Fiona Gower tells Elisabeth Easther why she loves her community.
There are so many neat things to do round here. The three main beaches are Port Waikato Beach, Sunset Beach and Maraetai Beach. And there's the Waikato River too. There are three playgrounds at the Port - a neat one at Cobourne Reserve as you come into town, with a slide and swings and things like that, and it's right by the store for icecreams. There's a playground at Maraetai Bay, and another one down at Cordyline Rd, Port Waikato. It has a taniwha slide, with a climbing frame and a flying fox, and tennis courts down there as well.
Down at the Port, there's a great fishing club and also a sailing club, where visitors are most welcome. Every year they have the Port Waikato Christmas Parade which is amazing. Last year there weren't that many people on the side of the road, as they were all on the floats!
My daughter is a junior at the surf club at Sunset Beach. They do such a great job, you just can't be too careful on our west coast beaches. The surf club people teach the young ones how to read the waves, and how to be safe. That's once a fortnight. You have to be a regular though, you can't just turn up the once.
Just south of us is the Nikau Cafe and Caves. They've got these amazing caves and they run tours through them. People came down to see the caves, with their glow worms and stalagmites and stalactites, and they wanted coffee and food as well so they opened the cafe. Sometimes they have dinners for the locals and all sorts of concerts. It's a great focal point, in the middle of nowhere. It takes about an hour and a half to do the tour. It's on the Rural Women's list of things to do. If you're lucky you might get to see a show at the OSPA - Onewhero Society for Performing Arts - they present all sorts of productions throughout the year in their wonderful theatre.
