Oamaru, Seal Pups and Human Behaviour

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I was a bit premature in my last column (a lifetime ago and I do apologise for that) when I claimed that I was now resident in Oamaru. I am, in fact, partly resident. Work on my two magazines is keeping me chained to Auckland longer than I had thought and I’m only in Oamaru maybe two weeks each month. I choose to drive back and forth from Auckland and, because of that, people look sideways at me and wonder if I have gone a bit soft. After all, it’s more than 100 years since Richard Pearce invented flight and with so many cheap airfares, surely I’d be better off flying from Auckland to Christchurch, picking up a car and driving the three and a half hours south?

Yeah… maybe, but life isn’t always about sensible decisions. Firstly, I really enjoy the drive and my route from Auckland to Wellington is via back roads and the only time I am on SH1 in the North Island is from Turangi to Vinegar Hill and then just south of Levin, to Wellington. The drive the rest of the way is through splendid isolation.

I chose ferry sailings at times of low demand, so the three hours at sea are times for quiet relaxation and that’s followed by either an overnight stay in Picton, or down the road a bit at Ward.

I’ve got to love these times on the road. An important by-product is that I am always picking up stories and experiences for either NZ TODAY or Classic Driver, stories that I otherwise would never learn of.

I got angry on the last trip

For the past five and a half years I have always stopped off at Ohau Point just north of Kaikoura and said hello to Dexter and his mates, the seal pups playing their little hearts out deep in the bush in a magic fresh water pool fed by a magic fairytale waterfall. On the beach at Ohau Point is a major seal colony and during the winter, while the seal pups are growing, mum seal goes out to sea each day, braving attacks by shark, whale and squid, leaving junior on the beach.

Somehow these seal pups have discovered this rocky stream and each day, while mum is away, they flounder and flop their way up the stream to the pool.

Fascinated, I wrote a short story once about Dexter the seal pup who found this place ten or fifteen years ago.   

This is an amazing place and it’s been a bit secret. In the hundred or so times I’ve been, only once or twice has there been anyone else there. I’ve felt privileged to stand in the dark, cool, bush, my face getting wet from the spray from the waterfall. The seal pups have no fear — so if you stand still they will come out of the water smell your shoes and, satisfied you’re not mum, turn and return to the water.

Enchanted is the only way to describe this place.

Sometime recently, the seal pups of the stream and waterfall made it onto our TV screens. Two weeks ago when I stopped off, my heart sank, there must have been 30 cars parked there. Up at the pool there were 150 odd people — crying kids trying to poke the seal pups in the eye, the flash of cameras and a group of stupid teenaged girls who came giggling their way up the track and then started screaming with delight at the sight of the pups and started trying to push each other into he pool.

I wanted to shout — “please show some respect to this place and these creatures”. Instead, feeling downcast, I left and headed back to my car to continue the journey to Oamaru.

A bomb under Oamaru

Spending half my life in Oamaru and half in Auckland, I think I’m a bit of a weather expert. Oamaru is much drier than Auckland and there have been many days over winter when it’s been considerably warmer than Auckland as well. I’m a bit reluctant to be too critical of my new home town until I’ve put my roots down a bit. But the single observation I will make is that if Oamaru is undervalued and has probably the best value homes in New Zealand, it’s because Oamaruvians, or are they North Otago-ites?, don’t appear to know what they have to offer and suffer from serious inward thinking.

Locals know the place needs a shot in the arm but everyone seems content to leave it to things like “when the new cement works arrive, it will bring jobs,” or “Fleur Sullivan (of Olivers in Clyde and Fleur’s Place at Moaeraki) is opening a new restaurant in the old part of town, that will bring the tourists.”

But there doesn’t seem, to be any collective, society-driven promotion of the town. In short, if the locals want change and growth, someone needs to set fire to the fuse (light a bomb).

I understand that there’s some sort of Edwardian, or is it Victorian, Festival coming up shortly, as a new part Oamaruvian, I would love to tell you about it both through this column, or the pages of NZ TODAY and give the place some promotion, but I can find out nothing about it. Maybe it’s a secret event?

Playing in the traffic

Meanwhile, back in Auckland. My base in Auckland is out in the East — the Highland Park, Howick area and each day I’m there, I hit the road at 6:15/6:20am to avoid the gridlock that is inevitable if I leave it another ten minutes.  By leaving at that time I have a 25 minute trip to the office, leave it 15 minutes and it can be 90 minutes — 90 minutes of brain-dead, bumper to bumper traffic.  It’s the same coming home. I work until 6:45 each evening, because I simply refuse to sit in traffic going nowhere.

Six years ago, John Banks got biffed out of the Auckland mayoral office partly because he wanted to build a new direct highway from Howick into downtown Auckland. At that time Howick was growing rapidly and it continues to do so. The traffic on the Panmure Highways gets worse by the day. I cannot understand the logic of sacking the only person who had the vision that would allow the continued growth of the Howick area with improved access, in favour of worsening gridlock. Aucklanders must enjoy spending up to four hours a day sitting inching along in their cars.

When I get to Oamaru, I feel sorry for Aucklanders stuck in their traffic jams.