“Town or gown?” Housesit no. 4 in Palmerston North from 21 Aug – 9 Sep

I arrived in Palmerston North (aka Palmy) by Inter City bus on time at 4.30 pm on 21st August and houseowner, Margo, was waiting with her dog Zippy. The last part of the journey had been particularly lovely as the driver announced we would be travelling along Saddle Road because the normal route via Manawatu Gorge Road was closed, and appears to have been for some time. We climbed up and over the Ruahine range passing a wind farm. It was a very winding road which made me think a little of driving across the French Alps in the summer, but on a much smaller scale. The Ruahine range is the largest of several mountain ranges in the North Island which forms a ridge running parallel with the East coast between East Cape and Wellington.

Before going to the house that would be my home for over 2 weeks, Margo showed me one of Zippy’s regular walks, along the wide river Manawatu beyond which the Ruahine range runs, which is about a 10 minute walk from the house. We walked for 40 minutes, which is all Zippy gets each day during the week, with me interrogating Margo all the while. Zippy is a New Zealand Heading dog, not a breed I’d ever heard of before, similar to a Border Collie because they are in fact bred from Border Collies, likewise a working and herding dog used to control sheep.

A lot of New Zealanders diss Palmy saying there’s not much to do so I’d assumed that my longest NZ housesit booked to date was going to be the least interesting. To add to my unease I read that John Cleese said “If you wish to kill yourself but lack the courage to, I think a visit to Palmerston North will do the trick”! The town exacted revenge by naming a rubbish dump after him! Maybe his comments spurred the council into action because my initial feeling about the place was a good one, and this was only going to improve. My bus had stopped in The Square, allegedly Palmy’s ‘heart and soul’ with a clock tower, duck pond, giant chess set, Maori carvings, statues and a variety of trees. Also, another good example of NZ’s great information centres, or I-Sites as they’re called, is located here.

Back at the house in Ruahine Street I met Aaron, Margo’s husband. Margo had moved to NZ from South Africa with her family when she was aged 7, Aaron was born in Wellington. They had met at a pub quiz and continue to go to pub quizzes. I was shown Zippy’s routine plus a few tricks she does, which included playing dead, and the various workings of the house and enjoyed conversation over dinner before we all went to bed at 9.30pm.

Margo and Aaron were off to Barcelona, Athens and Crete starting with a friend’s 50th birthday celebration. It seemed a packed itinerary to me for just over 2 weeks but they’ve travelled to Europe a lot so are used to it. Aaron drove us all in his Mazda car to the airport (a 10 minute drive away) for their flight to Auckland to connect with their international flight just before 9am on 22nd and I drove it back as it was being lent to me for the duration of my housesit. Originally they had offered me the car to use, then messaged to say they’d changed their mind as a previous housesitter had pranged it, but then came back to me to offer it again as I’d been promised it. So I was feeling a little under pressure driving it in case I pranged it too, however I was told the previous housesitter, a Canadian woman, had damaged it while she tried to turn it round out of the garage (an impossible manoeuvre in a narrow gap with the house one side and brick wall the other) to save reversing it down their narrow driveway with fencing each side.

My first walk with Zippy was an orientation walk into and around town and back. I picked up a few leaflets from the I-Site office and was recommended to go to a town called Feilding one Friday, which I planned to do the following week.

On 23rd I checked out 6 gyms and plumped for the first, and furthest gym called Gravitate 24 as they were not only the friendliest but also offered me the best deal – a free 7 day pass then just $5 per visit as long as I went 3 times in the second week. So that works out at less than £8 for 2 weeks’ membership. I then took Zippy for a longer than 40 minutes walk on the Manawatu River Walk/cycleway. This really is a nice place for dogwalking, jogging and cycling and is nearly 10km long with fabulous views of the Ruahine mountain range. The colours are magnificent, a variety of different green shades and brown hues, and I really wished I had an ounce of the artist within me as it would have translated wonderfully in watercolour paints. That evening I went for a cultural fix – a fabulous amateur production of ‘Les Miserables’ at the Regent on Broadway Theatre by local Abbey Musical Theatre. It was hard to believe they weren’t professionals as the staging, singing and acting were all exceptional. The rules for putting on such shows are clearly different in NZ as amateur societies in the UK wouldn’t have been allowed to put on ‘Les Mis’ as it’s still being performed in the West End.

