Here In High Noon

There’s a bullet hole in the upper window of Dr. Jim Corbett’s practice. Intriguing. Why would anyone choose a GPs surgery for target practice? A disgruntled patient, perhaps? It brings images of the Wild West to mind. A whiff of the classic Hollywood Western is already apparent in the main street, with its timber-fronted shops nonchalantly shedding umpteen layers of paint and turning up corners of tin roofs like faded saloon lovelies lifting their skirts to reveal tattered undergarments.

Almost midday, midweek, mid March. The air is dusty from jackhammers pounding the crumbling cobbles. Terracotta pavers are stacked outside the renovated Drover’s Road Country Clothing .The shop has only one outfit in the window, and it seems somewhat pricey for local trade. There are no other outward signs of gentrification in the town’s main thoroughfare. No hanging baskets, souvenir shops, Philippe Starck seats, dayglo rubbish bins or sassy street lights.

Raetihi’s charm lies not in what it offers the visitor but what it doesn’t, and it is this lack of concession to modernity that lends the township its unique character.

Bullock teams used to haul logs along this stretch to the horse-powered sawmills. When Raetihi was a quagmire, the wagons, mail-coaches and spring drays frequently got bogged in. Today, Seddon Street is tarsealed but its careworn face sighs with exasperation as it exhales its history once more.

The first settlers carved the township out of dense bush in 1893 after the government released the Waimarino quarter-acre sections - at £5 to £25 each. The only access to Raetihi then was by steamer up the Wanganui river to Pipiriki, with the final seventeen miles of bush on horseback.

Raetihi lies about 22 km south-west of Mount Ruapehu. The name is Maori and means ‘seen from the top’ - that is from Ohakune. Until now Ohakune and Taumarunui have received the bulk of funding allotted for redevelopment by the Ruapehu District Council; Ohakune because of its closeness to the dollar-bearing skifields, and Taumarunui? Well, Taumarunui was desperate. Now Raetihi is to receive a major revamp.

The chosen ones have progressed but paid the price; brash takeaways, liquor stores and shrieking signs line their streets, and the inevitable ‘golden arches’ flourish. Unlike Raetihi, where columned verandahs offer a smattering of twirly fretwork, and shop parades remain unencumbered by modern architectural monstrosities to spoil the harmonious whole.

Two small dark-haired, shoeless girls are holding hands and licking soft-ices outside the Four Square shop which has no boarded up windows; too many other stores testify to hard times.

At the turn of the century Raetihi was the King Country’s largest centre. It once boasted a hospital, two banks, a butter factory (later the Raetihi Co-op Dairy Company), post-office and numerous general stores. Thirty sawmills operated within a ten-mile radius of the town.

In its 110 years it has suffered more than most. On the evening of 18 March 1918, residents noticed an orange glow in the Ruatiti direction. The fire swept briskly on to Raetihi. It happened during the worst drought the district had ever known; creeks were dry, the fire-engine helpless. With communications down, the full extent of the damage was only known the following morning: some 200 homes, churches, the dairy company, sawmills, stores, and all the bridges were gone. But the town was rebuilt and a new start was made. These people are stoics.

Seddon Street’s only eating place, imaginatively named ‘Coach Caffé', is the pull-in for coaches. It makes a pleasant place from which to watch the Raetihi world go by.

When the streamlined Intercity coach draws up, three passengers alight; one enters the café and asks me where George Street is; she wants to visit Aunty. I venture that the 15-minute stop won’t leave much time for Aunty. “No, you’re right; I’ll just pop into the Ladies then (in the café). Would you mind my coffee, please?” The styrofoam beaker she places on the next table doesn’t require much minding and when I remember to check, it has disappeared. I see the woman rejoining her coach with it clasped in her left hand.

On the café wall is a sepia print of Pike’s Boarding House, circa 1900, and a Visitors Book stands on a side table. It is filled with appreciative comments from abroad: “Thank you for your amazing hospitality - J.K. Denmark”. And, “What a Find! - A.F. Princeton, New Jersey.” The manageress says, in all seriousness, “We monitor the world in Raetihi”.

The Information Centre across the road has no postcards of the town, but offers a street map which indicates the town’s Assembly Point - Raetihi Primary School. And there is George Street, right by the school, the shortest distance from the café, but, alas, too late now to tell the passenger she could have shouted her greetings to Aunty.

Further along at No. 11, Mother Hubbard’s Cupboard is selling an eclectic array of relics, including a pair of iron bedsteads rescued from the old hospital. Also for sale are video-recordings of Raetihi’s 2002 McCarthy 100 Miler - an annual relay run around the Volcanic Plateau. Father Hubbard, aka Patrick, says it brings Raetihi international acclaim; the production company donated the video to the theatre refurbishment; it’s the southern hemisphere’s oldest, he adds.

The Theatre Royal is housed in a weatherboard building still clinging to a hint of former grandeur but obviously in need of all the funds it can get. Formerly the town’s picture-palace, it once enjoyed tiered seating, a balcony and wrought-iron balustrades.

A hoarding outside appeals for $225,000. For that figure the patrons could be forgiven for demanding Royal Command Performances twice daily, but a window card calls for local actors, stage crew, set designers, lighting and sound technicians for a performance to be held on 27 March - only three weeks away. Maybe it refers to last year, or the year before.

The targeted funding might eventuate though. Raetihi has other benefactors. Recently, an Aucklander, saddened by the main street’s parlous state, purchased all the empty shops and will lease them out for a peppercorn rent to boost local enterprise. The story, fervently recounted by two store-owners, is apocryphal, but optimism abounds.

At present the town is holding its breath for Lights! Camera! Action! The realtime clocks here are ticking steadily toward High Noon and Raetihi’s future will win the day. But it is the past that will lie embedded in the hearts of all who see beyond the facades into the soul of a pioneer settlement.

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