On Saturday morning in Outram, Geoff Woodcock said, ‘I’m continually shocked at how beautiful the Taieri is.’ He had moved to Mosgiel five years earlier with his wife Melanie. They had now sold their house there and rented in Outram, a village of 200 households. ‘It’s a real boom time here for young families. You do hear about people coming down from Auckland to live here.’ Miriam said, ‘Who?’ Geoff said, ‘That girl Tracey looks like an Aucklander.’ Miriam said, ‘What makes you say that?’ Geoff said, ‘She wears make-up.’
He works from home as an IT consultant. ‘Work is for rainy days and nights. If it’s a beautiful day we go to the beach. We were at Sandfly Bay last week; the kids played a game between three seals.’ They have four kids, Jacob, seven, Keziah, five, Gabby, three, and Tim, one.
Geoff was lean, youthful and smart, and had seen a vision come to life: he had built Mosgiel’s playground. ‘It was a quality-of-life issue,’ he said. ‘There was just nowhere to take your kids. The existing park was a set of squeaky swings and an old fort.’ The playground is a spectacular achievement, large, exciting, gleaming with new equipment; attractive families come from as far away as Milton – an hour’s drive – to bring their kids and make a day of it. The playground cost $750,000. Geoff chaired a local trust and worked hard to raise the funds. This included finding another $30,000 to top up the council’s $85,000 for a toilet.
Geoff said, ‘The toilet! Oh, God. Where do I start? Okay. There were lots of kids urinating in bushes. We pushed eighteen months for a toilet but the council offered us something really horrible, square and boxy, just ugly. And impractical – one of the trust members had once been locked in one just like it. We had world-class playground equipment in the park, so we put in another $30,000 and they gave us what we wanted.
‘It was well worth the wait. The toilets are exceptional. It’s a Nova Loo; I first saw them in Albert Town near Wānaka and really liked them. They’re curvaceous, modern, spacious.’
Toilets were an unusual subject to inspire such a passionate speech but Geoff was a man of strong convictions. He made another speech. ‘We looked at lots of catalogues of playground equipment. A lot of them were neutered and sedated. It was that PC, risk-averse thing, cotton-wooling.
‘All the safety compliances these days with playgrounds – something’s been lost along the way. We spent $30,000 on soft-fall surfacing. It does your head in! A playground should have a mix of danger and risk. If kids can’t hurt themselves, there’s something wrong. Adrenalin is fun. Pain is good. Pain,’ he said, ‘is a teacher.’
‘Pain,’ said Larry Williamson, ‘is a switch.’ Larry was an amazing sight. At 48, moustached and long-legged, dressed in cowboy boots, cowboy hat, and tight Wrangler denim, he stood as trim and straight as a board. The thought occurred that he might be a mean son of a bitch, but he was another kind of character – a good ol’ boy. He tipped his hat to women.
He drained his beer and wiped his moustache. ‘Mine,’ he said, pointing to the rifles and pistols displayed on the wall of the Silverstream Steakhouse and Bar. ‘Them too,’ he said, pointing at two beautiful saddles – his prizes as the New Zealand Rodeo Cowboys Association champion saddle bronc rider in 2001 and 2008. He won the last saddle as the oldest bronc rider in New Zealand. ‘I’ve broken everything there is to break,’ he said. Pain, the switch: ‘You turn it off for eight seconds.’
He meant the eight seconds of adrenalin, skill and madness on top of a bronc. ‘It takes 30 or 40 rides for you to remember the whole eight seconds. The first few times you might remember only the first second. It’s all about timing, rhythm and balance. And breathing: you can get away with not breathing for the first two or three seconds, but then – bang! – you’re on the ground. I try to breathe the whole time.’
He spoke in a deep slow drawl. He talked about rodeo life: the travelling, the rooms above pubs, the hopelessness of maintaining a marriage. He had competed professionally in America, Canada and Australia. He now worked as a farrier. It seemed likely he spent a fair bit of his time at the Silverstream Steakhouse and Bar.
The pub was off the beaten track in North Taieri, at the back of Mosgiel, on its lonesome with a wide open space, a log fire, Fender guitars on the wall, and a stage for live country music. The publican lived next door in a caravan. ‘Marriage fell over,’ Ken Reeves said. There were slices of burnt toast in the sink. He’d filled a Marmite jar with cigarette butts. ‘Back when I was farming in Winton I’d go to the pub three or four times a year. Now it’s every night.’
He had a happy red face and a beer in his hand. It was getting on to lunchtime. He said, ‘I’ll show you around next door.’ He led the way over grass and dust to the pub. By the back door a rubbish bag had split open. ‘Bloody dogs getting in the rubbish again,’ he said. He had taken out a lease on the neighbouring bowling club. He pointed to a field out the back. ‘I’ve got plans to turn that into our own private rodeo.’
Ken, too, was a good ol’ boy. ‘We attract good solid country people,’ he said, and poured himself a beer. He ran a hell of a good pub. It was big and very friendly. It was the kind of pub where