Saturday 24th was a sunny day. I first went to the gym for a morning Boxfit class which I enjoyed and found the other participants very friendly. I took Zippy on the river walk again but went much further this time, going across to the North of the river via Fitzherbert bridge, then East to cross back over a new bridge into Victoria Esplanade, a lovely park with bush walks and a miniature scenic railway running through. I stopped for tea and a bite to eat at the cafe. Zippy, by the way, is off lead along this river path which has wide areas of grass and trees that she runs around the bottom of barking at birds which is the only time she barks. She might sometimes go out of sight but as soon as I call her she’ll come back, usually some distance ahead and often wet from either dunking herself in the river or a muddy puddle, Such a shame when dogs have to walk on a lead when they can have so much more fun off it!

Some views along the Manawatu River Walkway:

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Sunday 25th was also a lovely day so I decided to take Zippy for a drive and check out some of the beaches along the West coast. She’s a good traveller, once harnessed in the back seat she can have the back window right down which she loves sticking her head out of. I thought I might be able to see quite a few beaches but there isn’t a road running along the coast connecting them all. Instead, it meant having to drive to one beach from the state highway, then drive back along the same route then off left for some kilometres to the next beach.

The first beach we stopped at was Otaki, a distance of 74 km southwest of Palmy. It’s a long sandy beach and Zippy enjoyed me throwing sticks for her, which she didn’t always bring back. There were also horse riders, a not uncommon sight on some of the beaches:

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Next was Waitarere Beach which had a river running through it and a lot of men fishing. I asked one of them what they were fishing for and was told whitebait at the moment but, in other seasons, they fish for other fish including flounder. Zippy enjoyed a dip in the river:

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On Monday 26th I took Zippy for a walk into town as had a couple of errands to do, one of which was to go to the cinema to buy tickets for the film festival. I was very pleased to discover the films that were being shown in Auckland when I was there are now being shown here as I’d missed out before.

Tuesday 27th started off with my second visit to the gym for a Pilates class, which I also enjoyed however, I later felt some aches and pains on top of the aches acquired from Boxfit on Saturday. The problem is that I think I’m still capable of doing the kind of exercise I did in my 20s & 30s but now take longer to recover. This is very hard to accept! Afterwards, as the weather was lovely contrary to the forecast, I decided to go to another beach, a bit nearer this time, Himatangi, just a 30 minute drive. This was another wide and long sandy beach with huge pieces of driftwood and lovely sand dunes and a river, and again Zippy had a lot of fun sniffing the driftwood and running after sticks.

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In the early evening I left Zippy home alone for a couple of hours while I went to my first Film Festival event: New Zealand’s 6 best short films of 2019 which were selected from a shortlist of 12 by director Jane Campion. The films were ‘Nancy From Now On’; ‘Krystal’; ‘Egg Cup Requiem’; ‘Golden Boy’ (which I didn’t get at all); ‘Our Father’ and ‘Hinekura’.

The next morning I saw the brilliant film ‘Mrs Lowry and Son’, also part of the Film Festival and not released in the UK until Friday 30th. It starred Vanessa Redgrave as Lowry’s mother and Timothy Spall as the artist. They both played their parts superbly and should undoubtedly be nominated for BAFTAs or even Oscars. Despite really enjoying the film I did, however, come away a little depressed – something to do with the way Mrs Lowry treated her son. Later, another 2 hour river walk for Zippy, ending up as a circular walk by coming back via the streets.

Thursday 29th saw me doing a class at the gym called Movement4 described as a ‘low-impact class based on cardio, toning, balance and oxygen. Perfect for mind, body and spirit whilst improving coordination, movement and balance’. The class consisted of lots of women mainly of a certain age (oh that’ll be me too then!) and a token man. It was just the thing my body needed as it was, indeed, low impact (probably too low for me normally) and fun as we exercised to disco music from the 70/80s. Afterwards, yet another river walk for Zippy, who doesn’t seem to mind. Unfortunately when his owners return he’ll be back to being left outside all day (he does have a kennel in case of rain) and then his normal daily 30-40 minute walk in the week. I’m spoiling him rather, just like all the other dogs so far.

