Beyond the Edge Beyond the Bar: 13.09 Taumarunui: Town Too Tough to Die?

Well, it’s now and still a place.

What kind of a place?

A place battered by the winds of change.

Why ‘battered’ and how do you know that?

I don’t know that it’s battered. I was only in the place—a town—about five hours, just last week. Every human place, like every human being, is always somewhat of a mystery. Without hazarding a final judgment (not a human business, anyway), I can say that the town appeared to be battered but not down. That’s what I saw.

‘Battered but not down.’ How could you say that or see that?

I’m not sure myself, but I’m sure that in travel as in life we want to see things for what they are–or we look away.

If Taumarunui’s battered, why devote a post to it?

Well, for one, there are still people living and working in Taumarunui. Reports of its death would be exaggerated. And for another, Taumarunui’s a place where Jean generally sees patients once each week. Because of that and because of my curiosity, I traveled with Jean to Taumarunui last week. While she would ‘see patients’ (as we say), I would hope to ‘see the town’, for better or worse.

I had never even heard of Taumarunui or so many other Kiwi places until about nine months ago, when it became more apparent that Jean and I might be living in New Zealand for her locum tenens service. I pored over New Zealand maps and surfed through Kiwi websites. In looking at a KiwiRail website I came across Taumarunui as a stop on KiwiRail’s passenger service between Auckland and Wellington. Between these two cities KiwiRail’s Scenic Journey division operates what might be called a ‘cruise train’—the Northern Explorer —thrice weekly southbound and thrice weekly northbound. It’s a train geared largely to tourists, rather than to mere travelers. And as it turns out the train no longer stops in Taumarunui, though it still did when I first encountered the town’s name on the web.

In travel we almost always bring an agenda or a set of interests that we expect a place to fulfill: kayaking, bird watching, extreme sporting, delicious food, deals in the market place—you name it. The travel industry caters to that consumer mentality. Some places veritably thrive in being in the ‘catering business’. These are the tourist destinations of the world, of a country, of a region. The removal of Taumarunui from the Northern Explorer schedule is but another step in the town’s degradation from the status it once had. Of that, more in a moment.

As in life, I think we can travel with blinders on or even, as it were, to sleepwalk through our travels (or through life). The Beyond the Bar portion of this blog’s title is meant to allude to that endemic human problem. ‘Beyond the Bar’ is a phrase stemming from experiences in the US Navy, where I served much of my time on a carrier, the USS Intrepid.

Once while I was aboard, the Intrepid pulled into Hamburg, Germany, sited on the Elbe River. At Hamburg, as at our other ports of call, the Navy encouraged all aboard to put their best foot forward as visitors, for their own sake and for the Navy’s. Briefings and educational videos shown over the ship’s TV network would alert the crew to social customs, bits of language, and sites to see. Often the Navy organized outings, even overnight trips, to destinations worthy of a visit. The vast majority of those aboard were truly interested in making the most of any port of call, to see what could be seen.

But there were those who were happy enough, it seemed, to be sleepwalkers. In the Navy we encountered those who saw nothing but bottles of booze in bars, whatever the port of call. Be it Hamburg or Plymouth, Copenhagen or Barcelona, we could predict with high probability that these folks would never get beyond the bar, the ‘first one on the right', as we would say. Little did we acknowledge that we’re all to some degree sleepwalkers. The unacknowledged fear of sleepwalking may have provided added energy to our efforts to really ‘see things’ when ashore, to get beyond the bar.

Really seeing a place is hard to do, especially in a few hours. Everything human is essentially mysterious, but not all that is human need be shrouded in complete mystery. And it’s quite human to want to unwrap the mystery of a place. There can be discovery or payoff, after all, probably more by the grace of God than by human design.

Consider a story from my Hamburg Navy visit. My 'yeoman' (Navy lingo for clerk) went ashore with one of his buddies, the two having decided they simply wanted to walk about a residential neighborhood as civilians. They happened to encounter an older lady who’d stumbled and dropped the bags of groceries she was carrying. They helped gather up her groceries and offered to carry them home for her. She accepted. She introduced them to her family, had them stay for dinner, and the family eventually even took them out to a country place along the Elbe estuary, where they were introduced to more relatives and friends.

