Beware of night-clubbing in a village with no nightlife

• Published date: 02 May 2023
• Publication title: Ensign, The

FIRSTLY, let me clarify something. I have never been night clubbing, not even in Ngāwī. In fact, before February, when we were forced in the wake of Cyclone Gabrielle to modify our North Island holiday itinerary, I had never even heard of this remote southern Wairarapa fishing village

We had successfully travelled up the West Coast in the days following the rampage of Cyclone Gabrielle, which triggered the declaration of a national state of emergency. Apart from my ending up just one day later under a Whanganui restaurant dining table as a result of a significant, but presumably unrelated earthquake, our journey had been relatively drama free.

We eventually made it safely across the North Island to the Bay of Plenty, but given the ongoing devastation being experienced on other parts of the east coast, our plans to visit Gisborne and Napier and spots in between were clearly no longer viable. We cancelled our pre-booked accommodation in these badly affected areas, and canvassed various people as to where we might productively spend our remaining time before returning to Wellington. On hearing that our amended planned route included a stopover in the Wairarapa, one friend helpfully suggested that we extend our proposed stay in charming Greytown to include a visit to Ngāwī.

Despite our initial ignorance about this place, the more we heard and read about it, the more intrigued we became.

Ngāwī is a very small settlement just short of Cape Palliser, the southernmost point of the North Island. Its most notable feature seems to be a storybook-like collection of colourful bulldozers. These machines line up with their long trailers on the notoriously challenging shingly foreshore in preparation for reversing down to Palliser Bay to nudge fishing boats into the frequently turbulent waters of Cook Strait. Once the day’s fishing is done, the boats are dragged back up the shore for their crews to unload the catch.

This twice-daily rigmarole is necessary because Ngāwī has neither boat ramp nor jetty. Before some bright sparks came up with the notion of using bulldozers to compensate for the lack of appropriate boat-launching facilities, there were limited opportunities for offshore fishing. I got the impression that, apart from the deafening noise of ageing bulldozers in action with their coughing exhausts belching out accumulated detritus, this was otherwise a place of unparalleled tranquillity for those out-of-area fisherfolk who take up residence in Ngāwī at weekends...