On Friday 30th I went to Feilding, which had been recommended to me when I visited the I-Site office. It’s won NZ’s ‘Most Beautiful Town’ award 16 times. I was told Friday was the day to go as there’s a very good Farmers Market and Saleyard tours – cattle auction. I was advised it gets very busy on Fridays as a result and that I might find it difficult to park so a bus would be best. It’s just 18 km from Palmy. The bus stop was outside the hospital, a 30 minute walk from ‘home’ and I hated leaving Zippy outside, although knew I wouldn’t be away for the normal 9 hours she’s left by her owners.

I got chatting at the bus stop to a young woman called Miriam who is English (from Guildford) and has lived in NZ for 17 years, originally coming over because of a man, which didn’t last. She works at Massey University (it seems virtually everyone I meet works or has worked there, rather like GCHQ in Cheltenham) as a writer in the IT department and she recognised Margo’s name when I told her what I was doing. We sat together on the bus and she laughed when I told her I’d been advised not to drive as would find it difficult to park. I keep forgetting that this is New Zealand and there aren’t the amount of people and cars outside of Auckland!

Feilding seemed a very tranquil place (plenty of parking spaces!) and the market was set up in the square – Manchester Square to be precise. I had expected it to be rather substantial but it was disappointingly small yet quaint. Before investigating it, however, I went to the I-Site office to buy a ticket for the Saleyard Tour, to be told that as it’s Daffodil Day (cancer charity) I could have a complimentary ticket (normally $10) and that I was one of 3 now booked for the 11am tour.

I went back to the market which took all of 5 minutes to walk around, bought some sourdough bread, a vegetable pie and marvelled at two elderly men who were busking, and ruining, quite a few songs but I thought they were sweet. I was approached by an elderly man called John, with a flower stall, who gave me his card and suggested I look at the videos on his website. He told me he exhibits at the Chelsea Flower Show, which seemed odd to me! Having checked out his (awful) website it seems he has a passion for visiting the world’s flower shows, so I probably misheard him!

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I’d been told to get to the Saleyard just before 11am and that Adrian would be my tour guide. A Belgian girl arrived and an Austrian woman. Adrian, a nice elderly man, didn’t quite have the attributes I’d expect of a tour guide (Graham has no competition in that regard) and started off trying to read from a torn piece of paper and was quite unintelligible to me. I learned more later from an information board outside. The first sale was conducted on 24 May 1880 when 100 head of cattle were sold. There are sales on Mondays and Fridays.

There are now 350 sheep pens, 140 cattle pens and 45 deer pens with around 50,000 cattle and 450,000 sheep sold annually. Each pen is numbered and contains the animals from a particular farm and are all auctioned as one lot. An auctioneer went around the sheep pens in order and the final price agreed was per sheep, which seemed to average about $120, which would then be multiplied by the number of sheep in the respective pen. It was difficult to see who was bidding, but then I did notice a man very slightly nod his head. I learnt from Adrian, who used to have a farm, that a one year old sheep is called a hogget, which might come in useful one day for University challenge!

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We then went into a building, the cattle rostrum, where the cows were auctioned. They were herded into a pen, just 5 or 6 at a time, and the auctioneer bellowed through a microphone and the price per head (here averaging about $1200) and number in the pen was lit up on a board. Again, it was difficult to spot the bidders and I tried not to move a muscle not knowing where I’d put 5 cows should I have been mistaken for a bidder. After a while I’d had enough of the noise and took my leave.

I had planned to go to the Coach House Museum which I’d been told was a lot of fun but decided to get the bus straight back. Coincidentally, Miriam got the same bus so we continued our chat and agreed to meet up for a coffee some time. She told me that there is a sort of Palmy divide, the area around the University known as ‘gown’ and the rest ‘town’, which tickled me. She also told me that she would normally cycle everywhere but she’s doing an assignment for a Creative Writing MA she’s currently studying which was to take a bus somewhere. It seems I may well feature although she’ll change my name and probably call it ‘The Girl on the Bus’ – now what does that remind me of?!

I’d been given contact details of a friend of Heather, fellow volunteer at the Red Cross bookshop, who is local to Palmerston North. I got in touch with him, John, and he suggested I might like to drive over to his place in Pohangina, just off the scenic drive that I had planned to do before leaving. So I arrived, as suggested, at 10am on Saturday.

