KEY POINTS:
A cocktail of Wet & Forget and 30 Seconds outdoor cleaners isn't something that most people take in their holiday luggage.
But when we packed for our two nights in the tiny Waikato village of Pirongia we were on a mission to clean decades of lichen and moss from the grave of coal mining heiress Emily Ingleby Miller, my great-great aunt, at the Alexandra Cemetery on a hill just outside the town.
English-born Emily wasn't your average settler. She never worked a day in her life, imported whatever she needed in the way of consumer goods from Europe, employed cooks, housekeepers, a farm manager and drivers - at least one of whom was fired when his handling of a motor vehicle didn't match Emily's exacting standards.
Pirongia, which was once frontier land during the New Zealand wars, is somewhere most people whiz through by car en route from Ngaruawahia to Otorohanga. Few stay.
It was the Emily connection that made us stop. But the highlight turned out to be the 959m tall Mt Pirongia - the Waikato's tallest mountain, which towers over the settlement from the west. There, high up above the town was where we chose to stay - at a DoC chalet situated within the grounds of the Pirongia Forest Park Lodge.
The Lodge is designed to house large parties of people on outdoor retreats and much to our children's delight it had a trampoline, sports equipment such as stilts, a confidence course, and the largest flying fox my kids had ever seen - their eyes bulged with excitement each time they were harnessed in and sent flying down the hillside.
At night, the only place to dine out in Pirongia is the Alexandra Hotel - albeit a very nice place to eat. With seven children in tow between two families, we decided instead to cook our own meal and after dinner headed along the Mangakara track with torches for a night walk down to an icy cold swimming hole.
On our second night we cranked up the Lodge's barbecue and then retired to the campfire to toast marshmallows and enjoy the full moon rising and the lights of Hamilton, Cambridge and Te Awamutu, and the sight of cars winding their way along country roads.
In the town it's easy to see this modest village is undergoing a renaissance with a number of tourism-related enterprisesspringing up.
Other than the mountain, another "attraction" is the Pirongia Clydesdales. I say "attraction" because the horses and their carriages are mostly used for weddings, parades, events, and film work. We were offered a private wagon ride for $100 but opted instead for a quick nosy around the town.
By day, Pirongia has two cafes, both of which are relatively new and have outdoor grassy seating and architecturally designed interiors. The Pirongia Mountain Cafe doubles as the town's general store and we stopped for a relaxed latte.
At the Persimmon Tree Cafe & RV Park we called in for lunch on our final day. The place has friendly staff and a great atmosphere.
Unfortunately, none of the eight dishes we ordered was anything to write home about and by the time the food started arriving, more than 50 minutes after ordering, the children were beside themselves with hunger.
With our bellies finally full, we wandered across the road to the Alexandra Redoubt, part of a string of such earthworks built by the Armed Constabulary stretching from Auckland into the Waikato.
Back in the early days the local Maori were based just across the river and the redoubt was designed as a refuge in times of insurrection as well as being garrisoned during the Te Kooti campaigns.
The Alexandra Redoubt is remarkably well preserved with the earth banks still a full 2m high from the bottom of the ditch to the top of the bank. It's an eerie place with reminders of one of the darker phases of our history.
It's possible to see Emily's homestead from the redoubt and the current owners, who have more or less adopted her as an honorary maiden aunt, invited us in - after hearing that my children are studying "the olden days" at school.
The house brought Emily to life for the children and its many secrets, such as an old hidden cellar, fascinated them. One family legend was that on the outbreak of World War I, Emily took everything from her home with the "Made in Germany" mark on it and dumped it down the well. None of these items has ever been found. It's likely the exquisite items she dumped were pilfered soon after the event.
There was more to be found out about Emily a few hundred metres away at the Pirongia Historic Visitor Centre located at the old St Saviours Church.
Emily and her brother Edward, my great-great grandfather, bankrolled the building of the church and Emily laid the first stone.
Almost next door to the visitor centre is the Pirongia Art & Craft Shop & Gallery, packed full of interesting items for sale. Also worth a mention is the Pirongia Craft Day held each September.
An even bigger event in Pirongia's calendar is the annual Pirongia Boxing Day Races, which have been running for more than 130 years. Emily, dressed in her finest clothes would have attended the event at the Alexandra Racecourse, at first in her horse-drawn carriage and later in her chauffeur-driven Chevrolet car - the first "horseless carriage" in the district.
Our final port of call - and probably Pirongia's newest tourist attraction - is the Cloudy Mountain Cheese factory run by Cathy Evans. On the weekends she can be viewed making boutique cheeses, through a glass viewing window at her property, two doors away from the Pirongia Clydesdales.
- Detours, HoS
