Wanganui - A Peasouper on the Road to Damascus

Wanganui or Whanganui – that is the question. Once upon a time, the town, the river, the region and the national park all shared the same name and all was well in the world. Then some bright spark had the idea of inserting an ‘h’ into Wanganui to indicate that the ‘Wan’ should be ‘breathy and aspirated’. Unfortunately only the traditionally Maori populated areas adopted the new spelling so the name of the river and national park became Whanganui while the settler dominated town and regional name remained ‘h’less which caused much confusion so moves are afoot to insert the missing ‘h’s to clear up the matter once and for all. Unfortunately ‘Wh’ is pronounced as an ‘F’ everywhere in New Zealand apart from here so Whanganui will probably be widely pronounced as Whanganui by those who know no different, so it's just made a pigs ear out of a silk purse. Whanderful.

It was a fine afternoon when we arrived at err... Wanganui, so we booked a trip up the err… Whanganui River Road the next day. This was no ordinary journey – we were joining Noel the postman on his daily round up the river as far as Pipiriki. The road follows the river for 130km there and back, but by the time Noel has driven up sidetracks to isolated settlements, he will have clocked up over 200km in a day. The road opened in 1934 – until then it had been river traffic only with paddle steamers which accommodated up to 400 well-heeled passengers in sumptuous quarters taking three days to reach luxury hotels upstream. The most famous of these was the Waimarie which was shipped in a box from the UK in 1900 and reassembled in the town. She paddled up and down until 1952 when she sunk but was raised and restored over seven years and relaunched on 1st January 2000, now taking day trippers in flip-flops during the warmer months. Jet boats, canoes and kayaks are also aplenty in summer – paddling the Whanganui, a 5 day trip, is classed as one of NZ’s Great Walks, despite the fact that there’s far more sitting down than walking involved. A large part of Noel’s summer revenue involves transporting canoes and passengers up and down the river road.

Noel picked us up at 7.30am and already on the minibus was Neil from Germany, the only other passenger that day. It was a grey and chilly morning and as we left town and headed off onto the river road, we were enveloped in a thick blanket of fog. Europeans first put down roots in the area in the 1830’s and missionaries sailed up the river, establishing settlements along the way such as Damascus, Corinth, Athens and Jerusalem, all of which seemed very bleak that morning. On we went through the gloom, looking down for a glimpse of the river and allegedly breathtaking scenery through the murk but there was nothing.

Outside city centres, New Zealand letters are always left in boxes at the gate and on rural rounds these must be accessible by leaning out of the window of the post van. Many of the post-boxes along the route raised a smile. There were a few old microwave ovens perched on top of posts, a pedal bin, a bread bin, a wood burning stove, lots of old barrels on their sides, canoes and even an old fridge. The house numbering system on the route was also a revelation. I’d been wondering why they were numbered in the thousands when there were only a few dozen along the road. It turns out that the number on a rural house is its distance in metres from the beginning of the road which makes it unique and easy to identify in emergencies for example. How sensible.

Mid morning and we reached the village of Jerusalem or Hiruharama in Maori. Hiruharama was once the largest kainga (village) on the Whanganui River in the middle of a populous district and was known as a meeting place for korero (discussion). in 1892, a Frenchwoman called Suzanne Aubert founded the world famous Roman Catholic Order of the Sisters of Compassion here and she devoted her life to helping the homeless, poor and sick. Fluent in Maori, she worked as a teacher and a nurse, produced herbal medicines and established homes for children and old people throughout the country. She died aged 91 in 1926, the legacy of her life's work having influenced the development of social welfare, education, and health in New Zealand. It is hoped that the church will eventually recognise Mother Aubert as New Zealand's first saint.

The mist still hanging, on we went to Pipiriki, formerly a glamorous resort full of international tourists having arrived on the paddle steamers but today, a nearly deserted little settlement which mostly serves as the landing and launching point for canoes and jet boats. The latest attempt to rebuild the burnt-down Pipiriki Hotel stalled due to funding 'issues' (it all disappeared somewhere) and vandals have stripped everything of value leaving a very sad looking concrete skeleton by the side of the river.

We had one delivery left and took a very rough track across fields where wild peacocks strutted and wild boars snuffled around. We were warmly greeted by Victoria, an elderly Maori woman who had lived on this smallholding all her life. She has spent decades here alone after the loss her parents and all her siblings. Surrounded by squealing piglets she asked Noel what news there was down in the town and remarked that her electricity bill was due any day now. Like many who live along the river, she rarely ventures far from her home - Noel brings her groceries and also pays her bills, being entrusted with her bank card and PIN number. Noel also provides a taxi service, taking villagers down to the town to see the doctor for example, where they may also do a bit of shopping, then stay in town overnight and return with Noel on his round next day. Marc and I were delighted to hear his stories of this aspect of his job. We are both children of postmen, Marc's father having driven the Royal Mail Post bus on his rural rounds for years and years ago my brother and I would go with our dad in his van during school summer holidays up the valleys of the Rivers Ceulan and Leri, delivering newspapers, prescriptions and the odd bottle of something stronger to the farms along the way with the post. Just like Noel, they were a major part of life for many. As we said goodbye to Victoria she predicted that the sun would soon be out and it would be a lovely day.

