TARANAKI GOES FOR IT AND SO COULD WE.

Any of you who have recently visited Taranaki, or the “Naki” as locals love to call it couldn’t help but have noticed the positive vibes running through the place. There is a sense of pride and enthusiasm which pervades the province radiating from New Plymouth where the council have put in a wonderful coastal walkway linking suburbs formerly separated and suddenly offering an attractive way to get both exercise and access to the centre of town.

On the back of this a new Arts Centre, “Puhe Ariki” has been built, (not beside a plumbing supplier like in Kerikeri), but facing the foreshore with lovely outdoor café space. New Plymouth also features large mobile sculptures in celebration of Len Lye, a locally born sculptor.

Their Council have supported the Surf Coast Highway 45 tourism project featuring the local beaches around the coast and have closely linked with the South Taranaki Council at Opunake to maximise the enjoyment of tourists and the amount of money that they contribute to the local economy.

Young locals are seen wearing “Taranaki Hard Core” branded Tee shirts and a lively arts culture is evident even to sports minded folk like me.

On the face of it Taranaki would seem to have less to celebrate than we do up here. Their weather is often dreary, the beaches are stoney, hard to get to and the black sand could be seen as a negative but even that has been used as a local clothing brand, “Black Sand”. Their economy is based on dairy industry, which is battling but they do have an energy sector that receives support from the local regional council who see that undue opposition to mineral extraction would cost many local jobs.

I returned thinking, “Why can’t we have the same effusive positive feeling throughout the Far North?” We have better weather, better beaches, forestry, farming, tourism, hordes of visitors and folk from all over the world seeking to live here for the lifestyle.

All it needs is a bit of leadership, some positive messages and slogans plus a few public projects that could be presented in a way to excite public interest. They need not be vast projects, but smaller local pathways and links would do the trick. The extension to the Kaitaia Centre is a good project but is presented as a fund raising project rather than a regional boost.

Somehow we have been conned into competing between our towns rather than uniting to compete against other provinces. Better coastal access and walkways will help all of the Far North and surely someone can come up with a uniting slogan to lift our aspirations.