Whanganui is the place for me, writes Rob Rattenbury. Photo / Bevan Conley
Whanganui is the place for me, writes Rob Rattenbury. Photo / Bevan Conley
[A_170222WCBRCAve01.JPG] The main street shops now have a much better choice of eating places compared to 40 years ago when Rattenbury arrived. Photo / Bevan Conley OPINION
I started out doing some articles on our town that made it into the media and on Facebook Travel groups a few years ago.I was doing some research on Dr Google when I tripped over one of my own articles about the advantages of living in Whanganui written sometime ago now. I had forgotten all about it.
It was interesting to read an article written for a national media outlet to attract people to move here. I wonder if anybody read it and thought, "Now there's a plan".
Mind you I also just wonder if anybody actually read it.
Of course not much has changed since the article was published. Whanganui is still the best little city in New Zealand, always will be as far as I am concerned.
No matter from which direction I return to Whanganui, whether its flying in, coming into St Johns, down the river or through Putiki, I get that warm feeling of coming home. This can happen after a day trip or a world trip, it does not matter, I just love driving through this little old town after being away.
Whanganui has been a safe place for us, a haven after years of living in a bigger city, Wellington, a place I still like but really do not fit in any more. It is nice to visit but it's nicer leaving.
I drive differently in Wellington, aggressively and, well, faster. I tootle in Whanganui, now one of those older people who used to drive me mad as a young man driving just below 50 kph. I am in no hurry whatsoever. Anywhere needed to be at is only a short drive anyway unlike Wellington where it's 30 minutes everywhere.
I cannot believe that as a teenage schoolboy I used to have to sometimes catch two connecting trains to get to my weekly rugby game and then, tired and sore, two home. Wellington is not a big city by any means but it's huge compared to here.
Taking our own children to sport on a Saturday in Whanganui's version of the rush hour, 9.00am to about midday, was a doddle, a long time if more than ten minutes to Laird Park or the Racecourse.
The main street shops now have a much better choice of eating places compared to 40 years ago when Rattenbury arrived. Photo / Bevan Conley
Have things changed in Whanganui since we arrived nearly 40 years ago?
The traffic is heavier, the main street shops now have a much better choice of eating places but there are few of the old pubs that used to be the social places to be in the 1980s, depending on your age and interests. There are probably as many, if not more, drinking holes now but they are a different style of establishment.
I think of the old hotels like the Imperial, the Provincial, the Station and the Criterion, all great wee pubs catering for their own customer base. Then we had the Riverside, now the vet clinic. Pretty flash in the day. My old mate Mike McCarthy ran it as well as the Red Lion across the river.
We still have the Red Lion, still a great place to have a quiet one and, nowadays, a nice meal.
I tend to frequent the Rutland nowadays, still a place of wonderful atmosphere, remembering the huge lounge bar it used to have before being partly demolished and rebuilt in the early 1990s. Again a place where the culture has much changed from the early eighties, the days of crowded smoke-filled bars, bands, bouncers and big hair. It's now a haven for pleasant dining and a chat.
The people have not seemed to have changed but they are more open-faced and friendly than most in the big smoke. Walking up town can be a mission some days as people still actually talk to each other in the main street in Whanganui.
I believe that Whanganui is still a very safe place to live and to raise a family compared to many other places in New Zealand. We have our social problems sadly but we also have many decent, kind people who step up like the Foodbank staff, the churches and charities.
Whanganui people are, on the whole, kind to each other. There is still a wee bit of the small town about us, the village that knows everyone and rubs along fine.
But we are changing, I am told the population is growing but the research on this is confusing. The town seems busier but published population figures vary widely. They seem to be in the mid to late 40,000s, though.
In days past inner city living was normal, look at all the old buildings with upper floors where people lived. Those days are coming back too. Whanganui is the place for me, a vibrant, interesting place to be.
