November 2022
A Supertramp song is my earworm of choice this morning, It’s Raining Again playing round and round in my head. Between the lack of sun and the surrounding trees it’s dark enough to be a midwinter evening rather than a spring morning and I huddle by the heater. By lunchtime the deluge blows over and we splash back to the rail trail and cycle towards Waihi. This section is new, the original rail line across the river still in use by a tourist train that runs in summer. It twists and undulates, running between the river and farmland through regenerating bush, and thus takes a little more effort, rewarded by a coffee when we reach Waihi.
Unlike Thames, Waihi is still a mining town, although in the twenty-first century a corporate affair rather than the average person desperately digging in search of a fortune. A huge pit dug into a hill behind the town centre is an open-cast mine still being excavated for the shiny stuff. We climb up to it, risking a vertiginous look down, but the walk around its fenced rim doesn’t appeal and we stroll back down to the entertainment below.
Today is Beach Hop day (a Rock’N’Roll festival according to the promotional blurb) and the streets are crammed with older-model American cars. Brightly coloured paintwork is polished to mirror-clear; chrome (and there’s a lot of chrome) gleams in the intermittent sun. Considering the downpours of this morning these cars have either been hidden away until the rain stopped or someone has been around with a lot of towels. I suspect the latter. I further suspect that most are never driven on a road – a few are so low-slung they would never get over traffic-calming humps and would ground on an average lumpy, pothole-strewn, New Zealand road. Interiors are showroom spotless and a couple have their bonnets (hoods…) up to reveal engines that are so shiny and clean they don’t look real.
Some accompanying humans have made a real effort – probably the ones who own the best cars – and I wonder if I’ve wandered into a Grease convention. Men sport tight jeans and leather jackets, women show off colourful tight-bodiced dresses with full skirts that flounce as they walk, which look amazing but I’m thankful there is little wind. On a small stage a handful of young boys strut their best John Travolta and a woman near me comments that the local hairdresser must have sold out of gel.
Once again luck is on our side and we arrive back at the cabin just as another downpour begins (and an image enters my head, fifties-dressed people hurrying to cover shiny cars). I wonder how there can be any more water up there and it has nowhere to go when it lands, the ground sodden and waterlogged, new streams everywhere, lakes in the middle of lawn and field. If there’s ever a time to go waterfall hunting this is it so after lunch, in a short gap in the rain, we walk along the trail to a sign Neil spotted: Old Quarry and Waterfall. Ten minutes up a steep and muddy path into a narrow, wet-tree-filled, gorge leads to an impressive, although small, waterfall, which tumbles from the edge of a cliff and lands in a small pool. A fallen tree humps from the water like a mini Loch Ness Monster. We slip and slide back down the path to the track and return to the cabin as the rain starts to fall again.
Tracy Annenberg 