We left Pipiriki and headed back towards town and within a couple of miles, sure enough, the mist began to lift and we could see steep wooded slopes plummeting down to the lazy brown river. We were due to stop at Jerusalem for our picnic lunch and by the time we reached the village, the skies were clear. Noel took us down a track to the riverside and one of the most striking views imaginable. Standing tall on a spur above a deep river bend, the picture-perfect white church of St Joseph was set beautifully against the blue sky. Even though it is the most photographed church in the country, no camera will ever capture the feeling of being somewhere quite so special. Lunch was taken in the garden of Mother Aubert's Convent, alongside the church. These days, just three nuns remain here, Sister Anna Marie, Sister Alisi and Sister Sue who run the convent as a hostel, offering a cosy bed and the use of all the facilities for £6 per night. We had a look around and it looked very homely, with pots of home-made jam in the kitchen and colourful knitted bedspreads in the dorms. Noel took us into the church, the inside of which was decorated with woven Maori panels and art alongside the more traditional ornaments. Outside we met Peter, an elderly man who leaned over his stick as he asked us in a soft voice where we were from. He liked to come and chat with Noel's passengers every day.

On the way back to town, we stopped at the Kawana Flour Mill at Matahiwi, which was restored as a major project a few years ago. As well as rebuilding the mill and re-positioning the original millstones which were a personal gift to the Maoris from Governor Grey, all the belts and pulleys, chutes and machinery, they have also refurbished the tiny millers cottage in the style of the late 1800's when the mill was in full production. It was a fascinating place.

Our last call was to the Koriniti Marae with its traditional collection of colourful buildings with intricate carvings. There is a pre-school nursery here where children from settlements along the river come to play and where parents and extended families can also stay and socialise. Travellers' accommodation is also available here and whether pre-booked or just turning up on a canoe from the river, it is polite to make yourself known at the gate of the marae and wait to be invited onto the sacred land. Our last glimpse of the Whanganui was from high as our eyes followed its glistening waters down in the valley below, meandering towards and over the horizon.

Back in the early 1900's, the residents who lived on Durie Hill in Wanganui were fed up of the challenging, near vertical walk home and they decided to do something about it. After much deliberating and measuring, a horizontal tunnel was bored 200 metres into the rock at the base of the hill. This met up with a vertical shaft 66 metres high, which hosted an elevator, big enough to transport pedestrians, bicycles and prams up and down the hill. We decided that $1 was a very reasonable fare and entered the semi-circular tunnel with shiny white walls , which at first seemed to get longer with every step but eventually the dot at the far end became a doorway and as instructed, we tugged the bell-pull which gave a lovely old-fashioned ring and within a minute the doors opened and we were greeted by a lady lift-attendant who didn't even want to consider how many times she's been up and down over the last twenty years. I took a seat for the ride and admired the old wooden panelling and the board which held regular commuters' tickets, clipped on each journey. On the top of Durie Hill, a war memorial constructed of local shell rock looks out over the town. We climbed up its 176 dizzying steps to the observation gallery at the top and were amazed a t the view of the sunset towards the sea, snow-capped Mt Ruapehu , the silhouette of the northern tip of South Island and the mighty Whanganui cutting her way through the middle of the city. We splashed out another dollar each for the ride down.

We had a couple of hours to spare before the bus left the next day and visited the museum to view an extraordinary photographic exhibition. Te Pihi Mata - The Sacred Eye by William Partington, the son of an early settler, features life and scenery along and up to the farthest reaches of the Whanganui River at the turn of the last century. The collection of hundreds of glass plates and previously unseen vintage prints of families and more formal portraits of Maori in traditional dress, was discovered in a suitcase in a garage back in 2001 and put up for auction. The Whanganui Maori protested as they regard photographs as embodiments of the deceased and saw this as the sale of their forefathers and the auction was abandoned after the group bid just $200 in an attempt to reclaim a piece of their heritage. Eventually the local community and iwi (tribal) groups banded together to buy the collection for over $150,000 and it is now beautifully staged at the Regional Museum. The entrance to the collection passes through the gates of a marae to the chant of a Maori Welcome and the photographs are displayed in small nooks and around corners to soft background music and voices. It felt just as if I was wandering through a village.