The Long and Winding Road

When Wellingtonian William McLean imported the first two cars into New Zealand in 1898 he can’t of been aware of the chaotic madness he was about to unleash on the country. 

Just what the 53 year old Scotsman and former politician was doing in Wellington in the first place is an interesting tale. Born in Grantown (a district of North Edinburgh), Scotland and the son of a shoemaker, William was first adopted by a parish priest before he moved to Rochdale in England to work as a cotton spinner at the age of 13. When the American Civil War caused a cotton famine, at the age of 18, William decided to head for New Zealand and the Otago Gold Rush. 

Unlike many others who ventured into the Otago gold fields with the hopes of finding a fortune, William it seems, had some success. After making enough money to open a small shop, when the West Coast Gold Rush in Hokitika sprung up, William packed up and headed for the coast. The West Coast must have suited him because during his time there he not only prospected for gold, he was a schoolmaster, an auctioneer and a mining and commission agent. At this point, in April 1877, William married Mary Elizabeth Crumpton where they continued to live happily on the coast until they moved to Wellington in 1884. Once again, William held several positions of employment which included an auctioneer, secretary for the Wellington Loan Company before becoming secretary to the Empire Loan and Discount Company and standing for parliament. 

After coming last in the 1881 Inangahua election, he was also unsuccessful in the 1887 Thorndon election and the 1890 Wellington election before successfully winning the 1892 City of Wellington by-election. William’s time in office lasted until he lost his seat in the general election of 1893. What all this means is that William McLean’s contribution to life in New Zealand wasn’t as a great businessman, he wasn’t known for heroic deeds on the gold fields and he clearly wasn’t a politician with a long and lasting career. Yet, his contribution to New Zealand’s identity is long reaching and forever lasting. William McLean’s gift to New Zealand, was the 1898 McLean Motor-car act. 

The act of 1898 which was passed in government legalised the operation of motor vehicles and set out the rules under which McLean’s two Benz cars imported from Pairs could operate. Among the rules and regulations that William McLean (and other motorists in years to come) had to follow was that they must be lit after dark and did not go faster than 12 miles ( 20 kilometers) per hour.’ Just think, if we could have somehow brought William McLean forward in time with one of his Parisian Benz cars to the year 2020, even he would have had to slow down on George Street in Dunedin to make the recently enforced 10 kilometers an hour speed limit. Although he would have found the assortment of blue and red dots covering the street quite bewildering. 

And so it was that in 1898, thanks to William McLean, New Zealand’s love affair with cars was born.

This is part three of three. The full text which I’m calling ‘The Long and Winding Road – Prologue’ is too long to publish in a single post, so it has been broken into three parts.  Last week I published part two: This Calls For A Spotify Playlist. Today is part three: A Tourist in NZ.

III

A few days later I found myself discussing all things Covid 19. The conversation traversed the topics of hand sanitation, hygiene standards, social distancing, contact tracing and how wonderful life in Aotearoa was under Alert 2. The hysteria of being able to line up for hours in our vehicle to get McDonalds and KFC had died down and it was generally accepted that while we were all sick of our own cooking, Alert Level 2 was far better than Level’s 3 and 4. After all, we now had takeaway shops back, we could stock-up on alcohol, extend our bubbles, use QR codes and send kids back to school. With the number of new Covid 19 cases dropping by the day and local travel opening up, it seemed New Zealand was the place to be. I must admit, I was more than ready to spend a few hours wandering along a beach, swimming in the ocean or roaming through the wilderness. There were towns, forests, mountains, lakes and beaches to see and I was just a little bit excited. 

Later that same day, sometime after 6pm in the evening, I found myself listing potential ideas for upcoming blog posts while the evening news droned on in the background. I try if at all possible to avoid the 6pm news on TV. I find it repetitive, onerous and completely exhausting to sit through. Despite my misgivings about the nightly bulletin, I watched as they cut to New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. In an effort to stimulate the local economy she was telling everyone to take a local holiday. She had received a letter from a lady called Judith who was looking forward to getting a haircut and seeing Aotearoa once out of lockdown.

