Rongo Backpackers & Gallery: (www.rongobackpackers.com)
Every 4th Night Free!
Every 4th Night Free!
MTB the Heaphy Track from May 1 to September 30
The Heaphy Track, one of New Zealand’s “Great Walks” is now open to mountain bikers from May 1 to September 30 for a three-year trial period staring in 2011 and is set to also become a Great Ride for people of all ages.
The Heaphy Track offers the only multi-day cycle course through a National Park in New Zealand. The track is 82 kilometres long and traverses the Kahurangi National Park from Collingwood in the north of the South Island to Karamea on the West Coast.
The track is well-formed all-weather track and has seven well-appointed Department of Conservation huts along the way. The huts are warm, dry and comfortable with bunk beds, wood-fired heaters, rainwater tanks, toilets and five have gas-cooking facilities. All rivers and major streams along the track have suspension bridges, but there may be some small creeks and watercourses that will require fording, please take care when crossing the bridges and water crossings. It is necessary to book huts, to do so, please visit the DOC Heaphy Track Web site (www.doc.govt.nz) or regional i-Sites or visitor centres.
Along the way, riders and trampers pass through a diverse range of spectacular scenery through lush beech forest, up to 950 metres through the expansive tussock plains of the Gouland Downs and down again to the stunning nikau palm groves where the West Coast meets the roaring Tasman Sea.
Riders should be well prepared for inclement weather conditions as the region is known for sudden storms, associated floods, occasional snow falls and strong winds, as well as for sunshine, clear blue skies and warm, calm days. Please carry wet weather gear and warm clothing as well as sun protection, first-aid kits, plenty of water, food supplies as well as spare parts, puncture repair kits etc. Be prepared for all eventualities as it is a long way from the middle of the track if help is required and it is important that riders take responsibility for their own safety and wellbeing.
Most trampers travel from the Collingwood end and finish the track in Karamea and riders will likely do the same, but there is no rule as to which way the track is travelled. Several transport services can deliver riders to the beginning of the track from Collingwood and then from the Kohaihai Shelter at the end of the track to Karamea where a hot shower, cold beer, great food and a comfortable bed await riders and trampers alike after conquering the Heaphy. (Please see transport section of the Web site)
***The Heaphy Track will be a dual-use facility open to both mountain bikers and trampers during the winter months, so please respect the rights of each group to utilise the track and enjoy the facilities, experience and adventure. Please refer to the Mountain Bikers Code below***
Mountan Bikers near MacKay Hut on the Heaphy Track (Photo by Paul Murray)
Mountain Biker Crossing a Swing Bridge (Photo by Paul Murray)
Kiwi Anna
Every so often an angel visits Rongo and envelops the gathered mulititude with peace and love. St. Anna originally from Nikolaev a ship building town on UjniBug river in the Ukraine arrived at Rongo after conquering the Heaphy Track.
Best memory of Ukraine – boiled soggy cabbage for breakfast, also Katamaran rafting with her parents!
Bat Yam is a town in Israel where Anna now lives after moving from the Ukraine. Bat Yam was originally established as Bayit Vagan after a mass migration of Jews to Israel.
Two years in the Israeli Army as a medic in the artillery fulfilled Anna’s compulsory military service.
Her fantasy ambition “Is to open sheep farm in New Zealand with colourful sheepski!”
The Nobel prize for biotechnology and genetic engineering will be Anna’s before she is 30. She intends to study like a robbers dog arf arf and with her passion and fruit diet that will be a certainty!
“Jerusalem is the most amazing place in Israel because of the magic feeling of 2000 years history of its streets.”
Favourite Group: “Mechashefot” an Israeli three piece pop band.
My hero – my father Igor an electrical engineer who is a walking encyclopedia.
On Sunday night we had the privilege of listening to Anna recite in Russian Pushkin and Doestevesky and poems written by her good friend Yevgeny Mishutin … a great poet and an amazing person. The Radio Karamea jingles produced by Jan and Dorothea now include a Hebrew and Russian version.
