Thebest of bothworlds
Dairies in far flung communities are not just the corner shop. In many places, they are the cornerstone of the community. Andrea Vance and Iain McGregor investigate.
With long sweeping sands, an exposed break with consistently good surf and an ocean-views golf course, Riversdale Beach is a dream in the summer.
But after the Easter holidays, when the weekenders pack up their baches, this tiny settlement on the southeastern corner of the North Island transforms.
The sea is a pale blue, and salt spray hangs over the Pacific rollers. As the afternoon sun drops behind the Tararua Range, local young surfers haul their boards from the water, and anglers trudge up the deserted beach.
The streets are quiet, and many of the weatherboard beach houses are empty. But as dusk settles, the lights burn bright in one corner of the settlement.
Tradies’ utes and mudsplashed farm trucks are parked up out front. A hubbub of chatter drifts out from the front of the Riversdale Beach Store.
On the forecourt, longnecks of Tui and bowls of hot chips crowd the bar leaners. The dress code is high-vis or gumboots and there’s a dog under every table.
Riversdale’s workingmen like to finish the day knocking the top off an icy cold lager and warming their feet by the fire pit. And for the last quarter of a century, they’ve been doing it on a Thursday night at the local dairy.
The get-together is known as the Rat Run Club. It started 23 years ago, when Marcus Percy popped in with a friend for some beers.
‘‘It was a pouringwet night, it was shocking,’’ he remembers. ‘‘Well, we bought a dozen each, and we were just sitting here in
our yellows, and next thing a rat came along the power line.’’
The following week, roughly the same time, the rat reappeared, tight-roping along the wires to reach a date palm.
‘‘We let other people know and Thursday nights grew . . . we used to run sweepstakes on what time it would run . . . if you got the correct time you had to shout a dozen.’’
The story was picked up by the Reuters news agency and travelled around the world, even making the pages of The Times in London. Members even had ‘‘been there, done rat’’ T-shirts.
But a payout was elusive as outsiders poured into the town, looking to have a crack. ‘‘I’d have two watches on this arm and another watch on that to make sure nobody got the correct time,’’ says Percy, 66. The money went to the local surf club, with a little left for a party.
‘‘There’s still Thursday night drinks from about 5pm to 7-ish. We light the fire in the winter and it’s just good camaraderie to get together in aweek.’’
The rat is long dead, but the legend has continued. Hayden Meads and his wife, Amy, took over the store more than three years ago. He says: ‘‘The first question we got asked was: Are you going to continue with the rat run? It was a nobrainer to say yes.’’
Meads lays on a spread, free of charge. If he’s been hunting, it might be a roast of wild venison or pork. If the fishing’s good, there could be ceviche or smoked fish pate. Some weeks,
it’s just snags and white bread.
‘‘People that were here when the rat was here still come . . . have a yarn, chew the fat, talk about the changes.
‘‘People are sorting out work, they are figuring out what’s going on. It’s sort of slowly built into this little community thing and got everyone together.’’
It’s the highlight of the social week for a store that is the focal point of the community.
On Monday mornings the local ladies meet for coffee, and a book club. They also have their own Thursday night drinks, taking turns to host, before drifting over to join the men.
The Meadses struggle to list all the services they provide. ‘‘We do wear many hats,’’ Hayden says. ‘‘We’re a post office, a library, groceries, tackle and local fishing knowledge, general hardware store, a bottle store.
‘‘We’re bakers, baristas, cooks, grocers. Amy and I are also first responders and part of the volunteer fire brigade. So we hold AGMs here.
‘‘We’ve inherited an information centre as well. So, if the power goes out, we plug the cordless phone in and then it’s just going flat stick for an hour. We post up on the Facebook page but they like that phone call.’’
The couple also cater the local surf club carnivals and meetings, and once a fortnight take lunches to the local Whareama School. ‘‘It’s a giveand-take situation,’’ Amy says. ‘‘I’m quite happy just helping people and trying to make their stay here as good as possible.’’
