A drive down the Ngati Maru Highway south of Thames is something special. Shenagh Gleeson travels the road with photographer Peter Drury.
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LIFE ON NGATI MARU HIGHWAY, SH26 The name: Ngati Maru is the iwi of the area. Matatoki means small adze or meteorite and is named after small flakes of hard rock made into adzes; Puriri takes its name from the native hardwood tree; Hikutaia means the tail of the taia (eel) or headwaters of a river at neap tide. Best coffee: Matatoki Farm Cheese cafe serves a decent flat white and some lovely muffins, along with platters and pizzas.
Best find: Rugby on TV at the Puriri Hotel in mid-winter and $1 bags of mixed lollies at Hikutaia General Store. Next weekend: You could attend Anzac Day services on Sunday in either Thames (dawn parade 6am, public parade 10am) or Paeroa (parade 9am, service at the War Memorial Hall at 9.15am).
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I t's less than 40km from Thames to Paeroa on State Highway 26 and for many travellers it's just the alternate route you take to the Coromandel Peninsula when the Kopu Bridge is jammed up.
But strung out along the pleasant drive beside the hills of the Coromandel Range are three distinct settlements, each with their own history, character and communities.
Once there were more settlements along the road - recently named the Ngati Maru Highway - but only the three have survived. Travelling from Thames, you strike Matatoki not far past the Kopu- Hikuai turn-off. And roughly opposite the Matatoki School, with its roll of 58 children, Iain Alexander plies his trade as a butcher in a little shop stocked with home-made products. sexy lingerie china
He's a local boy who joined his father in the shop in 1987. When he took over in 1996, he decided to do things differently. "When I first came here, it was a conventional butcher's shop and it just didn't work. There replica tag heruer watches had to be a reason for people to come out here, there had to be something special." He began making all his own products and developed a motto: "You have to taste to realise the difference".
Manuka-smoked bacon and his own ham were his first big successes and remain the main artery of the business but he now makes a wide range of products, including all sorts of sausages, salamis and smoked beef.
Iain's a lone operator and it's intense work but he enjoys it.
More people are coming to live in the area as farms along the hills are replaced by lifestyle blocks and residents commute as far as Auckland. There's also more passing traffic.
Next to his shop, the old dairy factory, once the heart of the Matatoki community, is again up for sale.
But further along the road another milk processor is very much alive and producing.
Kelvin Haigh founded Matatoki Farm Cheese 15 years ago. It's now owned by the Waitui Kuratau Trust, which farms at the southern end of Lake Taupo. The trust bought the factory to make sheep milk products but its main lines are still organic cows' milk products.
The factory has a string of awards for its excellent products and a small cabinet displays some of them, from the Cuisine gold- medal winning cummin gouda to the silver- medal sheep milk pecorino and bronze- medal sheep and cow's milk fetas.
Kelvin says the factory makes cheese the way our grandpar
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