This Month in Rongolia
***Rongo has the most amazing guests come to stay and apart from DJ Pukeko raiding the guest fridge at night with Mimi and eating the guests chocolate Rongo is virtually without incident***
Jan and Dorothea and Pastor Leummund
Jan and Dorothea with their two beautiful kinder Lievre and Henrietta arrived at Rongo and really made everyone smile!
Jan was born in Lubeck which is on the Baltic Sea in the North of Germany and has spent 25 years in Berlin.
I started drawing pictures first doing portraits then started to study art in university in Berlin. In this time the wall fell and I got involved in the squatting scene in the empty east part of Berlin. I became a member of an art squat project, we bought an old house in Frenzlauer Berg and renovated it for 7 years as a collective of of 30 people, I began to write poems , inspired by Dada and Kurt Schwitters. Dadaism is a cultural movement that began in Zurich, Switzerland during World War I and peaked from 1916 to 1922. The movement primarily involved visual art, literature, poetry, art, mail art theory and graphic design and concentrated its anti-war politics through a rejection of the prevailing standards in art theory, art and anti art cultural works. Its purpose was to ridicule what its participants considered to be the of the modern world.
In another squat I started to celebrate dadaistic masses with my lyrics each Wednesday at midnight for 2 years as Pastor Leumund with a fast growing community. I was also involved in many musical projects with my writing, touring around with bands. When it was made illegal to squat in Berlin I moved to Zurich for 4 years and squatted the Cabaret Voltaire the birthplace of Dada in 1917 founding a dadaistic art collective. Back in Berlin I met Dorothea and now have 2 kids with Lewe (2) and Henrietta (1).
I try to earn money with offering songwriting, recording, workshops for kids and selling radioplayers to radio stations.
My passion is to bring people or activities together , which are considered to not fit together, like for example art and politics, party and protest, birds and bicycles…etc.
Therefore I admire people like Joseph Boys, the early Christoph Schlinggensief or Lewis. I like twists and turns, I like your humour arf arf, I wish I had your energy. Being a missionary man without missionairing seems like a very clever idea to me.
Jan Theiler www.bergpartei.de
Princess Dorothea
Dorothea Stilified an artist born in 1975 in Munich Germany . I grew up in Odenberg near north Sea of Germany. When I was thirteen I started to do sculptures and painting. When I finished school I started travelling. I went to San Francisco California USA where I ended up at the Burning Man Festival. I got involved with many artists and started photography. I had artists and started photography. I had my own darkroom to do black and white photography. I went to Mexico then to ludia? Then back to Mexico for two years studying Spanish doing sculptures.
2003 I went to Chile for an art project ended up working on a street performance with street children.
Went to Patagonia to do a great track. Always trying to get in touch with indigenous people. I met one of the last two Yamana women in the south of Patagonia. Her existence and point of view on the world changed my life!
Unsung Heroes
Karamea on a global scale is demographically challenged, but as far as giants are concerned produces more than its fair share.
Anne Smith one of the driving forces behind the market at Market Cross every Saturday morning is soon to depart from from Karamea’s tropical climes. Everyone’s friend Anne has ensured that locals and visitors to Karamea have a focal point to enjoy a leisurely Saturday morning browsing through food, produce and bric a brac stalls.
Rose and Gary Smith of the Karamea Sound Machine have provided the music and stage for the Winter Solstice and also the screen for drive in movies at Little Wanganui and Oparara Reserve. Drive in movies venues have had a professional air with giant screen and really amazing sound quality.
Another tireless worker in Karamea is Jack Wilkes who looks after the swimming pool summer every day during the season.
Karamea should be extremely grateful for these people who work behind the scenes and make things happen and ensure Karamea enjoys big city entertainment and facilities.
Off the Top of My Head:
UP THERE CAZALY!
