Welcome to Rongotea: A Kiwi town
Rongotea typifies rural New Zealand, residents say. Karoline Tuckey took a visit to see what makes the heartland town so great.
Rongotea residents love their town and hold fast to the heartland Kiwi characteristics of rugby, farming and communitymindedness.
John Pedley is in a good place to judge.
He’s lived there all of his 75 years and as well as farming has run a stock transport company since 1980.
He reckons he knows ‘‘everybody in the lower North Island’’ and has probably travelled most of its rural roads. When he gets time out, Rongotea is where his heart is.
‘‘Everything you need’s here and it’s all within walking distance.’’
It used to feel more isolated, but now has a second side as a satellite town for commuters living rurally and driving the 16 kilometres to Palmerston North.
Pedley likes to be at the Rongotea stock sales each Wednesday for both work and to catch up with friends and neighbours. Sale days generally bring in about 150 people.
‘‘It’s sort of a meeting place for people and people congregate afterwards at the tavern up the road. Every man and his dog’ll be here.’’
The nearby Feilding stockyards take the bigger flocks and Rongotea caters for smaller farms and less common breeds, he says.
Te Kawau rugby club is based in the town and draws players from as far as Levin.
Hereford stud farmer and coach Duncan Mitchell said training, club events, socialising and matches are important mainstays in the town.
‘‘Once we finished school I hung out a lot around here, at the rugby club. It’s just a good little sleepy town really. It’s not too far from anywhere.
‘‘Ten minutes you’re in the city. Two minutes you’re out on State Highway 1, so you can’t get much better than that. The [people] are all pretty good, down to earth.’’
Te Kawau is a strong club and has good support.
‘‘A few years ago we won the
championship five times in seven years I think it was, so everyone was pretty much on top of the world then.
‘‘Lately it’s getting back [to that level of competition], not quite to those days, but we’re hopeful it will be in a few years. We’re hoping.
‘‘It’s not just only the rugby club here, there’s tennis and netball and everything else that goes on. We try to keep everything going so that all the little people that are in school now can carry on and play afterwards.’’
The Saunders family are still farming on Saunders Rd.
Rosalind Saunders says her husband Brian’s grandfather was the first to build stopbanks to help control flooding on the plains.
Their woolshed was built in 1898 and their first family house was built in 1902. The house has been rebuilt and this year their 280 hectares will support sheep and beef, and barley and maize for seed.
‘‘The river really does rule your life. You have to get the stock off those paddocks when it floods. In the 2004 floods, the whole place was underwater and a lot of stock was lost.’’