Te Aute Crossroad S1 E1

Episode 1: Crossroads

“I remember buying a little Indian sort of chest of drawers once. And I was so intrigued by it, and the colour of it, and I thought, ‘This—if I let it be—could be the beginning of a new life for me. If I followed the message of this little set of drawers, and built everything else around that, it would be a different life’.”

Brian Eno, on Daniel Lanois' album, Here Is What Is.

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Te Aute

There is no Te Aute Crossroad.

This is a fact that does rather explain why—in the dark, many hours after leaving Auckland, cautiously towing a trailer upon which was stowed a splendid kentia palm in a large terracotta Morris & James pot, a garden bench, a Xeronema callistemon we were hoping would soon flower for the first time, some dahlia bulbs… and many other garden treasures and tools, plus, on the back seat, two cats in their travel crates—the fluffy white Birman, Lucy, who would later prove a peerless rabbit killer, and the ginga, the red Burmese, Oscar, a St Kilda supporter furious at being ripped from his native Melbourne, who between them had sustained a 450 kilometre chorus of complaint—a fact that does explain why, despite everything, we did not find Te Aute Crossroad.

‘Turn Left at Te Aute Crossroad’ was Step One in the instructions I had hastily, cryptically, scribbled down while on the phone to the farmer whose house we were renting for a month whilst he and his family went skiing. Who seemed slightly offended that anyone might think it necessary to be told how to find his place, which (presumably) had been in the family for generations. He had somewhat begrudgingly rattled them off. But having failed at the first step—turn left at Te Aute Crossroad—the rest were of no use at all.

There’s a marae at Te Aute, and a Mormon church, and on the other side of the road what was once a wetland abundant in birdlife but drained to create paddocks that happily revert to swamp whenever there’s heavy rain. You pass the radio masts and the Te Hauke pub, before going over the hill to Te Aute College. But by then you’re at Pukehou, next stop Waipawa, and you’ve missed Te Aute Trust Road, off to the left. There is no Te Aute Crossroad.

We stopped in Waipawa. The Four Square was open, but the woman at the checkout didn’t know of any Te Aute Crossroad, nor how to get to Elsthorpe, our actual destination. She called a colleague who told us to go back, take this road, don’t take that road, turn right, cross the bridge, go a bit further and Bob Dylan’s your Auntie…

The farmhouse was freezing. The kentia was splendidly shredded. The cats wanted out; the family’s cat—our unexpected housemate—wanted in. We lit the fire, made a meal, a bed and collapsed.

Such was the beginning of the rest of our lives.