“my message to everyone is to go and get that haircut and see your own backyard” she said. 

I assumed she meant this figuratively and not literally. Following the Covid 19 lockdown I’d seen quite enough of my own backyard over the last few months and I didn’t have any desire to stay put if I could help it. The possibilities started to spark in my mind. I could improve my knowledge of my own country’s identity by taking a look at it through fresh eyes. My mind whirled, I could write and photoblog about my own backyard. After all, the Prime Minister was telling me to do so and it didn’t seem right to argue with her. I would call it, Jacinda’s Law.  

For the briefest of periods I carefully considered what this would mean. Clearly I couldn’t just take off on an endless grand adventure, that would be ludicrous and totally impracticable. For one thing my job prevented this. But, I could use Jacinda’s Law as a sort of guide when time allowed. Where possible I would headout into my own backyard and take stock of this great country called Aotearoa, reconnecting with its identity. Are we still a nation obsessed with Fresh Up, Fush & Chups, Buzzy Bees, The Pavlova, Paua Shells, The Edmonds Cookbook, L & P, The All Blacks, Gumboots, Jandels, Hokey Pokey Ice Cream with a No 8 Wire mentality? Are these items redolent of New Zealand life or just of an urban myth sold off to tourists who drive on the wrong side of the road and decorate bushes with loo paper.

There were of course some obvious obstacles that would make this more challenging than it first appeared. In the South Island for example, The Southern Alps would clearly limit my travel options. It isn’t possible to continuously zigzag across the country at will as it is in Britain. There are only four points where you can cross the Alps via road and often they are closed in winter. To drive from Dunedin on the East Coast to Hokitkia on the West Coast is a distance of 548 kilometers with a driving time of nearly 7 hours. An alternative option is to travel through Haast. This is somewhat closer at a distance of only 400 kilometres and 5 hours driving time. Another potential obstacle is the small matter of Aotearoa being split into three main islands. The North and South Islands and Stewart Island. These geographical challenges meant I would have to keep my travels local, stopping at all the small incidental places around Dunedin that I usually drive past without giving a second thought too. Then, I would venture further afield out into the vast beyond of Aeoteroa during school holidays, long weekends and when time permitted and regularly blog about my travels.

The Prime Minister had clearly given me a sign and who am I to argue with someone who has successfully led a country through a mass shooting, a volcanic eruption and a global pandemic all in 12 months. 

I particularly liked the idea of rediscovering all the nooks and crannies of Dunedin and Otago that I had forgotten about. I also liked the thought of being able to answer people when they asked me why I was doing this. I would look them in the eye and then adjust my gaze over their shoulder to the horizon, tilt my head back slightly and say with a look of thoughtful confusion and a touch of daring, ‘because Jacinda told me too’.

There was also a long weekend coming up, Queens Birthday, and a chance to rebook a scheduled autumn trip to Arrowtown. The timing seemed almost perfect.

But before that late autumn adventure, I had an ipod to re-find, a Spotify playlist to adjust, hundreds of kilometres ahead of me in my weekly commute and a chance visit to the small nook of Evansdale Glen.

Baldwin Street, North Dunedin, Dunedin.

This is part two of three. The full text which I’m calling ‘The Long and Winding Road’ is too long to publish in a single post, so it has been broken into three parts.  Last week I published part one: Daisies, Watermelon and The Rolling Stones. Today is  part two; This Calls For A Spotify Playlist. Next week part three: A Tourist in NZ.

II

The Long and Winding Road: This Calls For A Spotify Playlist. There really are only two ways I listen to music these days. On my ipod and via Spotify on my phone or computer. I don’t count listening to music on the radio as this is something I’m forced into now that Radiosport is no longer on the air.

On the morning drive to work, Radiosport was my go to channel. Now I’m forced to choose between bird calls on the National Programme, Mike Hosking complaining about the Prime Minister and the Labour Party on Newstalk ZB or music that I don’t enjoy or understand. While I’m sure I could easily find a radio station that I like, what it boils down to is that on my travels, I miss my radio station, Radiosport.

