Land of Beauty and Spirit
An end-to-end road trip reveals the natural wonders of New Zealand and the generosity of its people
A winding trip through the scenic wonder that is New Zealand.
Iwas expecting to cross paths with a T. rex at any moment. The rugged west coast of New Zealand’s South Island can seem prehistoric like that. Half- walking, half- sliding down a narrow trail overhung with trees dripping tangled moss, I was looking for a man named Merv. I had started my search in Jackson Bay, Southland, a quiet fishing village with a handful of year-round residents. As I got out of my car, a slender, blonde woman on a sunny verandah asked if I was lost.
“I’m looking for Merv?” I said. It was actually a question.
“He’s up the river whitebaiting,” she replied. “I’m his wife. I’ll tell you how to find him.”
This was how I ended up on a muddy trail, looking for Merv’s whitebaiting stand. Whitebaiting stands are cobbled-together docks reaching out over rivers feeding into the ocean, the perfect spots from which to net juvenile Galaxiidae, a prized fish delicacy.
I was on a road trip from the Lands End hotel, in Bluff, the southern tip of the South Island, to Cape Reinga, at the top of the North Island. Even after 15 years of living here, a New Zealand road trip is my favourite travel experience. Throughout this land there is a feeling – a warmth, a welcoming, a sense of being looked after. The Ma–ori word for it is manaakitanga. Loosely translated, it means hospitality.
This culture of looking after one another came to worldwide attention in the aftermath of the March 2019 terrorist attack on two mosques in Christchurch on the South Island. The way New Zealanders responded with a national call of “this isn’t us” and an outpouring of messages of inclusion was an example of manaakitanga in action.
My road trip was inspired by manaakitanga, its itinerary decided by people I met along the way – their recommendations, their generosity, their good graces – as I travelled on a daisy-chain of friendly gestures.
My search for Merv had begun exactly three days and 450 kilometres earlier in the lounge of Lands End. I was drinking a beer with the owner, Lynda Jackson, her husband, Ross, and another guest, Gaye Bertacco from Christchurch. The mood in the tavern felt both lovely and lonely – fitting for a bar at the end of the world.
“I’m here to pick up my partner, Mark,” Gaye said. “He’s a fisherman, and he’s been out at sea for a week.”
As if on cue, Mark Muir walked in the door.
A few beers later, Gaye and Mark invited me to join them for dinner at Oyster Cove, the restaurant next door. Over locally sourced spiny rock lobster and muttonbird (a large seabird that is a traditional Ma–ori food), we watched the fishing boats returning, their red and green lights winking in the dark.
“There are some real characters on the west coast,” Mark said. “You should look up Merv Velenski in Jackson Bay if you go that way. Merv’s the biggest character of them all. He’s been fishing as long as I’ve been alive. He’d give the shirt off his back to anyone, and they want to give their shirts to him.”
MUDDY AND MERV-LESS, I returned to Jackson Bay. There wasn’t much to this place but beauty. The beechand rimu-shaded road dead-ended in a settlement with a few houses, an orange café with a blue roof called the Cray Pot, and a weathered wharf extending into the turquoise sea. It was a slice of unspoiled paradise.
Back on the sun-soaked verandah, as I was telling Liz Velenski about my lack of success tracking him down, Merv pulled up in his vehicle. “I’ll get some tea,” Liz said.
Merv greeted me with a polite reserve. I told him Mark Muir sent me.
“My brother worked for Mark for a long time,” Merv said. “Mark’s got a well-built boat.”
We talked for an hour. Merv has done a little bit of everything: an army stint in Malaysia, Borneo and Thailand; deer antler velvet harvesting; sawmill work; a lifetime of fishing; and now stone carving.
“We’ve been in Jackson Bay for more than 40 years,” Merv told me. “There’s no place I’d rather be. But people miss it. You gotta get down the side roads and have a look. That’s where you meet the workers. Go and talk to them and you’ll learn ten times more than you would in any tourist town. That’s where you see New Zealand.”
Merv and Liz sent me away with a friendly wave and two parting gifts: the phone number of an old army buddy of Merv’s living in Hokitika, and a cooked crayfish wrapped in a page of the Otago Daily Times for my lunch.
Iwas 1200 kilometres north of Jackson Bay, just inland from the west coast of the North Island, at the Whangamomona Hotel. It’s perhaps the most remote country hotel in New Zealand, located on the Forgotten World Highway that runs between Stratford and Taumarunui. Whangamomona is New Zealand’s only republic, having declared its independence in 1989.
