The Kiwi Ukulele North Island Tour
For the first time, I hit the road to bring fancy strums to the North Island. From November 13 to 22, 2010, the Ukemobile visited W(h)anganui, Hamilton, Taupo, Hastings, and Palmerston North. Also, Katikati. See the tour map, for details. I didn't get as far a designing a tour T-shirt, but I'll save that for the cross-USA tour planned for 2011…
View Kiwi Ukulele North Island Tour in a larger map for details
Tour Blog
Whanganui
13 Nov 2010
The solution to the W(h)anganui problem is to simply not write down its name at any point. Sorted. No, you’re welcome. In an momentary excess of dutifulness I actually added an extra letter and coined Whanaganui.
I heartily recommend Craig Cawley and his shop the Gat Shack: a tiny place in a heritage building, but crammed with good instruments. Craig’s been very grateful for the ukulele resurgence helping him through tough economic times, something I’ve heard from other independent music shops. He organised a reasonable turnout for a workshop in the rather lavish practice rooms of the Wanganui Brass Band.
I was a bit miffed to find both the $8 barber and the wool shop would be closed tomorrow. You can image the debauched Sunday morning I had planned for W-town. Amazed to find, though, the imposing National Bank Building, with its three-storey classical columns, actually still has a bank inside. People must go there. To do banking.
Hamilton
14 Nov 2010
For some reason Whanganui, which has one of the most beautiful main streets in New Zealand, is a ghost town on a Sunday morning. It’s like the Quiet Earth.
So I headed up the Whanganui River for the long leg of the tour, to Hamilton. The landscape all the way up was relentlessly, crushingly green and bucolic. At every turn it's like a cartoon, or like the Canterbury landscape run through one of those Lord of the Rings green-enhancing filters. All so kiwi I thought my head might explode.
Welcome relief from Arcadia was found at the upland forest around National Park, possibly the least creative placename in NZ, where mountain cabbage trees (toi, or Cordyline indivisa) poke out of the rimu forest.
For the second time in my life I ate in Taumaranui. As Lady Bracknell would have noted if she ever found herself there, the first time is a misfortune; the second looks like carelessness. All I will say is the Flax Cafe there uses Papyrus as their menu font, which must count as a monocot conflict. (Yay, a Double Nerd Score in Nerd Scrabble.)
At the workshop at St Peter’s in Hamilton, people came from as far afield as Te Kuiti and Te Awamutu to learn some fancy strums.
I stayed out in Te Pahu, hosted by Jim Fulton of the Big Muffin Serious Band, and had the pleasure of meeting Bevan Galbraith of Captain Ukuleles, who makes lovely instruments from recycled native timber. I later saw his ukes in both Weir’s in Hamilton and Bungalow Bills in Auckland. Worth checking out; I was especially enamoured of a brassy six-string.
Auckland
15 Nov 2010
In the morning, I got to inspect the famous Toothbrush Fence of Te Pahu, which deserves a blog post of its own.
After seeing beautiful kete at the Waikato Museum, it was time to head north again. All one's righteous indignation about carbon dioxide emissions is puny, by the way, when set against the great squat triffid that is Huntly.
Despite Bungalow Bills being a charming independent music store, and Bill being such a pleasant fellow, the nicest feeling I have about Auckland is the one I get when I finally make it to State Highway 1. And so the southward leg began.
Katikati
17 Nov 2010
After a day of down time in Miranda, including an impromptu ukulele jam with Maria at the Miranda Shorebird Centre, it was time to head to the Bay of Plenty, known for its kiwifruit. There’s a four-storey one in Te Puke. No, I am not singing about the plight of kiwifruit.
At Katikati, Christine Donehue had organised a short-notice workshop at the local St Peter’s (the second St Peter’s of the trip: I don’t think he’s the patron saint of the ukulele though), with attendees from as far as Thames and Tauranga.
Heading out of Katikati, there were placename issues: I could have sworn I crossed the Urethra River, though that’s unlikely. Before Tauranga, one passes through Bethlehem. The town founders did not give enough thought, I feel, to the psychological effect of their decision on about one in 365 of people born there.