Radiosport was the most glorious of stations. Sports coverage 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year. It was my default station no matter where I was. Be it at home or in the car, radiosport would play until I decided which podcast or playlist I’d entertain myself with. Unfortunately, it seems that men aged between 30 to 60 talking about rugby all day didn’t pay the bills and after 25 years of broadcasting it was taken off the air. I must admit, I am still working through the seven stages of grief with this loss of my longtime companion and the drives to and from work and the travels around Aotearoa just aren’t the same. I didn’t think I’d miss the continual analysis of ‘the problem with the Blues’, how ‘the Warriors are still a mathematical chance to make the playoffs’ or how the All Blacks are the best team in the world despite losses to Australia, South Africa, Ireland and god forbid – England, as much as I do.

A great source of comfort in working through the stages of grief (currently I’m sitting between stages five and six, anger and depression) has been my iPod and Spotify. As simple as my iPod is, Spotify seems wonderfully technical. I can load it on my computer and phone through a simple app and then stream it via bluetooth to all sorts of places. In one touch I can leap between music genres that have no business following each other and happily create playlists that make sense to me and me alone. My current rotation ranges from Blind Willie McTell, Buddy Holly, Lead Belly and BB King to The Doors, Bob Dylan, Nirvana and The Offspring.

A short time back I once invested time exploring all the playlist selections that were available to me. Curiosity got the better of me and I just had to find out what was included in a ‘Mood’ playlist. This is a decision that I instantly regretted. Not learning from my mistake, I then ventured into playlists called Even Flow, We Be Vibin, Confidence Boost and Front Left. After a few minutes of scrolling and scanning through titles and artists I didn’t know, including a playlist called ‘You Do You’ I decided that this wouldn’t enhance my mood when navigating icy New Zealand roads at 7am on a chilly winter morning. In fact, they’d probably have the opposite effect. Returning to the search bar and having plenty of time due to being in a Covid 19 alert level 4 lockdown, I decided to alter my search to a more local flavour. I wanted to know what was popular in New Zealand on Spotify in 2019 and what local, Kiwi artists I could find for a New Zealand music month playlist.

With the goal of creating a playlist for future roadtrips, I went in search of New Zealand music and trends. Looking at the statistics from 2019, I was pleasantly surprised when I realised that these were local artists that I had actually heard of. Out of the top four, I recognised two of them. That’s 50%, a pass mark in the old fifth form New Zealand school certificate test. A whole 19% more than I achieved in Science back in 1992.

My hopes of being a New Zealand music guru were raised even further when I discovered that at first glance, out of New Zealand’s most streamed local tracks in 2019, I recognised five out of the six bands. That’s an incredible 83%. As quickly as my hopes were raised, they were just as soon dashed when I concluded that having heard the name of the band, doesn’t mean you know anything about them. Or, being able to name the address of a student flat in Castle Street, Dunedin doesn’t automatically mean you know the band’ songs. I read the list which contained titles called Vibes, The Greatest, Don’t Forget Your Roots and Don’t Give It Up. I quickly realised that I knew none of these.

My fall from grace of being a New Zealand music guru was only added too when I discovered that New Zealand’s most streamed international artists consisted of Khalid, Post Malone, Billie Eilish, Ed Sheeran and Ariana Grande. I desperately searched my mind for some type of knowledge of these rock megastars but all I could recall was that Ed Sheeran played three concerts in Dunedin last year, and there’s a painting of him on a wall in the central city.

My initial excitement of having a great, in depth knowledge of the New Zealand music scene had quickly plummeted and showed no sign of abating with the more I found out. I now had to face the sobering reality I knew more about Science in the fifth form, than I did about New Zealand music in my 40’s. A fact I’m ashamed to admit it is probably true. My brief flirtation with modern Kiwi music had resulted in abject failure. I began to wonder what else I didn’t understand or know about this great country called Aotearoa.

I made a mental note that I needed to improve my knowledge of my own country’s identity. At the time I didn’t think much of it, but it would soon come to be a very prophetic thought.

Next week, Part 3: A Tourist In NZ.

Otago Harbour from Mount Cargill