Australian Rules Football
(By Paul Murray)
In an effort to internationalise Australia Rules Football, a delegation of the best players from the Australia Football League, including my mate Todd Viney, then captain of the Melbourne Football Club, flew across the world in 1998 to take on the Irish national football team in Dublin. The match rules were a compromise between Gaelic Football and Aussie Rules, and the game was a very physical clash of cultures, codes, egos and patriotism.
The Irish players were unfamiliar with the physical attacking game of the Aussies as Gaelic Football is very much non-contact and has similar physical engagement rules to soccer, so when the Aussies began to tackle hard, Irish tempers flared and the game was marred by several on-field punch-ups involving most players from both teams. The Irish media dubbed the Aussies “a bunch of thugs.”
Post match, a TV crew interviewed a London punk complete with Union Jack vest and Dr, Marten’s boots…when asked what he thought of the game, he said with a pronounced Cockney accent, “Not bad, not bad…I like a bit o’ violence.”
Spud Rocker “Likes a bit o’ Violence.”
“… the game was so terrific that ere half the time was gone,
A spectator’s leg was broken – just from merely looking on.”
Banjo Patterson from “Geebung Polo Club.”
Australian Football is a very physical game in which tackling above the knee and below the shoulder is encouraged, the ball is kicked forward and passed by holding it in the palm of one hand and punching it with the other––a hand pass. Throwing the ball is not permitted. Each side has 18 on-field players and about 4 reserves who come off the interchange bench to rest on-ball players or to replace injured team mates. The match consists of four 30-minute quarters with short breaks at quarter and three-quarter time and a longer break at half-time.
Aussie rules is widely played in the southern Australian state capitals of Perth, Adelaide and Melbourne, with teams from Sydney, Brisbane joining in the 1980s and most recently a team from the Gold Coast will line up for the 2011 season.
I grew up on Kangaroo Island, south of Adelaide, and played Aussie Rules Football as a junior with Parndana Roosters in the 1970s and my footy career continued until I was in my early 30s where I and hung up my boots after playing my last game for the Goannas in Tokyo in 1997. I played for Prince Alfred College, Parilla, Roseworthy College, Old Geelong in Melbourne and the Goannas, a team of expatriates in Japan.
There are Aussie Rules teams in most countries and I once happened across a training session in Copenhagen where I offered my assistance to the coach and took the Danes for a session of skills training to sharpen up their ball handling…the physical stuff lasted about an hour and discussions of football at club’s local pub went considerably longer and much. Later, at a hole-in-the-wall for salty old Danish sea dogs, a tide of Carlsberg was consumed as we debated the finer points of what we all agreed should be a much more international game.
International Sport: Footy meets Bull Fighting
Granity Insanity!! (Fear and Loathing South of the Bluff)
O Lord Kumbaya!
The Karamea Kretins are getting a flogging at chess from the Granity Mob Lord! Kumbaya!
O Lord Kumbaya!
Dave Dirty Dog Roberts (Dave “Dirty Dog” Roberts) is getting carved up like a Sunday roast by sly old fox Petra Vitikovski, Lord! Kumbaya!
O Lord Kumbaya!
Dave “Dirty Dog” Roberts is not only getting a chess lesson from Petra, he is eating the last of the chocolate muffins Lord! Kumbaya!
O Lord Kumbaya!!
Dave “Dirty Dog” Roberts is just about to get checkmated by Petra very shortly, wipe the muffin crumbs off his snout and then finish off his play lunch, when he forks Peter’s king and rook with an absolute brilliancy that would make Deep Blue blush red, and then take Petra’s wayward Knight and sensationally snatch the laurels of victory and restore some vestige of respect to all of Karamea and its hard working citizens who were relying on Dave “Dirty Dog” Roberts to take to the Granity Mob with the Pork Sword, Lord! Kumbaya!