If ever passing through Paeroa, don't use the public toilets next to the Big Bottle. Push the Lock button and a recorded American voice tells you that you have ten minutes before it will unlock the door. No pressure. Then it plays horrible piano muzak at you: “What The World Needs Now is Love, Sweet Love” (which we sang in our high school musical, so, bad memories) and “Evergreen” (my drama teacher’s preferred cool-down music; it made her cry every time). All in all, a traumatic toileting experience.
Taupō
18 Nov 2010
A quick haircut in Rotorua, because the shop had a stripy pole outside; the elderly gentleman used a straight razor on my neck, and combed various floral lotions and ungeants through my hair. Extremely old school. Stay classy, Rotorua.
Linda Seaton of the Pumice Valley Whoopee! Band organised a lovely workshop and fabulous accommodation, and I met Gwenda at the Groove Store.
If I were required by law to live in a small town, I’d previously decided it would be Oamaru, but now Taupō would have to be a strong contender. Not only does it have a gorgeous little botanical garden, there’s a quite progressive museum (perfect except for the moa skeleton, which has its legs bending backwards) and the trump card: the stunning lake, which dominates and moderates all things. Having an enormous lake does count for a lot, even if it was created by a gigantic volcanic explosion that’s quite unlikely to happen again and devastate the North Island for, oh, hundreds of years.
Letters to the editor of the Taupo Times suggest this is another town going through orthography trauma, with both spelling and pronunciation due to change. Public debate about macrons is tricky, though, when the font in your local paper doesn’t, for some reason, contain any.
Hawkes Bay Ukulele Festival
19–21 Nov 2010
My biggest problem with Hawkes Bay is I can never remember whether it takes an apostrophe or not. I’d never done the drive from Taupo to Napier before and was pleasantly surprised when Kaiangaroa State Forest morphed into bush-clad gorges. Young matai trees showed their beautiful hammered bark.
Joyce Seitzinger and Walt Rutgers were the core of the EIT ukulele mafia, and we took over Crab Farm Winery’s restaurant for the Friday night. The diners were certainly not expecting us, but were pretty pleased. Gavin and Ty, jointly The Sopranos up from Wellington, even got gig offers.
Saturday morning was fund-raising busking in downtown Hastings. I’m an apprehensive busker, and the town was not exactly hopping. We raised enough to donate two ukuleles to the local school.
Apparently there’s just as much lovely deco architecture in Hastings as Napier, but Hastings doesn’t make a big fuss about it. Hastings, the dowdy little sister. “Why can’t you be more like Napier?” they ask. “THAT fakey-fake ho,” thinks Hastings. Only she can see.
Ukulele Bartt and the Nukes did a fabulous opening concert for the festival. Every time I hear the Nukes, I’m more impressed. They’re great musicians, and have hit on a distinctive way of playing ukes that’s not derivative and seems very Kiwi. I hope they inspire many. Quiz: which of these two men is a professional ukulele player?
Joyce threw restraint and understatement to the wind with her custom-made ukulele dress, which included little decorative ukuleles. She cut a dash wherever she went.
Palmerston North
21 Nov 2010
I approached the idyllic inland city of Palmerston North, or, as we kiwis affectionately call it, "Mordor", with some trepidation. Happily, all went well, and Jennifer Moss’s well-drilled ukulele group gave me a warm reception in the only workshop space of the tour that included an actual chandelier. A delight to meet them all.
Palmerston North derives much of its forbidding reputation, I’m convinced, from the brutalist council buildings which intrude into the central square like a concrete suppository. Not many people realise that Weta Workshop’s 1/166th scale model of Barad-dûr was based on the Palmerston North Civic Centre.
Home
22 Nov 2010
Ten days on the road, 3000km with just two ukuleles for company. Soundtrack: Arcade Fire, Beck, Radiohead, R.E.M., and numerous podcasts, played through one dodgy car speaker. Giant things seen: L&P bottle, kiwifruit, trout, and gumboot, but not one carrot. Many thanks to the kind folks who hosted me through the North Island, and I hope to see you all again.
