Some Things Never Change
Sights, Sounds & Stories From A Journey Home
It had been almost 18 months since I had last been home. Though it was not an exceptionally long time — and felt even shorter on account of my near-daily calls, chats and check-ins with my parents — 18 months is a long time in a town that moves as quickly as Wānaka, and I had been wondering more and more over the past few months about what had changed since I had been gone.
Madi and I had made plans to visit at some stage this year, partly for a holiday, but mostly to see old friends and gather up the clothes and artwork we had left stored in my parent’s garage and stashed in the spare bedroom. But life gets in the way — “best-laid plans” and all that jazz — and so Madi dropped me off at Sydney airport with promises that I would return in a week or two.
There might be no descent in the world more breathtaking than the one into Queenstown - at least for those with a window seat. When you’re in the middle row of a 737, however, the majesty of that final approach is reduced to brief flashes of brown and grey from across the aisle, the telltale colours of the Southern Alps in the summertime.
I don’t know why I was surprised that the land itself hadn’t changed, but I was disappointed. Despite my extended absence, the mountains stood where they always had — albeit with a few extra houses clinging to their flanks — and the rivers of the great basin flowed the same as the day I left: the bright blue band of the Kawarau weaving lazily away into the Gibbston Valley, while the swift, dark waters of the Arrow rushed through gullies and over grey pebbled banks to join its big brother.
There were a few more shops and holes in the ground where shops would one day be, and backpackers walking the long, straight stretches of road surrounding Frankton, with sweaty bandanas around their heads and sensible hybrid shoes on their feet.
Their presence had been the most conspicuous casualty of Covid and I found their return to be strangely comforting, an undeniable sign that everything was well-and-truly back to normal in my home.
Alex was waiting for me after I cleared biosecurity (a rather generous term for a trio of cardboard lecterns and bored Customs officials) having happily taken the afternoon off work to come and pick me up — a favour that can only be asked of old friends, and which only old friends will gladly oblige.
One of the overlooked aspects of living in a small town is that it takes a very long time to stop being small. When we moved to Wānaka in 2004, the population was somewhere around 3000 people, and although it has nearly tripled since then (and now boasts two supermarkets, several new car parks, a new pool and a new medical centre) doing anything beyond the minor tasks of everyday life requires a trip over the hill.
This has been true for the past 20 years and will probably remain the case for the next 15, although I am pleased to report that Wānaka is finally getting its own Warehouse, effectively robbing the Queenstown outpost of a regular pilgrimage of shoppers on the hunt for electric blankets and Sistema storage tubs.
But as grateful as local residents are for the arrival of The Warehouse Group, its large red presence will do nothing to diagnose or alleviate the many more serious medical issues that plague them. For that, they will need to travel to Queenstown, which was where we found Todd, lounging in the sun outside St. Pierre’s sushi following a physio appointment.
He had hitched a ride over with the kind of character that only he seems to attract: Alfa, a middle-aged, alcoholic roadworker, whose first move upon inviting my friend into the cab was to ask if there were any bottle shops between Wānaka and Queenstown.
Given that Alfa had driven the route only a few hours prior, he probably should’ve known that there is nothing on the Crown Range except tourists and tussock, though it is possible that his recall had been impacted by the three empty tall boys of Haagen Strong rolling around in the footwell.
In all the time I’ve known Todd, he’s never let a little bit of risk get in the way of a great story, and while Alfa may have nearly run them off the road several times while searching for his phone or an undrunk beer, the tale of their meeting reminded me why I love this part of the world so much.
When I last left Wānaka, the town had felt stale and suffocating. Cut off from its seasonal injection of fresh blood, Wānaka was starved of its usual vigour, silent and uninspiring as the nation limped through its last stages of isolation. But with the borders reopened, everything was as it had been for most of my life.
The backpackers had returned to their sun-bleached Hiaces, and these were once again parked in long lines along the lakefront with fresh laundry hanging over their doors and strung up on ropes between neighbouring trees. Out of step with the local calendar, I had arrived ahead of the annual A&P show, one of the major social events of the year for anyone under the age of 10 and over the age of 60.
As tractors and horse floats rolled onto Pembroke Park, we cruised down Ardmore Street, watching as locals and out-of-towners assembled at the usual haunts — Lake Bar, Water Bar, Trout, Kai — to talk, laugh and bask in the autumn sun under the cloudless dome of a Central Otago sky. Everything really was as it should be.
There were small changes of course, both in the town and in my own small world. Calling in at Alex’s, his mum, Sarah, greeted me in her usual way: a husky cry of ''Oh daaaarling!” and a big fat kiss on the cheek. She showed me the new windows in the lounge, where we had made a childhood tradition of sleeping over the night before every A&P show, and the new glass panels over the back porch that would allow us to enjoy a coffee and a smoke under the wisteria (another homely tradition) even on rainy days.
The garden rustled gently in the breeze, and all around were the familiar sights of a second home: tomatoes ripening in the beds, the rusty pot belly stove propped up outside Al’s shed, and the little stone bench perched at the top of a small slope, watching over it all.
Back on Ardmore street, visitors drifted around looking for an early dinner. The older retirees slipped in between the locals for a pint and a pizza, while young families wandered one way and then the other in search of somewhere a little quieter, the kids zig-zagging back and forth across the pedestrian islands.
Up the hill, near the Dinosaur Park, The Landing had morphed into a slick new brew bar, its bright orange sign clashing with the reds and yellows of Thai Siam and Gusto Chinese Restaurant to create Wānaka’s most luridly coloured corner. We hung a left onto Lakeside Road, past luxury apartments, Todd’s old flat at number 57, and the spring where health-conscious locals would come to fill armfuls of 5-litre bottles, and onto Beacon Point Road — the home stretch.
When you’ve lived somewhere for a very long time, every inch of it becomes loaded with memories. I must have walked, run, cycled and stumbled down Beacon Point Road a thousand times or more, and can tell you exactly how long it takes to get from one corner to the next in any conceivable state.
I remember which driveway I was in front of when I lost all feeling in my fingers biking to school one winter morning, and which curb you have to mount at low speed to avoid landing in an old lady’s lavender bushes. Since I was a child, I’ve watched the road be widened and seen the empty sections fill up, first with one house, and then two, as more and more people moved to town, looking for the life that I had the good fortune to be dropped in at age 7.
Back then, our terminal stretch of Beacon Point Road was mostly rabbits and empty paddocks that would erupt into seas of purple every summer when the lupins came into bloom. There is only one paddock left now. The lupins are long gone, mowed down every few months around a weathered old Zephyr caravan that hasn’t moved in 20 years, and hulking, empty mansions with manicured gardens now stand in place of gnarled old pines and tangled bracken fences.
Some things never change though. On the right, three houses from the end, our silver letterbox perches uncertainly atop a wooden post. You have to hold it in place when you open it, but that’s okay, and in the hinges lives the same family of spiders that I have waved hello to every time I’ve grabbed the mail since the day we moved in.
We turned up the drive and passed slowly under the branches of trees that are never pruned. My old swing still hung from the silver birch, split and broken for more than a decade now. The ivy crawled along the roof and drooped languorously from the gutters, and through the window, I could see Mum standing in the kitchen.
We stopped and she came out the side door, waving excitedly, just as she had done every time I returned from school or uni or a night out with friends. I stepped out of the car — I was home.