Duck in a Row
Next door to my home town of Waipukurau in Central Hawkes Bay is the smaller township of Waipawa. Waipawa is close to a ford where the ancient Maori trail between the Manawatu Gorge and Hawke’s Bay crossed the Waipawa River. European history records that in 1850, Frederick Abbott applied for a leasehold of 9,600 acres where his plan was to graze sheep, cattle and two horses.
Whenever Abbott traveled south he always crossed the Waipawa River at the same place, this place was referred to as Abbott’s Ford. The river flows from the slopes of Te Atua Mahuru in the Ruahine Range southeast past the town of Waipawa before joining the Ngaruroro River.
Pawa the Duck
My ‘ducks in a row’ are still flying in from the West Island so I thought we’d visit with a country cousin whose been causing a giggle in the gaggle for a while now. Okay, so he was still getting his mojo back when they snapped him with his slightly funky ‘duck-tail’ bob (I think Zeb Waihape, my ultra funky hairdresser is his hairdresser too!) but there’s no mistaking the fact that ‘Pawa the Duck’ belongs to the steamer species of duck.
That would be Magellanic Flightless Steamer Duck to be precise or (Tachyeres pteneres) a flightless duck with a South American flava (his penchant for bold yellow and orange is a dead giveaway). We always considered his side of the family to be rather ‘exotic’ since they belong to the steamer duck genus Tachyeres. He has breeding if not appeal at least!
He’s a ‘massively built’ duck that’s become the subject of a tug-of-war in Central Hawkes Bay. Waipawa residents who wanted to see Pawa, a 400 kilogram orange-beaked concrete duck, back on the main street petitioned Central Hawkes Bay District Council. Others in the township didn’t want to see the duck’s smiling beak ever again! Let’s just say he ruffled a few feathers!
Former mayor Tim Gilbertson said the town’s unofficial mascot had been put in storage and needed to go somewhere but he just felt it wasn’t on the main street. He called Pawa ‘an embarrassment’ I just think it’s not that suitable, Waipawa needs something but I don’t think it needs a duck.” The town’s main street has been given a spruce up (you could hardly say modernised really as I’ve read in the Dominion Newspaper account) because quite frankly the main attraction of the ‘so-called’ modernised main street focuses on a Museum that emphasises the towns earlier century beginnings. Hardly modern!
Gilbertson said, “Plans had been made to light up the town clock at night and the Council is keen to see history featured rather than a duck. So the duck was plucked! Pawa the duck was created by local artist Jan Gosling nine years ago to be driven around on a ute during the Annual Spring Festival. Depending on which side of the Waipawa river you reside some consider Pawa a “bit of an icon” while an astute Pharmacy owner said, “the duck put Waipawa on the map and was just a bit of fun.”
I happen to agree with the Pharmacy owner, I mean he’s nowhere near as odd as Ohakune’s ‘big carrot‘ that takes some getting used to, Te Kuiti’s shearer a low blow I know, Gore’s trout which IS a fish out of water, Paeroa’s L&P (lemon & paeroa) bottle a bit of a fizzer, Pukekura’s sandfly which is quite annoying, Clinton got saddled with Clydesdales, Tirau’s corrugated sheep pulled the wool over everyone’s eyes there, Te Puke’s kiwifruit and Kaikoura’s crayfish is a real crawler. Pawa to me, at least seems astonishingly ‘normal’ by comparison.
In the wash up, it came down to “some people didn’t like him because he’s not the most elegant or well crafted of ducks but he is fun. Some say the town and the area benefit because they know the duck. One woman, said, “the main street looks great now and the duck would add nothing. Another resident was more scathing, saying that he was an eyesore, that should be in a children’s park.
Well the mayor has gone and Pawa has finally ended up within quacking distance of Nelly Jull Park. A person could get the feeling he’s still on the ‘outer’ but that’s fine for the webbed-footed one since there’s no pond in the park anyway. He has daily company in the form of a flying pig where you can get a great cuppa coffee, homemade cakes’n’biscuits and friendly service and he doesn’t mind the convivial folk that wander through to Skinny Mulligan’s.
They may have relegated him to a behind the scenes role in Waipawa but I watched a little boy sitting on his back the other day and I got to thinking that Pawa may have missed his calling as a highly visible small town icon but there was no mistaking he’d made it ‘big time’ into the heart of this little boy who seated on his back was content to watch the world go by just like water off a duck’s back.
*The writer would like to add that she took artistic license with the ‘until now’ sketchy heritage of Pawa the duck. Since he had none of note she simply popped him into a species that fit his character.
N.B. The image of the Ohakune ‘Big Carrot’ was released into the public domain by its owner, Mozasaur. This permission applies worldwide. He granted anyone the right to use this work for any purpose, without any conditions, unless such conditions are required by law.