A Wel lington- based friend reminded me about the Forgot ten World Highway on my way north, and I found myself at the Whangamomona Hotel drinking beer from a borrowed glass.
“This is the only watering hole within an hour’s drive, so the locals gather here,” said Vicki Pratt. She and her husband, Richard, own the Whangamomona Hotel. Pint glasses hung on the wall, each bearing a yellow cattle ear tag with an identifying number. I was drinking from number 13.
“That’s Pete’s glass. He lives in the woolshed down the road,” Vicki said. “I don’t think he’ll mind.”
If someone is trying to reach a local who doesn’t have a phone, they call the hotel and leave a message with Vicki or Richard. They, in turn, leave a note in the person’s beer glass.
As we were chatting, a baby pig streaked into the bar, racing around the large barrels that double as tables. It was followed by a more hesitant lamb named Roast, and two tired-looking cyclists seeking a hot meal and a place to pitch a tent.
The pig and Roast were ushered back outside while I spoke to Jamie Lessard and Alanah Correia – 20something Canadians who were ten months into a planned 15-month trip.
They had spent the winter in the Coromandel Peninsula fur ther north on the North Island and were now cycling south. “We never would have biked here if someone we met hadn’t told us about it. It’s totally rerouted us,” Alanah said.
Visitors to Whangamomona have traditionally been New Zealanders, but in recent years the area has been attracting more overseas travellers, most of them on day trips to collect novelty republic stamps in their passports.
“It would be nice if some of these international visitors would stay longer,” Vicki said. “The ones that do stay have a really good time. We look after them. This is a great place to meet locals.”
Once a bustling frontier outpost of 300 residents, Whangamomona now has “ten or 11 town residents, with maybe 120 in the wider area,” Richard told me.
A government decision to redraw the local council boundary, which split the region in half, led to locals declaring themselves a republic. “You can’t just change the boundary and change where people are from,” Richard said. “And they didn’t consult us. Initially it was a gesture, but we’ve always taken a little pleasure in the rebellion. We’re a stubborn, amiable people.”
“I think that applies to all New Zealanders,” Vicki added. “We look after each other, especially in rural communities. Manaakitanga is what I grew up with, even if I didn’t know the name for it. I think it has to do with the fact that everyone knows each other in New Zealand. Guests come in, and within three sentences I’ll know someone they know. And I like that.”
MY KAYAKING GUIDE, Cait Disberry, and I realised we had both lived in Raumati Beach, a tiny beach town 50 kilometres northwest of Wellington, New Zealand’s capital. It’s that ‘three sentences’ connection Vicki talked about.
I was on a kayaking tour in Hahei, on the Coromandel Peninsula. The cycling Canadians had told me Cathedral Cove was a must-visit destination. With its lush landscape, secret coves, and hot-water beaches, only two and a half hours’ drive from Auckland, the country’s largest city, it is a place that makes visitors seriously study property listings. It has about 400 permanent residents, but that number explodes during the summer.
Our three-hour kayak tour led us across the clear, green waters of the Whanganui-A-Hei Marine Reserve, which has seen a huge increase in marine life since its establishment 28 years ago. Signs were evident everywhere I looked, from the multitude of ocean birds on their rock perches to the dozen small stingrays that zoomed around in the aptly named Stingray Bay.
Andy Mora, our lead kayak guide, pointed to the Mercury Islands in the
distance. “This area is where Captain Cook pinpointed the transit of [the planet] Mercury in New Zealand,” he said.
I TRAVELLED 600 KILOMETRES north of the Coromandel Peninsula to Cape Reinga, the northernmost point of New Zealand that’s accessible to visitors, and the end point of my voyage. A short white lighthouse crowned a dragon’s-snout stretch of land marked only by an ancient pohutukawa tree, as two bodies of water – the Tasman Sea and Pacific Ocean – surged together, creating a white line in the waves.
This place is the landing spot of Kupe, the extraordinary navigator of Ma–ori legend, who found his way here a thousand years ago from the eastern Pacific. Cape Reinga is also the place from which a Ma–ori person’s spirit departs on its way to the next world.
When I look back on this road trip from one end of New Zealand to the other, I remember how the ocean beyond Cape Reinga whispered to me of the world beyond these islands, and how that gnarled pohutukawa tree spoke even more loudly of all the reasons I’d made this land my home.
Recently I heard that Merv had passed away. He was larger than life, a person I won’t forget, and the embodiment of manaakitanga.