"NZ a scenic tour of an area". It's also number nine on this list from the NZ Herald of 15 Kiwi Slang Words. All that just to explain my blog title, but hey, you never know when that little factoid might prove useful in your life ;)
Val, a friend of Gill and James (for whom I'm house-pet sitting), invited me to her home last evening for a little get together. She's a retired chef from Auckland, immigrated from the UK (Liverpool, I believe) years ago, and moved to Hawera around the same time as Gill. At the party I met several people and one of the couples was Allan and Carol. I had meant to be leaving the party, but got stuck talking to Allan in the kitchen. I literally mean stuck, he is rather chatty and I couldn't find a decent break in the conversation to politely make my departure. Anyway, he was born and raised here but has traveled quite extensively around the world (40 countries was the count he gave me), so at least we were talking about a subject I enjoyed. Shortly before his wife decided it was time to head home he invited to me to go on his school bus route in the morning to see what he has nicknamed "The Green Canyon". He claimed the landscape variety within the drive was spectacular and unlike anything you normally see. It seemed impolite to say no, and besides, it's not like I really had anything else to do and would most likely never go to this area on my own anyway.
At 7:25 am this morning I met him at his house and we climbed in the van and headed off. As we headed out of Hawera (population about 11,000 according to Allan) we were in dairy country - very flat, as you can see in the below photo.
One of the major employers in this area is Fonterra Dairy Co-operative, Allan even has a story about a time he was in China and told people he was from NZ and their response was "Fonterra!". As we drove, the landscape changed considerably once we headed east. The roads were now incredibly windy and with the sun coming up over the clouds and hills it was quite a beautiful morning. He was able to quickly stop for a moment (we had kids to pick up and a schedule to keep) at Mangaminigi Saddle so I could get a photo; it was an amazing view. I found this video online of some drone footage that gives you a look at some of what I saw (and the road I was on): Taranaki Mangamingi.
He picks up 3 elementary children who live on farms way out "in the sticks" as we would say, or as the Kiwis say: "in the wop wops". They mostly raise sheep in this area, but of course there are some cattle as well. We even drove past the area where they hold the NZ Dog Trials for Taranaki. The family of one of the girls he picks up helps with the trials and she told me they had 30 entrants this year and it was a 2-day event. It was an interesting way to spend a morning and Allan certainly had plenty of facts and things of interest to point out along the way.
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