The Phoenix Store in Pukerau

I drove past broad hectares of lush farmland, surrounded by low, rolling hills. Occasionally I’d pass an old farm shed or long treelines that stretched up into the hills. The traffic was light and the fields were empty as I headed south towards the town of Gore. At one point, I rounded a bend and to my surprise discovered a tractor taking up all of his lane and half of mine, coming  directly at me. He appeared to be leading a strange convoy of vehicles that included a truck, a police car and other assortments of private vehicles. Since, the oncoming procession was clearly focused on taking up as much road as possible, I pulled over to let them pass. I was in the small town of Pukerau.

One of Pukerau’s claims to fame is that of mistaken identity. Originally referred to as ‘The Swamp’, by the 1860’s people were referring to it as Taylor’s Creek. The only problem being there were already numerous ‘Taylor’s Creeks’ in the wider region, thus causing great confusion. On more than one occasion, disgruntled travellers were left confused as they ended up in the wrong location while still being at ‘Taylors Creek.’. To solve this problem, settlers adopted the Māori name for the district, Pukerau –The Land of Many Hills. The place really sprang to life as a settlement once European settlers started searching for decent farmland and the railway line arrived in 1876. Today, it’s a quiet rural community that can take an astonishingly long time to drive through, if you get your timing wrong.