. Everyone, including the police, sympathise with him, and money was raised to pay an animal charity five hundred miles away, to round up the 60 beloved and abandoned pigs and re-home them in a sanctuary
When we turn right out of the gate, we head downhill to a holiday destination which was once a tiny fishing village with a magnificent harbour. Nearby, Captain Cook first set foot in this land which is now called New Zealand. I often visualise the Endeavour sailing into these empty, glistening waters, edged by scarlet, flowering pohutukawa trees, no sound but the singing birds, and the creaking of the sails and rigging of the battered sailing ship..
Back when Mr Bill Topp began his post office service, there were just a few hundred people living here, mostly reliant on the felling of the kauri trees for their living.
These wonderful straight trees were ideal for ships masts as well as for building the settler cottages and Victorian villas.
Driving down the road this side, with the steep cliffs one side, and the steep drop to the river the other, we cross a water splash, with its tiny waterfall splashing into a mossy grotto on one side, before crossing the road to fall into the river below. We pass a field near the bottom where a black steer known as Houdini used to live – we were just two of those who rescued him from his escapes. Past the quarry and we emerge onto flat farmland and into the now bustling little sea-side town.
It’s now the second largest town in distant Coromandel peninsula, with 6,000 people revelling in the glorious, miles long, empty beach edged with royal palms. The beach is called after HMS Buffalo, a ship which sank here in July 1840 in a fierce storm. It went down only fifty metres from the shore, and the remains can sometimes be seen at low tide.
Locals shop in the one main street, perhaps a quarter of a mile long. A friend visiting from England marvelled at the tree lined streets and immaculate mown grass verges, with not a piece of litter to be seen – it’s a trim tidy little town, more like a village, where everyone knows each other and we’re greeted by our Christian names in every shop.
In the hardware shop, the women wanted to send me flowers when I had cancer, only deterred by the fact that my husband told them I was coming out of hospital the next day.
In the cafe, the owners did send me flowers, at the chemist the gentle Iraqi pharmacist greets us by name, and at the timber store where my husband is a regular, we’re always warmly welcomed.
As we sat in the cafe the other day, I looked around and said to my husband – there’s a microcosm of society sitting here today… the two youngsters with their dog sitting outside by the dog’s drinking bowl, inside an elderly gay couple I often see here. In the corner, two well dressed middle class couples with elegant haircuts and soft voices. At the table next to us, a couple of archetypal residents in this place famous for the eccentricity of its settlers – potters and painters – a man whose white beard spread down his chest, and white hair reaching his shoulder, talking to a woman whose long grey hair billowed around her face and down her back.
Yes, a microcosm of the gentle, unhurried people who share this remote peninsula with us.
We thank our lucky stars every day that we live in this peaceful, beautiful place, with the sea and the trees, the wind and the stars… far from the strife and struggles of the world, and it seems to us like heaven on earth.
Food for Threadbare Gourmets
When I want to cheer up a pedestrian meal, I make some soup, usually tomato or lentil.
Tomato soup is the easiest and quickest.
A chopped onion softened up for five minutes in the microwave with a sprinkle of olive oil, joins a tin of tomatoes in the pot. A bay leaf, a garlic clove, a generous squeeze of tomato puree and a big knob of butter all go in together with about two cups of chicken stock. Simmer for twenty minutes or so, whizz with the blender, and when it’s smooth, stir in some milk, or preferably cream. Easy and delicious, and tons better than a tin of tomato soup.
Food for Thought
We must fight against the spirit of unconscious cruelty with which we treat the animals. Animals suffer as much as we do. True humanity does not allow us to impose such sufferings on them. It is our duty to make the whole world recognize it. Until we extend our circle of compassion to all living things, humanity will not find peace.
Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965) was a musician, philosopher, theologian and founded a hospital in Africa.