John works at Massey and I discovered he knows Miriam very well but didn’t recognise Margo’s name. He has a very interesting job there, Business Manager being one of his titles, and he told me his favourite part is getting the foreign students all together once a year. His wife, Allie, is a Kiwi and is a vet. They have two children Sam and Grace, both studying at Wellington University. In fact his wife is currently working in Wellington and is there during the week, usually returning to Pohangina on Friday but she was returning later this afternoon with Sam so I didn’t get to meet her.

I sat chatting with John for 3 hours while Zippy investigated the house and garden, turning her nose up at John’s poodle, Mojo, and fortunately leaving the cat alone. As I left John said he felt as if he knew me as we had talked about a lot of things, particularly about our respective families. He spotted that the front offside tyre of my car was a bit flat and kindly pumped it up. I thought it must be a slow puncture so decided to go straight back ‘home’ and get it checked on Monday.

As Zippy hadn’t had a walk we did a long walk along the river path, over the bridges again and stopping at the cafe in Victoria Esplanade. The lovely miniature ‘scenic railway’ which goes quite a long way around the park was in full flow, given the lovely weather, and is just $3 – I must try and do it before leaving, as long as Zippy can too!

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Sunday was a lovely day, but I’d booked to see the finals of the Aotearoa (New Zealand) Country Music Awards 2019 from 1-5pm which I thought would be something different. I like country music because there’s always a story and the music is usually pleasant. After another riverside walk with Zippy, and bumping into Miriam on her bicycle there, I got to Palmy’s other theatre, the Globe, in time. I had thought it would be a huge affair but the small theatre wasn’t full. They’d had auditions all day the day before so there were two finalists in each category. The first category was Junior Country, two young girls, neither of whom I could understand what they were singing about. Then, intermediates – likewise. Adults, these were better, a man and woman coincidentally singing the same song. Then veterans, the first of whom was an elderly man dressed to the nines in his country music garb, who sang an Elvis Presley song (‘Can’t help falling in love’). Then a woman came on who had quite an unpleasant voice and pulled faces during the higher notes. I found out later she won her category. They went back to the juniors with a country gospel category, but after them I decided I’d had enough and left. If these were the best then I dread to think what the others were like! But I had to laugh and later considered that there are not many people in NZ, so even fewer fans of country music and even fewer who would sing country music.

After getting the tyre checked on Monday morning and assured it wasn’t a slow puncture, I took Zippy on a different walk in the north of Palmy, Linklater Reserve. It was quite a large park with a fabulous playground, zip wires and even a new agility area for dogs. Zippy got the hang of most of it except the weave.

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At 6pm I had my third event at the film festival, this time Maori Pasifika short films 2019 which I enjoyed more than the NZ short films. They were ‘Our Atoll Speaks’ (a meditation on sustainability from the remote Pukapuka atoll in the Cook Islands), ‘Ani’, ‘Liliu’ (set in Samoa during George VI’s reign), ‘Ways to See’ (this was quite disturbing), ‘Ru’ (also disturbing) and ‘Yellow Roses’ which was quite lovely.

Tuesday started off with a Pilates class at the gym, paying $5 now – such a bargain! The teacher is very good and it’s a shame I can’t put her in my pocket and travel with her. Then I decided to take Zippy on the Manawatu Scenic Route, 95km all the way round. I left at 12 and really enjoyed the drive as I hardly saw another car, the road twisted and turned passing vast rolling farmland and ancient native forests. It was lovely to finally get up close to the Ruahine range that I’d been ogling for the last 2 weeks.

I stopped first at the start of the scenic route in Ashurst at a lookout point onto one of the wind farms, Te Apiti, which also gave me a chance to give Zippy a bit of a walk off lead.

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I’d been recommended the Fern Walk in Totara Reserve, about 20km from Ashurst. The reserve is nestled in the Pohangina Valley and is one of the best and most accessible remaining examples of the ancient forest that once covered much of the region. As the name of the walk suggests, there were a lot of different ferns along the route with names such as Shining Spleenwort, Hound’s Tongue and Sickle Spleenwort all common in New Zealand and Australia.

