Herald journalists have been in small town New Zealand to talk to voters about their hopes, fears and dreams. Each day we visit a town beginning with one of the letters H, E, A, R and T. Today, Nicholas Jones visits Taihape.
Stand at the gate of Laurie Abernethy's lifestyle block and the whole of Taihape spreads out down below.
A near-constant procession of trucks rumble along State Highway 1 through the heart of the town, past the McDonald's M and the old church spire.
Some mornings you wouldn't know any of it was there, he says.
"We sit in the basin here and the river runs through there, just below the town. And that seems to be the way with these little river valleys - they just fill up with fog in the morning if it's cold."
Abernethy has lived in the area for about 50 years. He and his wife raised their four boys on a 485ha sheep, beef and deer farm at Mataroa. Now retired, the couple live on 2ha with their 12 Shetland ponies.
"They are characters. They are just a lovely little animal to have around."
Abernethy has a long view of the town's fortunes and says Taihape has gone backwards, with a particular blow being the loss of railway-related jobs.
"We had three banks in town, we have one left...this IT thing, to me it has wrecked the whole system.
"We haven't got a hospital any more, we have a doctors' surgery. We also had an old folks' home, which the local community actually financed, and it's gone too. And those sorts of things don't sit very well with an old man."
Taihape Area School board chair Ngahina Transom. New Zealand Herald photograph by Mark Mitchell
Despite that slow decline, Abernethy, who speaks to us a few weeks ahead of his 80th birthday, says life is good here. He marvels at Donald Trump and the uncertainty overseas.
"I'm pleased to be where we are. My mother always said it was God's own country, and I reckon she was right."
Taihape has recently experienced a lift, he says, thanks in large part to its position on SH1.
"Saturday, Sunday, you can hardly get a park in town. They go to the coffee shops and eating places. I think there is an opportunity now for boutique businesses."
Michelle Fannin is behind the counter at one such business, the Wild Roses furniture and gift store.
One of the volunteer organisers of the famous gumboot day, Fannin says the town's community spirit has helped pull it through setbacks.
Taihape Community Board chair Michelle Fannin. New Zealand Herald photograph by Mark Mitchell
"From my memories we had over 5000 people in the area, and in the last Census it was 3000. But houses are selling like crazy. People are moving to Taihape for a lifestyle, so they are buying houses to live in. We haven't got rentals. The new principal at Mataroa School struggled to find a place to rent."
There are a number of manufacturing businesses in town, including Incept Marine, which produces rafts, and kayak-maker Bliss Stick, but Fannin, 48, would like greater support from government to attract businesses to smaller towns, perhaps in the form of tax breaks.
"I know a lot of businesses would struggle. But our people are struggling on that minimum wage. I think that's something we seriously need to start working towards."
KiwiRail still has a team in the town employing a team of about six, all with young families. Other locals are bused out to the Winstone Pulp Mill near Ohakune, and the Tangiwai Mill.
Taihape farmer Daniel Mickleson. New Zealand Herald photograph by Mark Mitchell
Ngahina Transom works for Mokai Patea Services, a service provider set up by local iwi that works with WINZ and other agencies, and says employment picks up in summer because of shearing.
That transience is reflected in the local area school, a decile 4 school with 265 students. Transom, a trained teacher and past principal of two rural schools in the area, chairs the board as an appointed iwi representative.
"Education is my biggest issue. It is huge. We don't get enough money to do what we need to do. When teachers are expected to do lots and lots of other things. Like, where does it stop?"
Transom grew up on a farm which her brother now runs. She married a local and they now have 11-year-old twin boys, living on their own sheep and beef farm.
Her Pakeha family have been in the area for seven generations and her iwi side goes back 16 generations. Those deep roots meant Transom chose to raise her boys here.
"What I love is the rural aspect of life here, and the qualities and attributes that contributes to a person - work ethic, independence, responsibility. A sense of home."
Transom has also noticed the number of houses being sold, and thinks more Aucklanders are now buying here than locals. Others are arriving from Australia.
Street signage in Taihape. New Zealand Herald photograph by Mark Mitchell
Despite the warming of Taihape's property market, sheep and beef farmer Daniel Mickleson, 35, thinks the focus on housing and immigration this election ignores much of the electorate.
"There's not much focus on the rural areas, we kind of just keep on doing what we're doing, and just cop the result."
Mickleson's great-grandfather settled in the area in a brick house just down the road, and his family now farms 1214ha. He lives in a cottage that rattles as the traffic passes by on SH1, just outside the front door.
His dog kennels are out back, and on the hill beyond a stand of pines, some of which have splintered under the weight of recent snow and taken out a fence.
"You normally just hear traffic in the night," Mickleson says. "It was like artillery going off."
His days off at this time of year are spent in front of the fire. In the summer he trips about the North Island on a motorcycle he bought a few years ago.
Mickleson would like to see greater government support for local emergency services, particularly full-funding for the rescue helicopter, which is currently community funded.
"I could be seven Ks out in the hills there and if something goes wrong it's the rescue chopper that's important to me."
Sheep and beef farmers are doing okay, Mickleson says, but there is concern at the "wave of regulation", including on the fencing of waterways. He understands the intent, but says fencing on steep country such as his family's farm is near-impossible.
Mickleson received national media attention in March, after he posted on the NZ Farming Facebook page about two times he'd coped with depression, including once after watching 11 months' farming work destroyed by four weeks of persistent rain in 2010.
Taihape's main business street, State Highway One. New Zealand Herald photograph by Mark Mitchell
He was inspired to speak up after comedian Jono Pryor talked about the death of his friend Tim Hutchens, but was shocked by the attention his posts received - having been widely shared and seen by more than 500,000 people.
"If I had known what that would turn into, I probably wouldn't have done it. I did not know that was there."
His experience is now the subject of an animated video in the Mental Health Foundation's Take the Load Off campaign, and he said both rural and national mental health support was critically underfunded.
"You just have to look at the farmer suicide statistics to see that... I would rate it as one of the emergency services alongside ambulance, fire and the rescue chopper. I really would."
