ANZAC Day at Pendle Hill

When I was a kid ANZAC Day was when TV stations would repeat a black and white war movie and ten old soldiers would meet at the local cenotaph to remember their fallen comrades. However in the past few years it has become a more popular event in New Zealand with thousands of people turning out to commemorate those young men and women who died serving their country. This year I took a trip with the occasional Stud Muffin to Pendle Hill, the old farm of his ancestors the Fletcher Family which also contains the family burial plot.

Pendle Hill on Wakarara Road 

The cemetery lies on a hill overlooking the farm and has graves dating back to the 19th century. Mike laid poppies on the graves of returned soldiers while I looked at the headstones. One poignant one was of Mike's grandmother who died when she was only 38 years old. There were pioneers who lived to ripe old ages and sadly one of a baby who only survived to seven months.

Pendle Hill Woolshed

The original homestead has been removed from the field where it used to stand although part of it now houses the Department Of Conservation office in Onga Onga village. The rest was too rotten to restore. However the wool shed still stands near the original house site along with a couple of old sheds and many totara trees.

Back Road Up Near the Ruahines

We drove up Look Out Road which is aptly named for the views and for the fact you need to look out that you don't get blown away. As it is near the Ruahines it receives much more rain than other areas which also meant we had to stop our trip because the weather became too rough.

I think of the young men and women who returned from war to continue taming this country, sometimes living a harsh isolated life in the back country of Hawkes Bay. There was no counseling in those days, you didn't share your nightmares with all and sundry but kept a stiff upper lip although you'd hear the stories of quiet suicides. Then there were the men who would never shoot a rabbit because they'd killed enough in the war. I wonder what they'd make of our poor sad country today? The celebrated selfishness and the lack of compassion which once marked the worst of the regimes they fought against. We do remember them but we must also remember that they tried to make the world a better safer place and that we are heirs to that legacy.

The Optimistic Gardener

I have had a run of bad luck in the garden recently. Firstly we had the cold wet summer of 2012 followed by a winter where sheep, cows and various possums decimated my plants. Although I have wire cages over my veg plants to protect them from the chooks this didn't stop a possum from tipping them over at night and eating every single lettuce, broccoli and silver beet plant. As it was winter it was too cold to replace them so I had to wait until the livestock were under control before I could get anything planted. Then the drought arrived.

Scarlet Runner Beans

This meant that if you intended to plant veggies you had to be prepared to water them by hand and even then growth was slow. A built up bed by the chook house has been unloved since I moved in here four years ago but a few hours of laboriously digging out bindweed left extremely friable soil which is where I planted several scarlet runner bean plants. Originally there were 10 plants but a psychotic fence lifting ewe and her scrofulous half grown lamb made daily raids chewing down all but four. These were copiously watered and have since rewarded me with the occasional meal. The cost of the seeds? 50c from an Op Shop.

Various types of lettuce

Since I discovered there was more to lettuce than a limp leaf of Iceberg I've become a salad fan and every fortnight buy a few more plants to add to my garden in the hope of having a staggered supply across Autumn and Winter. These also had a tough time until I mulched the plants with bunny manure and untreated sawdust and now I'm getting several harvests per week.

Autumn Sedum

Now that the ravaged garden is beginning to freshen with heavy nightly dews it is possible to enjoy those plants that have survived the drought such as a the Autumn Sedum which blooms in the corner of the garden by a weeping cherry tree. In time its flowers will turn black and I will cut the branches right down to the ground where they'll hibernate until Spring which hopefully will herald a better year for the ever optimistic gardener.

Picnic At Hanging Mangleton

With the prospect of the warmest Easter in several years looming the OSM (Occasional Stud Muffin) thought it would be nice to go for a Good Friday drive north west to Mangleton which lies right under the mountains near the small country settlement of Kereru. I knew this area fairly well as my mother's eldest sister Eva (known in the family as "Boofy") and her husband had drawn a soldiers' settlement farm there after WWII. It was originally part of Poporangi Station which was subdivided into smaller farms and then allocated to returned servicemen. Not that Uncle Jack got much of a bargain as his piece of land was riddled with rabbit holes every two feet. He would sit on a tree stump and fire his gun until it became to hot to hold. In this fashion he eventually cleared his farm of rabbits (mostly). He and Aunty Eva then lived in a Nissan Hut until their homestead was built and farmed there until Uncle Jack died in his 60s after which my aunt remained there alone while her son, who built a house next door, ran the farm.

So you'd think I'd have a good idea where the farm actually was situated. I mean my parents and I visited there enough times including the one memorable holiday there when Aunty Eva and my mother decided to mow the lawns except neither of them had used a motor mower before. I'll never forget hearing screams before seeing the mower calmly making its way across the lawn with two middle aged women in pursuit.

I was really looking forward to seeing the farm again and was sure I knew where we were going. We headed out through the Gwavas Forest reaching a height of 553 metres above sea level before dropping down slightly when we passed through Kereru. Which is where it all went wrong really. Firstly Mike remembered a lovely picnic area but the first big dip we came to didn't have one so we had to drive further up Mangleton Road until we found it down a bumpy farm track. There was a picnic table but we decided to venture nearer the creek which meant Joey the dog had a wonderful time sniffing the overgrown grass and blackberry.

Joey surrounded by a paradise of scents

 

Nearby was a lovely mountain stream which had been dammed to create a swimming hole although it wasn't hot enough to tempt us to have a dip. A sheer cliff rose up from the far side rising up towards more trees. There was just the sound of the water and birds singing, a peaceful oasis in a drought area.

A lovely little mountain stream in Mangleton

And that was what really shocked us. We thought the drought was bad enough in Central Hawkes Bay but at least the heavy dewy nights have left to a slight dusting of green across the countryside. In Mangleton everywhere was brown and decidedly crispy. As we drove down roads trying to find my aunt's old farm we saw fewer and fewer animals, more and more barren paddocks. Yet sometimes you would sweep down a hill and there would be a vestige of native bush huddled in a ravine.

A patch of bush huddling under the ranges

There was no mobile reception so attempts to ring a cousin to find our the name of the road my Aunt had lived on were doomed to fail. After spending ages going down dusty shingle roads we admitted defeat as for the life of me I could not remember where my aunt's farm used to be. And of course as we drove out of Mangleton I think I recognized the road as it was the only one we hadn't bothered to drive down. Sometimes I should really stick to my motto of never going back to places. Or else get some more memory added to my brain's hard drive.