Unfortunately I had to keep Zippy on her lead for the entire walk as there had been poison laid for possums, a real menace in New Zealand. She didn’t seem to mind too much and we both enjoyed the walk, which took us up high at one point and two hours in time. A short sidetrack led us to a giant tree called a Northern Rata and Zippy kindly posed beside it for a photo:

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By the time we finished the walk it was 3.30pm so I doubted we would be able to do the whole scenic drive of 95km. I had underestimated the distance taking a lot longer on the twisty country lanes. In fact it lends itself to a few days as there are so many places to stop along the route and do long or short walks. The scenery was wonderful and at one point we were stopped by sheep in the road, being moved along by men on tractors but also a couple of Herding dogs like Zippy:

I eventually got to a T junction where you could either turn right to continue on the scenic route and get back home in the dark, or turn left and go back to Palmy. I chose the latter option travelling through the small towns of Apiti, Kimbolton, Cheltenham (!) and then through Feilding. An enjoyable day.

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The weather for Wednesday 4th hadn’t looked too promising so after taking Zippy on a bit of a boring walk, compared to her usual, around the streets I decided to go to the museums first stop being the Rugby Museum. Surprisingly, not being a particular fan of rugby (although preferable to football) I enjoyed it and thought it was very well presented. Apparently a Palmy resident, Charles Monro, brought rugby to New Zealand having been initiated into the game as a boy whilst studying at Christ’s College, Finchley, London. When he returned to NZ in 1870 he organised the first recognised game of rugby between Nelson Football Club and Nelson College. By 1879 there were over 80 rugby clubs across the country.

The first tour to the Antipodes by a British team occurred in 1888 and paved the way for future tours by the team eventually known as the British Lions. The museum went through the ages with some interesting old photos, clothing and videos. I was surprised that I enjoyed it so much. I then went to the history museum, quite small, which had a few Maori objects and some interesting social history and the art gallery which had just a few exhibits. I popped into the main library which, as always here in NZ, was well stocked.

On Thursday I gave Zippy a long walk by the river off lead as she’d been on lead the last 2 days, and later drove to meet Miriam at a cafe on the Massey University campus for afternoon tea which was nice. She hasn’t written her piece yet but promised to send it to me when she has. Before leaving I popped into the University library which took me back to my student days.

It rained all day Friday which I started off by doing a ‘Power’ class (like our Body Pump) at the gym with just 4 others. I found some muscles that had hardly been used and enjoyed it. Another good instructor.

Back for a quick breakfast before walking to the cinema for a film festival documentary on Helen Kelly called ‘Together’. She was a huge mover and shaker for social justice, this film portraying her role in helping get justice for people killed at work in particular miners and loggers. She died of cancer in October 2016 but not before flag bearing for a change in the law around the use of cannabis for medical purposes (which helped her) which helped lead to a referendum on the issue due in 2020.

Later I took Zippy to a different park by the river, Ahimate Reserve which, despite the rain, she enjoyed. There was some dog agility stuff here too.

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I went to my 5th film festival event on Saturday 7th. Another interesting and well made documentary by Shirley Horrocks about Peter Peryer ‘The Art of Seeing’ one of NZ’s most important photographers, who I’d never heard of. This was a really fascinating insight, especially as I’m interested in photography although still haven’t done much in order to improve my knowledge. Having watched this I think in future I’ll look at certain photographs, that I might normally not find appealing, in a different light. His subject matter is broad: portraits, flowers, every day objects even a doll and meccano truck set up to look life size. This was a very enjoyable biopic much of which was filmed at his home in Taranaki. Sadly he died very soon after the last interview in the film in which he said he wasn’t ready to depart this planet yet as had lots of photographs he still wanted to take. Interesting that he was using his iPhone’s camera a lot towards the end.

Sunday 8th was my last full day in Palmerston North and it was a wet and cold one but Zippy still got her 2 hour walk after I’d done some cleaning. Later I went to the cinema for my last film festival event which was a French film with subtitles about historic abuse by a Catholic priest called ‘By The Grace of God’, based on a true and still-developing story of a victim-led campaign to seek justice against the priest and the people within the Church who did nothing about it.

I enjoyed my last walk with Zippy along the river on Friday morning, earlier than usual, and got a taxi at 1230 to the bus stop leaving Zippy, as instructed, outside. It broke my heart as she looked quite sadly through the bars of the gate, as I waited with my bags, and tried to get underneath. Oh how I’m going to miss her!