These are all over the place and I’ve visited quite a few. They all share similar traits; they all have seen better days, they all had prosperous industries and, according to one of my work mates, they should have all been bull dozed a long time ago!
Today I visited Te Mahoe, a small settlement in the eastern Bay of Plenty. It is near another town, Kawerau, which itself has seen better days. Te Mahoe apparently was established as a village for two groups of people, those who built the nearby dam and those who originally ran the power plant driven by the water from the dam. But, we now live in a modern, automated age, with the power plant now seemingly run from afar and bereft of actual employees, so Te Mahoe sits silently in the valleys, a small collection of well kept homes, but little else. The small primary school could be the next in line (especially as Kawerau’s schools are to be consolidated into fewer and bigger schools).
What future does Te Mahoe have? No actual sign of work places in the area, the teachers at the school (as well as many of the students) travel to there. It is like a scale model of Turangi or Mangakino, similarly constructed for hydroelectric; Turangi, by virtue of proximity to the ski fields and trout fishing, as well as two large prisons, at least looks like a town that will survive.
There are others of this ilk – Te Kaha, dairy factory gone, tourist ventures failed, it sits in decline; Kaingaroa, once a thriving forest settlement, now it is a collection of near derelict homes – mostly with families living in them. A recent TV news report showed how in the Central North Island sections of land were available for free, as nobody wanted those house section in those villages
So, does the outside world actually know of these places – what is more troublesome is that few in New Zealand really care about these places or the people in them, who sit between the metaphorical rock and a hard place. Whilst we fret over ‘The Hobbit’, there are sections of New Zealand with substandard housing, long term unemployment and no prospect of changes or improvement. Overseas the ‘heritage’ angle would be used, considering these required saving for the benefit of the nation. Maybe the people should be considered the national treasure?
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