off to the hill . home-home

Funny how if you say a word twice it gathers weight. Are you off home? Yup. Not home-home but home. Are you tired - yeah a bit - not tired-tired though. Just a bit tired.

I went home-home on the weekend. I drove over the hill from The West Coast of the North Island of New Zealand to the East Coast to visit my godmother at the beach and a good friend on The Hill. Just down the road from the beach where I grew up. It took three hours. The drive.

Not bad, aye!

There is a new road.

A new road to home home.

I was born in Napier, New Zealand. So this is as close to going home as a wandering soul such as myself gets. Even though the big house on the beach is long gone. Even though the beach itself is so changed with the rising sea that it breaks my heart. It is still home. I have many homes - most recently my home is in Sunbury but Hawkes Bay and The Estuary and Hospital Hill and Westshore is home-home.

To reach Hawkes Bay on the other side of the Ruahine Ranges. I rented a rent-a-dent car. Rentadent is a family word that means very cheap - $NZ50 a day - total - no hidden costs, no bells and whistles, just a car that goes forwards and backwards and has a radio. I traveled across a new road that connects Ashhurst to Woodville over the Ruahine Ranges, bypassing the old Manawatū Gorge road which was permanently closed in 2017 because of landslides. The horror. We were all in shock. Not surprised but in shock because one half of the island was cut off from the other.

That’s ok though. We found a way round.

Below is a picture of the roads I have travelled to get through the hills . ⬇️ The red is the old gorge road (the one with the landslide) - that is the road through the hills of my childhood. It followed the contours of a natural gully cut down by the Manawatu River. So, when I was a young driver - I would drive through the Manawatū Gorge (pronounced Mah-nah-wah-too) from Hawkes Bay, through the farm lands, across the plains, through the gorge to Palmerston North in the Manawatū region, where the University is, or onto Wellington where our cousins lived. Following the red track. ⬇️

When the Manawatu Gorge road was closed, never to open again, we lost a direct route down the country. We would drive over the old saddle road, in white, with it’s steep inclines and dangerous twists and turns.

Now they have finished the new road. Straight through the mountains. The green road. Literally - straight through the hills.

Construction officially started in January 2021 on Te Ahu and the new highway opened in June 2025.

The new road makes the drive shorter. Much shorter.

When you hear “Manawatū,” it refers both to the river and the region, and Palmerston North is the main city in that region. Palmerston North, called Palmy, is where our university is.

I travelled the new road - Te Ahu a Tūranga – Manawatū–Tararua Highway- (pronounced; Tea Ah-hoo ah Too-rah-ngah – Mah-nah-wah-too Tah-rah-roo-ah) Highway through the ranges and initially I was shocked at the big scar of a road.

The highway takes its name from Te Ahu a Tūranga, a sacred mound built centuries ago on the high ridge where the new road now runs, a shaped rise in the land made as a place of remembrance for the ancestor Tūranga. The highway kept the name Te Ahu a Tūranga to carry the memory forward, and cultural protocols, monitoring, and mitigation (including karakia, recording, and preservation where possible) were undertaken by the Māori peoples during construction.

There is always history. Knowing our history makes us strong. Knowing the history of our own regions - the good and the bad - keeps us humble. Humble is stronger.

So here is the map of the complete journey I took from one coast to another. Straight through is now a little over three hours from PekaPeka.

Hawkes Bay is a beautiful region. And my home. Home-home.

In the springtime the fields are green and verdant. Lambs, calves and farmers in tractors.

Friday at dawn I left the coast and drove straight through to Napier hill, where my best friend and old teaching buddy lives.

In the morning on Saturday we walked the estuary at Westshore. We walked through scrub and trees and over the old decommissioned bridge, through the flats where we used to go flatty fishing in our sea shoes with spears, like ragged wild children. We called them flatties - you might call them flounders.

It is all about the sea for me. This trip to my hometown men’s getting to the sea, I smell it in my dreams. Even when I sleep in my old friend’s spare room up on Hospital Hill far above the sea, I leave the windows open in case a sea breeze drifts upwards. The hard sparkle of the early spring sunshine on the whip of sea makes me squint and shade my eyes. It is my heart.

