To Whataroa (pronounced ‘what a rower’) and the Church in South Westland

One of the many hills and bends on the West Coast

















The Church in Whataroa

To Whataroa (pronounced ‘what a rower’) and the Church in South Westland

Went to celebrate Mass in Methven and it rained and it rained. They have not had much rain here so they were very glad of it. The old adage is that if its raining on the Canterbury plains it will be sunshine on the West coast but not today it rains everywhere so I don’t have much of a view going through Arthur’s pass which you have to go through from the East coast to the West. At the other end of Arthur’s pass is a town called Greymouth. Though this town is named after a famous general it is aptly named because they get so much rain there, that it is nearly always grey in colour. Skipped through there as fast as I could and landed in Hokitika nice little town but wet so sped through there after receiving a cup of coffee in the local presbytery.

The West coast is so different from the flat Canterbury East coast. Here it is all hills and mountains and the scenery is very spectacular in parts. However, the mind soon gets a little bit bored with yet another luxuriant tree filled winding road up a hill and then down to yet another lake. Arnett said when they used to take the girls camping over here the girls would say, ‘not another lake.’ It is very luxuriant on this side of the South Island because of the amount of rain that falls here. Manchester is suffering from a drought compared to the amount of rain that falls here. The whole journey from Ashburton to Whataroa takes me over five hours of going up and down up and round and round. If you suffer from car sickness don’t go down this road!

Arrived at Whataroa still pouring with rain, I had to be careful not to miss the ‘town’ as it was only about 500 meters long and that is generous. The Church was a lovely old classic traditional wooden New Zealand Church as was the house. Though I rang the bell it wasn’t working so I just walked in. (They don’t have to lock the doors here and there is no neighbourhood watch) Fr Kevin Wei greeted me and said that the door bell had never worked and that they could never find what the fault was and anyway nobody ever rang it as they just walked in anyway. The house was typical New Zealand it wasn’t built for their climate. No double glazing cold and damp outside of the living room kitchen again nearly everything was a throwback to the fifties and sixties. The only concession to the modern world was a huge satellite dish and an ancient computer. Without the satellite dish you can only get one or two stations and if the weather is rough none at all. Yet for all that it was quaint and enjoyable and very, very quiet.

After a while the rain stopped so Fr Kevin took me to look around the town. It consisted of one shop that sold everything bar the kitchen sink. A garage, a small community centre, a small school, a pub and hotel, a farm implement shop, local Mari shop, a tourist information and booking kiosk, a motel and backpacker place, a fire and police station with one policeman and a car, and most curiosly a courthouse. Oh yes there were about 30-40 houses, four places of worship and a cemetery, Catholics on one side and all the others on the other side. (They were a bit shocked when I told them we all get mixed up together in England. You almost got the feeling that they would say, ‘We wouldn’t want that here’)

Whataroa would be typical of nearly all the little towns in South Westlands, except for the three main tourist centers France Josef, Foxes Glacier and the Haast, here there would be more hotels, eating places and tourists shops. So as you can tell the town was not what you would call big, and everyone knew everyone. People very rarely lock their doors, however, there would be no use in the parish centre as it was hanging off anyway. Though Fr Kevin did tell me that one day somebody did steal the church’s chalice but it eventually turned up in a Anglican church in the next ‘town’ a bit battered.