O lost city of Wainuiomata.
But there was another deeper, more enduring theme in Wainuiomata. It was there right at its very beginning, there all through the boom years, and there now, in the rising of the sun, in the whisper of the trees, in the thunder of the sea. ‘Love is in the air,’ sang some Romeo on the intercom playing endless love songs in the mall. He was right. Love surrounded Wainuiomata on all sides; the town was like a precious stone held in the palm of the low-lying land.
It was a strange sensation to stand at the top of the summit of Wainuiomata Hill and look across to Wellington, the harbour, the Hutt Valley, and then back to the town. Wellington looked massive, important, sophisticated. Wainuiomata looked modest, flat on its back, not up to a hell of a lot. The story goes that when the town was growing in the 1950s and ’60s, homeowners could choose from only five floor plans. It seems likely they had a choice of even fewer pots of paint. Many of the houses look like each other – squat weatherboard, painted magnolia cream, and all in the same state of decay. Houses that get built together fall apart together. It can present as a depressing sight. A more direct way of putting it is that Wainuiomata can perhaps, in haste and bad light, be mistaken for a dump.
A dump built on a swamp. It was known as the Lowry Bay swamp when European settlers first made the journey up and over the hill on foot tracks, having to carry all their goods and possessions on their backs. The first person to cross on horseback was Captain John Mowlem. He was 25 years old, and master of the Electra, a vessel that brought to Wellington large numbers of passengers – including Agnes Sinclair. The story goes that he fell in love at first sight. He made inquiries. He found she had gone to settle in Wainuiomata. He viewed the Wainuiomata hill without wild surmise, bridled his horse, and duly rode in on it. John and Agnes had five sons and four daughters.
‘Tonight I celebrate my love for you,’ sang some Romeo on the intercom playing endless love songs in the mall, ‘and the midnight sun is gonna come shining through.’ At dawn, the surrounding hills were white with mist, big gorgeous shrouds of it rising and smoking from the deep green hills. At dusk, the lights on Wainuiomata Hill looked like fires, their gold flames trembling in the rain. The rest of New Zealand was somewhere over the hill. Wainuiomata was another Collingwood, defined by its hill, even though it took only three minutes to drive from the bottom to the top, or less in the whizzing red rocket driven by Trevor Mallard. A few hours after he shared a café table with Harry Martin and Ken Laban, he could be seen testing the hill road’s skid-resistant bauxite and the sure-grip wheels of his Labour Party car as he flared through traffic.
Wainuiomata is the largest New Zealand community dependent on a single road for access. Trevor said, ‘I really think it benefits from a perceived isolation. The barrier of the hill has built a community.’ There were once plans to open a hilltop restaurant – only one tender was received and nothing came of it – but the biggest red herring in Wainuiomata’s history is its tunnel. There was a serious effort to drill a tunnel through the hill in 1932. It was ambitious, and doomed: work closed down two years later, during the worst of the Depression. The entrance on the Wainui side has been concreted over; its exit on the fabled other side is probably covered in gorse. It lies up Tunnel Grove, a dead-end street in Gracefield, an industrial subdivision devoted to hard labour: the local massage parlour is called The Quarry Inn.
The world on one side, Wainuiomata on the other, inviolate, unto itself, not a dump. Working-class, definitely. ‘Hard working-class,’ corrected Paul Crowther at the fruit shop. Terangi McGregor, 32, volunteered at Wainuiomata Community Centre and looked for work as a data processor. ‘Wainuiomata’s main employer,’ he said, ‘would have to be Work and Income.’ The WINZ offices were packed that Friday afternoon. No one talked. A fat barefoot woman wearing green trackies with the legend BOSTON 34 sat with a pair of ug boots in her lap. A few jobs were advertised on the noticeboard. ‘Yard worker to empty rubbish and clean drains.’ There were more specialist positions. ‘Picker and packer to work for a local beauty care products company. Ideal applicant will be fluent in Mandarin.’
Ken Laban said, ‘There is more affluence here than people give us credit for.’ Trevor Mallard said, ‘There are more freehold houses here than anywhere in New Zealand.’ Corey Hemingway said, ‘I own my own home.’ He was 21, bruised, and had Popeye arms. He was heading into McDonald’s in the mall on Sunday afternoon for breakfast; he’d partied ’til six a.m. ‘A few beers and good sounds.’ What sounds? ‘I idolise Vinnie Paul from Pantera.’ Up all night with a metal drummer banging in his head; that was after he took a few blows to the head in a wrestling match. ‘I’m a professional wrestler.’ That was by night. By day he worked at ACC as a debt account manager. Good job, his own home, wrestling and metal, among a gang of two mates and three girls about to grease their blood at McDonald’s – he was a picture of happiness. He said, ‘Wainuiomata is the best place
