Final exams after four years at Otago University and, four weeks until graduation – sounds like the perfect time for Mum and Chookie to have a good old Kiwi ‘road trip!’. And when I say it’s a perfect time, let’s just chuck in the ‘unprecedented’ – because borders are closed, the roads are open, and the holiday season has yet to begin. Time to explore!
Leaving Dunedin we headed 20 minutes up the highway, “we took a right, we took a right turning” at Evansdale and headed along the Coast Road to the Seacliff Lunatic Asylum ruins at the Truby King Reserve. What a stunning spot. What a horrendous history. So grateful to have been born when I was because, in a different era, I could possibly have ended up here.
The criteria of the time meant that just being ‘difficult’ could result in a diagnosis of lunatic or mad. Shit, there’d be no room in today’s standard of ‘difficult’ women. One of the asylum’s more famous residents wrote in her biography:
“The attitude of those in charge, who influenced the treatment, was that of reprimand and punishment, with certain forms of medical treatment being threatened as punishment for failure to ‘co-operate”.
Janet Frame
From Seacliff we followed the Coast Road down the hill to Karitane and along the Waikouati River hitting the highway at Hawkesbury just shy of the Evansdale Cheese factory which, unfortunately, closed at 3 pm. Unfortunately for them, I might add, that they missed us two cheese fiends. A cheese factory is one place I do love to shop!
We ventured back up the highway to take another right turn, heading down to Shag Point where we saw a pod, a rookery, or perhaps a harem of Fur Seals. Lots of them, lazing on the rocks, snoozing, taking in some rays, doing their fur seal thing.
Back onto the highway, where normally I’d follow the road into Oamaru but no, this is a road trip after all, and road trips are all about going off the beaten track. So, at Deborah, where I’ve driven through numerous times not knowing Deborah was a place, we travelled north onto the Weston-Ngapara Road, and here is where my education began.
I’m not kidding. Let’s remind ourselves I’m travelling with encyclopedia Chookie, fresh out of a four-year degree that I never did quite understand other than something environmental. But ultimately this amazing kid of mine had studied the geography of New Zealand, climatology, and some of the indigenous history of the land.
Obviously, I had to give said Chookie a bit of shit and remind her I grew up here but honestly, I must say, she knew her stuff, and I didn’t. I’m ashamed to admit that I never knew Māori rock art was a thing, or that it existed along our travels. Not only did I get to appreciate how ignorant I am to the history of this whenua, I learned from my Australian-born Chookie that Māori place names gave guidance to those who followed.
Part of Chookie’s geographical and cultural tour took us to the Maerewhenua Rock Art Site just off the Duntroon-Georgetown Road. Located within an ancient food gathering region, following a pathway that links the mountains to the sea, the site is a significant landmark in the tradition of Ngāi Tahu Whānui.
On a limestone escarpment with multiple rock shelters there are ochre and charcoal drawings depicting animals, humans, and abstract shapes. This historic place now sits on private land but is open to the public as the most visible and accessible rock art in the area.
In all my time growing up in Southland, I never knew this rock art existed. I guess it’s one of the best things about road trips, learning what you don’t know. And you never know what you don’t know until you know it.