The life was drained out of Collingwood all that lovely quiet Sunday. Whitebaiting season was over. Someone had once counted 200 baiters from the mouth of the river up to the bridge. Out at Cape Farewell, black kelp twitched and trembled on top of boulders. The kelp was actually seals. Cape Farewell was the beginning of another end: it was named by Cook to mark the last sight of New Zealand before the Endeavour sailed back to England with news of a fertile, stunted land. In 1774 a version of Cook’s map of New Zealand was produced in France. Cape Farewell was written as ‘Adieu’.
‘Hi!’ said a kid’s voice. Two of Callum’s mates rode past on their bicycles. The boys looked to be about six years old. One was Huck Finn and the other Tom Sawyer, probably. Were they going home? ‘Nah,’ said Huck, ‘we’re gonna buy some lollies and take them back to our friends.’ They rode their bikes in wide happy circles on the main street of Collingwood, that golden New Zealand town built on a narrow peninsula of sand and river gravel, perfect.
Wainuiomata
Lost City of Fitzroy
Harry Martin, the former mayor of Wainuiomata, in fact the only mayor of Wainuiomata – that smoky glowing wonderland cut off from the rest of New Zealand as though it were an island – spoke of a peculiar thing. He was sitting with two other veterans of public service in a café opposite a fruit shop and a Dollar Discount Store. A sign in the Dollar Discount Store advised customers: WE DO WINZ QUOTES. ‘Tomatoes are going through the roof,’ said Paul Crowther, owner of Mammas Fruit & Veg, ‘and apples and bananas are going out the door.’
It was a dismal winter day. Wellington Harbour looked as hard as concrete. The sky was dark. The hills were dark. The temperature fell below zero before nightfall. Wainuiomata, the most obscure suburb in Wellington’s hinterland, shivered in the shade of the hills surrounding it on three sides. Every chimney smoked. Smokers queued in the Discount Tobacco store. One man queued behind himself: he had tattooed a face on the back of his shaved head.
The tobacco shop was inside the mall. The mall also had a sushi bar, Hedz for Hair, The Warehouse, McDonald’s, two supermarkets, Coin Save, an optometrist, an eyebrow-shaper, a chemist, a bakery, PostShop, 4 Elements Urban Clothing, and Crackers Coffee Lounge. ‘It’s… it’s a lot quieter than we expected,’ said operations manager Dave Tomkins. He worked in a small office opposite the public toilets and had been in the job four months. He was from England, a Liverpool fan; he talked buoyantly about the signings made by manager Kenny Dalglish, about the bags of goals Andy Carroll and Luis Suarez would score at Anfield. He came back down to earth as he said the mall had three vacant stores, which added up to 600 square metres unoccupied. But it wasn’t the few vacant stores that gave the mall its loneliness. It was the fact it seemed to hardly ever have any people in it. You could have turned it into a skating rink or a firing range. Dave said, ‘The way I see it, a mall should be vibrant and full of life.’ He had some ways to go. ‘Well,’ he conceded, ‘the challenges it poses are very exciting.’
College students had painted a mural at the entrance to the mall. Their art posed a challenge: they had painted the Grim Reaper standing next to urban gangsta dudes wearing hoodies and wraparound glasses. Abandon jewellery, all ye who enter. The artists were from Wainuiomata High School, which made headlines that winter when it was revealed that students held boxing matches in the school toilets, lit fires in basins, and there wasn’t any soap. ‘It’s really unhygienic. … They’re in such a state,’ said Year 13 pupil Hayden Yeats, tutting and disgusted. ‘I go home if I need to go to the toilet.’ Others didn’t have that option: one kid defecated inside a rubbish bin rather than use the toilet.
The rest of New Zealand hears only unpleasant things about Wainuiomata. Example: the 2011 kidnapping and torture of a guy who was walking along the street one night. Two other guys drove past. Believing the man was responsible for a house burglary, they got out of their car and drove him to a house, where he was beaten up and locked in a room overnight. In the morning they drove him to another house, where he was tied to a chair and set upon with razor blades, screwdrivers, darts, a whip and a blowtorch.
Most famous example: in 2009 a Palmerston North motel owner banned the whole town. He said people from Wainuiomata were pigs. The ban came after allegedly vile behaviour from two sports teams who had stayed as guests. The motelier said he’d not visited Wainuiomata personally but had heard about it. His quote to the newspapers: ‘I believe it’s somewhere close to where God would put an enema.’
Trevor Mallard said the motelier was talking out of his arse. The local member of parliament was sharing a table at the café with Harry Martin and city councillor Ken Laban. The three public officials spoke of Wainuiomata as a vibrant community. Harry, a retired bookbinder,