Before the Intrepid left Hamburg my yeoman told me that he and his buddy would be accorded a special farewell from the friends they’d made in Hamburg. The Elbe estuary becomes quite wide rather soon beyond the city, so wide that one can’t possibly make out people on the shore, not without benefit of binoculars. So for hundreds of years (apparently) the custom of waving ‘auf Wiedersehen’ to beloved friends and family heading seaward has been done by waving bed sheets. My yeoman told me to keep an eye out on the north bank of the Elbe. And his friends were there or, rather, the sight of a dozen waving bed sheets. Of course, few who were topside saw the event for what it was or even noticed it. They weren’t ‘in the know’, as we say. They hadn’t known to look for what those in the know saw and understood.

Knowledge aside, the billowing sheets had the most meaning for my yeoman and his buddy. They’d been not only engaged in Hamburg, they’d been embraced by townies. A measure of engagement is critical to seeing, I believe. Somewhere behind every measure of knowledge or meaning is a measure of love. For at least minimally engaging a place, to see at least something of its truth, we must have sufficient love to take a measure of its stories. The stories of a place—historical or literary or lyrical—are the porch step to seeing a place.

For Taumarunui I have a little history, but it's telling. The town has lost population in recent decades, even as New Zealand's population has increased. Reportedly, 25 percent of the town’s high school population attends boarding schools elsewhere. Truancy is high among those who remain. I know this because a local task force is addressing the cultural fraying most evident in the school-age sets. While I wasn’t able to obtain conclusive answers about Taumarunui’s sawmills, apparently most, if not all, are now shuttered. Except on the main drag, vacant storefronts predominate (albeit the town is kept tidy).

There was a time when every train stopped in Taumarunui. It was a railway town and there was a refreshment service in the station. Indeed a generation of Kiwis knew of the town, not least from a folk song set in Taumarunui’s station refreshment room, where two generations of Kiwi travelers descended to partake of food and beverages. The station and refreshment room were but small components of the town’s railway infrastructure.

The North Island Main Trunk Railway (‘NIMT’) maintained locomotive shops here. Heavy-duty mountain locomotives were required south of town on the heavy grades ascending the Central Plateau. Lighter engines were used north of town. Diesel locomotives partially mitigated these operations. Then in the late 1980s the NIMT was electrified from Hamilton (Te Rapa) to North Palmerston (a distance of 411 kilometers [255 miles]). In freight service 4000 hp electric locomotives replaced their diesel predecessors. The new locomotives were twice as powerful as those replaced. Locomotive changes were no longer required at Taumarunui. The railway locomotive shops disappeared. And about six months ago the sole remaining passenger train ceased to stop at Taumarunui. Sic transit gloria.

What will become of Taumarunui?

Who can predict? The future is never certain, though we may comfort ourselves in probabilities.

But sometimes the probabilities are discomforting.

Indeed.

And then we are left with prophecy and hope. As for prophecy, we can be certain of this: without God’s blessing nothing comes of any human venture. It’s only a matter of time (perhaps a long time), but all human venture comes to nothing if bereft of God. And therefore we can hope in God for better days for Taumarunui (and its likes). There are hopeful signs in the town, not least in the community effort to re-engage the town’s youth with a sense of purpose and accountability. Commitment, imagination, a spirit of venture, and human kindness—all have a role day-by-day in giving new life to a community. And truth be told, those virtues are needed not only in Taumarunui but everywhere and always.

I suspect if they were asked, the townfolk might want to say ‘Taumarunui is a town too tough to die.’ I would hope so. And may God bless this town nestled in the hills of New Zealand’s King Country. His blessings are always needed.

Warm regards,

Tim (& Jean)

PS [25 Dec 2014] Jean and I paid a brief and enjoyable return visit to Taumarunui in December 2014, riding in a Forgotten World Adventures expedition, as recounted here. It was good to partake of this successful Taumarunui venture, which brings adventures, indeed, to its customers as they traverse the beautiful King Country.