A Local Tourist

Returning as a tourist to a place you once lived can be interesting. We did it in Wellington recently, staying in Newtown, an area we’d driven through regularly but never spent much time in. On a wander around one fine morning I looked across the main street and saw, above the awning over standard restaurant/shop windows, a beautifully restored frontage. For a second it felt out of place then it suddenly fitted, the opulent decoration a contrast to the shabby shop fronts below it. Newtown is a suburb of such contradictions, where, coffee in hand, you might chance upon a tiny little park, named for peace and feeling so, despite the odd interruption of it from the distant sound of drilling and traffic. It is an eclectic suburb, testament to the people that live here hailing from many varied parts of the globe, and where you’re sure to find a decent meal in any cuisine you fancy.

A return can also be challenging. Our stay in Sheffield this time is in a part of the city I don’t know at all, Meersbrook, and explains why we spend the first couple of weeks relying on sat nav to get us anywhere. It’s discombobulating when you think you know somewhere so well to find you’re a stranger here as much as any tourist. Just along the road from our accommodation a park sprawls down the side of a hill, the views over the city impressive but also disconcerting to an ex-local – is that large building the hospital? Surely it’s too far left. And have there always been that many high-rises towering over the city?

In one corner of the park is Bishops’ House, the best-preserved half-timbered house to survive in Sheffield, a description I feel hints at how many haven’t. I grew up knowing of its existence, I just never visited until I lived halfway around the world. It’s a fascinating snapshot of Tudor life, floors and walls uneven, and windows tipsy. Some of my more practical friends in New Zealand would be very interested in cutaway sections of wall, revealing how the beams were jointed and attached to each other with wooden pegs before nails were widely used. They would also hopefully be impressed that it pre-dates James Cook’s birth, let alone his sailing the high seas in search of adventure; possibly it even pre-dates Māori paddling their waka towards Aotearoa. And it still stands.

Where I don’t feel a stranger is ten minutes’ drive from the city, where buildings fall away. A few minutes later the rough tops of Carl Wark or Higger Tor (I couldn’t tell you which was which when I lived here so I’ve no chance now) appear above the moorland. The myriad paths that cross this land are as familiar as if I’d walked them yesterday, the only difference being that mountain bikes are now allowed on some, primarily bridleways. I’m not quite bike-fit enough to get out on these rough tracks across wide moorlands so stick to the circuit of Howden and Derwent dams. It just touches the wild at the Slippery Stones bridge, relocated from one of the villages that were drowned to create these reservoirs.

After the ride the car park is full of muddied bikers that have ranged farther and ridden harder, clutching cups of tea and bacon butties. For me it’s parkin (a dense gingerbread cake made with oats and treacle – a Yorkshire speciality) with a cup of tea, although the call of a pint and a packet of crisps at the Ladybower Inn is strong. It’s Friday, so we declare our tourist badge and the pub wins, giving us an opportunity to toast close Kiwi friends who should have shared some of this time in Sheffield with us but couldn’t get here.