Sunday I drove back down through the middle of the North Island - up and over the new pass again. The weather was nicer and I was more relaxed after my two days in sunny warm Hawkes Bay my home-home so as I drove up and over the new pass I noticed bicycle lanes and walking paths and views with parking. Parents with children perched on their shoulders walked through nicely planted picnic areas. It felt less like a wound.

It is beautifully designed but still a brutal new road straight up and straight through the top of the hill, then straight back down again. The earth still heaving with grief at the rude shock of having its innards carved through, its history torn up and exposed then covered in concrete to prevent collapse. Dystopian. Wind ravaged. Walls of netted attempts at growing vegetation. New trees as apologies. It felt sad.

And yes - I know we need roads. And as new roads go this one felt strangely people friendly. And I know that New Zealand has a spine of mountainous ranges swooping right down its center that we need to travel through safely but - yeah. You know what I mean.

On the way I popped into Norsewood to visit the Noreswear shop and the woman who served me said I should fill my bag with their jerseys when I go back to the States. Sell them, she said. Because we are losing our markets out there and people love buying our jerseys. They have lost sales because of Trumps tariffs, she said. The new tariffs plus the tariff brokers fees, plus the new import documentation have forced their prices over 70%, she said. The buyers can’t afford to buy them after all those fees. And by the time the ship arrives the tariffs have gone up again. The homespun local wool clothing arrives in the US so expensive the buyers are not accepting them, instead leaving the pure wool clothing on the docks and asking for their money back. I don’t blame them, she said. These new tariffs are hurting our business, badly, she said.

I have owned three Norsewear jerseys. Three in my lifetime - (I got a hand me down one when I was a teen and my son stole the other one about twenty years ago) that is how long they last. Never wash in a washing machine and dry laid flat and these pure wool locally spun and knitted jerseys will last forever.

Monday and Tuesday Back on the Kapiti Coast and some longed for sunshine enabled us to get stuck into the garden.

The last of the lime trees were planted. The kūmara planted. Spring onions and some tomatoes and spinach - the tomatoes might be a teensy bit early here - it is much cooler here than Hawkes Bay (or Melbourne for that matter).

I began planting wild flowers on the rise by the house though how they can be wild when I was so carefully planting them to look wild and natural, I’m not sure.

As per usual one person is in charge of the kitchen as we work outside and that person was making dumplings for dinner.

Do you remember when there was a shortage of marmite in New Zealand after the factory collapsed in the Christchurch earthquake. Marmite is a national food so that was pretty frightening!

Wednesday - today the wind has swung to the south which is a cold wind here in New Zealand. So I donned my wooly undyed Norsewood jersey and another day of gardening ahead.

Kūmara planting today.

Kūmara is a New Zealand sweet potato but not too sweet. Delicious roasted!

There is a whole patch of daffodils in the middle of the lawn that need shifting onto the wild flower mound. I will plant them around the feijoas! It is not the right time move them but I am the best person to do it as I will move them carefully and I will plant them close to the irrigation so they get water.

Fourth son is threatening them with his mower - getting closer and closer with each pass.

Fourth Son will finish planting the last of the lime trees, today. This garden is heaving with citrus that they will sell. Speaking of selling - check this out!

A spring Sale!

And then it rained and we are back inside lighting the fire again.

Tonight the parents are going out on a date night and the boys have requested Ceci’s meatloaf and mashed potatoes. Easy right! My meatloaf is half grated veg - tonight the veggie half will be pumpkin and carrot and broccoli. (all from the garden). Yum. Fourth Son has requested a plate be saved in the fridge for him. He is a bit sad to miss out on his favourite meatloaf! 🤣

On Thursday I relocate to the city garden at Mirimar. Back over the hill and round the bay and into the city. Another family and another couple of kids.

Then Monday back to Melbourne and my baby and baby’s baby and my tiny garden in the burbs.

Have a gorgeous day!

Celi