As we’ve documented previously, New Zealand is composed of a few large cities, lots of farmland, and many small towns. We’ve spent a good deal of time driving through these small towns. Normally you see some measure of All Blacks support or a proudly displayed silver fern flag in the town. However some strive for notoriety and a larger sense of their place in the world by dubbing themselves a ‘Capital’. Some have a rightful claim to this distinction, while others seem to be grasping to find an identity.
Some examples from our travels:
Some examples from our travels:
Te Kuiti – Sheep Shearing Capital of the World. Any bold proclamation of a world capital has to be supported by some evidence. This town appears to have a pretty good claim to their title for the following reasons (1) there is a massive statue of a man shearing a sheep on their main street, (2) I attended the New Zealand Sheep Shearing Championships there and watched Te Kuiti locals shear with heart and precision, and (3) a google search of sheep sheering capitals yields 106,000 results, the first five pages at least supporting Te Kuiti as ‘Shearing Capital’.
Manaia – The Bread Capital. The biggest employer in Manaia is a bakery (Yarrows) so the locals have claimed their town as the Bread Capital. Let it be known that this town has only 924 residents, and the bakery employs 250 of them. Being the bread capital doesn’t come without drama. The Yarrows bakery is currently in financial difficulties and was put in receivership in 2011 as they couldn’t keep up with their debts. Let’s hope the bakery that has been operating since 1924 can stay afloat and keep this bread capital going.
Havelock – Greenshell Mussel Capital of the World. Havelock is in the Marlborough Sounds area, where most of the mussel harvesting is located within New Zealand. Pretty small town with only 500 residents. During a visit we got a glimpse of a mussel farm and it was pretty impressive in size. Black mussels, the ones we eat in the US, are shunned in New Zealand as the green-lipped mussels are larger in size and reportedly "taste better". The black ones are even thrown out during the collection process! Given that they have a mussel festival, and I had never heard of a green-lipped mussel before coming to New Zealand, I think we can give Havelock the benefit of the doubt on this one.
Carterton – Daffodil Capital. We didn’t see any daffodils while driving through town, so we became very sceptical of this bold claim to being a daffodil capital. A little searching reveals that there is a daffodil day for the town (Sept 9th, 2012 for any of you eager to take this in) where people pick daffodils from a field and visit a craft show. I was surprised to find out they charged a fee for picking daffodils as well. While this sounds like great fun….they might be stretching this one a little bit.
Te Puke – Kiwifruit Capital of the World. Undoubtedly my favorite on this list (sorry Te Kuiti) given my obsession with kiwifruit. Due to the volcanic soil and a warm, wet climate, NZ is the ideal place to farm kiwifruit. In the 1930s a local Te Puke farmer started growing Chinese gooseberry plants, and apparently it was successful. American servicemen in World War II acquired a taste for the gooseberry while stationed in New Zealand and that apparently led to these fruits being exported. In 1959 they were ‘rebranded’ the Kiwifruit (it does sound much better than the Chinese gooseberry). Now there’s your history lesson for the day. They haven't mistaken the color in the photo below- "gold" kiwifruit are thought to be less tart and more tropical in flavor, selling for much higher prices and are also harder to come by than their green siblings...
The blog has been a little quiet for the past couple of weeks. I apologize for that, we just haven’t done any traveling to report on.