***Please e-mail for a return e-mail brochure and we will book you in for the Easter Break of your life!!!
Spot the Local! (Close Knit Granity Neighbourhood!!! Yeah Right Tui!!!)
Act 1: Scene 1.
Actors : Petra Vitikofsky : Proprietor of Granity Rocks, Kevski, Phil, Steve, local Granity identity Cowboy Daveski, Dirty Dog Roberts, DJ Pukeko, Ben Lodge, Poo Bum the white horse, Ed, his missus, Jan, Dorothea, Lieber and Henrietta!…..Enter Stockton Mine Hard man and Tangata Whenua Ed!DJ Pukeko: G’day Mate!Ed : Mate!DJ Pukeko : Know any results from the rugby mate!!
Ed : Yeah mate!! The Highlanders beat the Chiefs mate!
DJ Pukeko : Bonza, Bewdy, Brillo, Mate !! You a southern man Ed?
Ed: Yeah mate! From Whammaaru mate!!
Poo Bum : Neigh!!!!!!! Mate!!!
Kevski : Da comrade! Did you here drive in car?
Ed : No I’m from here! Mate!
Petra : You local in Granity Comrade?
Poo Bum : Neigh!!!!!!!
Ed : Yeah mate!! Been living here in Granity 3 years mate!, Work at the Stockton Mine mate!!
Petra : Never you see at Pub comrade!
Cowboy Daveski : Ya Granity Dedushka e nyet tebya!!
Kevski : Nyet comrade!!
Philski : Where woman you living and which house you eating ??
Ed : In that street just down over there in the third house down about 250 yards away…mate!
Dave “Dirty Dog” Roberts : I am rather pleased to make your acquaintance sir!
Stardust!!
A very attractive and vibrant young Lass from Die Heimat entertained a huge audience in the gardens of the Saracens Bush Lounge.
Svenja has an enchanting voice that maybe one day will be heard in a shower near you!
Jan on drums, Clare on the flute, Gato on the Brazilian wonga gonga and Svenja on guitar formed a lively ensemble.
Svenja spread some of her magical stardust on Rongo and Saracens and it was a sad day to see her leave to head south.
Bilbo Baggens Bazooka
Bilbo or Baggens to his mates is the sort of charcter straight out of a kids pirate adventure. Thursday night saw on Radio Karamea “The Bilbo Baggens Bazooka” with his own brand of humour, choice of music.
Baggens had a great time fishing while he was in Karamea and caught plenty of Kahawai and eels which he generously cooked up for all the guests and Wwoofers.
Wwoofers
To do justice to the mighty contribution of Rongo wwoofers and indeed guests of Rongo would be impossible.
Rongo Life time Rainbows of Peace to Johann, Marine, Sam, Myrthe, Jan, Dorothea, Orla, Rex, Osnat, Anie, Gina, Rico, Frederic, Mimi, Martina, Chris, Stu, Big Man, Little Naughty, Lewis, Alicia, Minna, Miles, Mitsuyo, Yannick, Baggins, Claire, Shota, Magdalena….and many, many more………………..Yeah ok Supermoo you can have one too just don’t eat it all at once and every person who has contributed to a spectacularly successful January/ February for Rongo!!ShotaSo you think you are an art expert because you once read an art book about Googain, Maradonna, or Moo’s favourite artist Ruff Ruff Ruffael! Well you haven’t met SHOTA!!!
http://www.shotakawahara.com
Sunday night with DJ Mikrut, DJ Pukeko, Rongo wwoofers, guests and invited celebrities.Macbeth, Young Lochinvar, La Marseilaise, Yogi Kamai, Doestevetsky, Pushkin, The Famous Five, Winnie The Pooh and original poetry and music!!
Radio Karamea 107.5 FM 8 pm Sunday The Voice of Paradise.
***Rongolian Star: Unbridled Journalism Brought to you by the Professionals: DJ Crap and DJ Pukeko***