The Riversdale store has stood on the corner of Blue Pacific Parade for close to 70 years. Tyre merchant Basil Bodle bought 40 acres, on the mouth of the Motuwaireka, in 1953 with dreams to establish a resort and campground.
Local farmers thought he was a lunatic. ‘‘Who would pay all this money for barren sand dunes when it would only carry two sheep,’’ one was reported as saying.
A caravan on the site sold icecreams, until two Dutch brothers, Johannes La Grouw Sr and Johannes Van Loghem, constructed a shop: it was one of their early Lockwood buildings.
There was no power in the settlement until 1959: the ices were brought over from Masterton in canvas bags.
As the resort grew – with wealthy Wellingtonians snapping up coastal property – the shop became a post office. Bodle’s eldest daughter, Paulene, introduced lilos and sunhats to the range. The family operated the store into the 1960s and it was rebuilt later in that decade.
Hayden Meads was milking cows when he heard about a job going at the store. ‘‘My ears started ringing: that was always a goal of ours to live on the beach. [I] went home for breakfast, spoke to Amy . . . we literally rang up at lunchtime, rocked out that night after work, and boom we’re here.’’
It was Amy who took the job, while Meads stayed at home for 12 months. Within a year, they’d bought the store. ‘‘We took over
just after Easter. So we had all winter to figure out what we’re doing. We thought we’re going pretty good. And then boom, summer hit. And it was: Wow.
‘‘We basically just faked it through that summer.’’
The days are really full on, he says. His day starts at 5.30am, baking scones and other goodies out the back with his sons Hunter, 8, and Lewis, 7. The boys decide the menu: ‘‘Whatever the kids have suggested, we find a recipe.’’
Amy sweeps, wipes down tables and lays out 100 chairs. The store opens at 8am (later in the winter) but the customers start arriving by 7.30am.
‘‘We start the day on the back foot right from the start. Nippers with the surf club starts around eight o’clock. So the parents are coming in, grabbing a coffee.’’
The couple and their staff are rushed off their feet cooking, making coffees, taking orders, filling shelves and fridges, and clearing tables.
‘‘And then once that five o’clock hits into dinner, it rolls into another beast of just burgers and burgers and fish and chips just flat stick,’’ says 38-year-old Meads.
On a busy summer day they can whip up 360 milkshakes, make between 300 and 500 coffees, and get through a 20-metre lolly roll. On one recent pizza night, the couple cranked out 95 pizzas in 21⁄ hours.
2 ‘‘Everyone’s in togs, shorts, wetsuits. Everyone’s just having the time of their life on the summer holiday.
‘‘I remember doing that as a kid, going into the local shop.
Queue up for 10 minutes for an icecream or find 50 cents in the couch and whip down and grab a 50-cent mix.
‘‘And meeting these kids through the summer and watching them grow . . . cracking some awesome waves or catching a fish off the beach.
‘‘You’re so focused on trying to keep the shop running, but trying to enjoy that customer service with the kids and the parents and the adults.’’
On wet days, the tables are crowded with bored families trying to escape cabin fever. Amy, 36, lays on colouring competitions, for all ages.
When the couple lock up, teenagers are hanging around the entrance, phones glowing in the twilight as they suck up the free wifi.
The family make their money over summer. ‘‘That’s the backbone of our finances through the year so you’ve just got to grind,’’ says Meads.
‘‘We are definitely glad we did it. Amy and Iwere pretty money-orientated before we got here, trying to chase that million-dollar dream and that wasn’t a healthy place to be.
‘‘We were trying to raise a family, trying to run a farm, just banging heads. So when we came out here the money wasn’t about it. It was actually spending some time with our kids.’’
Amy says the boys love to help out in the shop and are thriving in Riversdale.
‘‘You’ve got the best of both worlds . . . you feel like you can just go out there and escape on the beach.’’