A journey into the hinterland

 

Hedley's Book Shop in Masterton was packed on Friday night for the launch of my friend Simon Burt's book Route 52: A Big Lump of Country Unknown, published by Ugly Hill Press. 

It was actually a second launch, the first having been held two nights earlier in Waipukurau. Why the double launch? Because Waipukurau marks the northern end of Route 52 and Masterton the southern. They could hardly have an event in one town and ignore the other. Wars have been fought over lesser issues.

Once officially designated as a state highway but demoted when usage declined, Route 52 is the quintessential road less travelled, passing through the back country of the northern Wairarapa into southern and central Hawke's Bay and giving access to remote coastal settlements such as Akitio, Herbertville and Porangahau. 

I had the honour of speaking at the Masterton launch and this is what I said:

I’m not one to boast, but I reckon I’m unusually well qualified to launch a book about Route 52. I grew up in Waipukurau, where the road starts (or finishes, depending on which way you’re travelling) and I’ve spent the past 22 years living in Masterton, at the other end.

My ties to Waipuk, as we always called it, are permanently cemented by the fact that my parents and three of my brothers are buried in the cemetery there, within a few metres of each other. I also have a direct personal connection with something that’s mentioned briefly in Simon’s book. I refer to the torii, or traditional Japanese arch, that my father designed and built in the mid-60s on the top of the Pukeora Hill. It was put there to frame the superb view of Waipukurau that travellers saw as they came over the brow of the hill from the south – a view that’s rarely seen these days because the main highway was re-routed decades ago, although Dad’s torii is still there.

Not only do I have connections with Waipuk and Masterton, but I was born in Pahiatua. Strictly speaking, that’s not on Route 52, but it’s close enough to warrant a chapter in Simon’s book, which is good enough for me. Note that I pronounce it as Pahi-atua rather than Pie-a-tua, because my mother always insisted that that was the correct Maori pronunciation and I believe she was right.

Speaking of personal connections, I should note that Deborah Coddington was the perfect person to publish Simon’s book, because Deborah grew up at Wallingford in Central Hawke’s Bay, through which Route 52 passes, and she named her publishing company after the rural road her family lived on.

Like me, Deborah would have recognised many of the names in Simon’s book and would have personally recalled some of the people he writes about. And I suspect that also like me, the places where she spent her childhood left a permanent imprint on her, and the naming of her company, Ugly Hill Press, was a way of paying homage to her origins.

Anyway, on to Simon’s book. I think it’s a terrific book: part road trip, part personal memoir and part social history. Steve Braunias has described it as a psychogeographical travel book, which is an impressive word even if I’m not entirely sure what it means.

And although I’m sure Simon doesn’t think of himself as a journalist, the book also qualifies as an exemplary piece of journalism. I say that because it’s largely driven by Simon’s curiosity, and curiosity is an essential element – perhaps the essential element – of good journalism.

Simon was curious about the history of the places on Route 52 and the people who have spent their lives there, so he did what a good journalist would do – he set out to find out about them. He’s dug deep and done a daunting amount of research, but it never weighs the book down. It’s an easy and engaging read that you can dip into as the urge takes you.

One mark of good writing is that it flows so easily, it gives you no clue to the hard work that went into it. That’s true of this book.

Route 52 documents the social history of a remote part of New Zealand that we knew very little about. I can’t recall whether Simon actually uses this word, but his book is all about the hinterland, one nice definition of which is “an area lying beyond what is visible or known”.

I learned a lot from reading Simon’s book. I learned, for example, that the reason there’s a wide, park-like strip down the main street of Pahiatua was that the railway line was originally intended to run through the centre of town. I learned that the Wilder Settlement Road in Central Hawke’s Bay, which I was familiar with in my childhood, didn’t get its name because a settlement was built there; in fact the name came from a marital agreement under which land was made available to sons of the Wilder family as part of a dowry. That became known as the Wilder settlement. Who would have guessed?

I also learned that the claustrophobic, inky-black tunnel that my friends and I used to squeeze through in the hills near Waipukurau was created for an irrigation scheme that was later abandoned. And I discovered that Porangahau was once known as Coconut Grove because of the number of Rarotongans who lived and worked there to make up for a labour shortfall during the Second World War. Somehow I don’t think the name Coconut Grove would pass the PC test now.

It’s worth mentioning too that Simon has taken the trouble to delve into an area of history that remains sorely neglected. I refer to our pre-European history, and I was pleased to see that he devotes space to the superb information displays in Pukekaihau, which most people know as Waipukurau’s Hunter Park. These illustrated panels explain in rich detail the pre-European history of the Waipukurau district, and I recommend them to anyone passing through the town with an hour to spare.

Above all, Route 52 is a book about people – and I don’t mean well-known names or official poo-bahs or would-be celebrities who big themselves up on social media, about whom we already know far more than we want to know. Rather, it’s a celebration of New Zealand’s rural culture and a glimpse into the lives of farmers, shearers, shepherds and others, not to mention their resourceful and formidable wives, many of whom have spent their entire lives in the rugged and challenging landscape through which Route 52 passes. I was going to make the mistake of saying these are ordinary people, but many of them are anything but ordinary. A better word would be authentic.

Barry Crump used to write about such people, albeit in a fictional context, and so did Jim Henderson. The Christchurch Press journalist Mike Crean was another writer who had a talent for talking to ordinary people – sorry, I mean authentic people – and getting them to tell their stories.

Simon has the same skill and empathy, writing with a light and often whimsical touch but always respectful toward his subjects.  He has captured a part of New Zealand that is slowly but irrevocably disappearing – in fact, sometimes almost literally disappearing under a relentlessly spreading cloak of pinus radiata, which is a recurring theme in his book and gives it a slightly elegiac tone.

But that’s as much as you want to hear from me. Deborah asked me to keep my speech short, so it only remains to congratulate Simon on a great book and break an imaginary bottle of champagne – or perhaps that should be Tui – over its bow.

                                            Simon Burt