This Mangakuri bach is thought to be about 125 years old. Photo / George Williams
In the fourth of his Bay’s Best Baches series, deputy editor Mark Story spends a night in an aged Mangakuri bach and finds the cold is no match for a single-malt.
No one knows how old this Mangakuri bach is.
Timeless.
I was told the best guess is a birth date sometime around or “just before 1900”.
Sitting directly atop the roadside on Okura Rd’s southern end, it’s in great shape for its coastal tenure. A tip of the hat to the build, maintenance and native timber’s undying stoicism.
My one-night residence once housed workers when wool was seasonally loaded offshore to ships by horse-drawn drays.
Its purpose was function over fun.
Things have changed.
Now about 20-30 baches line this strip with an appreciable sense of bonhomie and kinship.
And they’re very protective of their lot.
On my approach, road signs warn of diligent camera surveillance.
There’s even an unusual double judder-bar near the entrance – two humps a few metres apart. This means you get told not once but twice to “ten-hut”. Shaken, then stirred. A slap followed by an exclamation mark.
Fall in, visitors.
Fair enough. It suggests pride of place. I’d rattle sabres if I lived here too. It’s a magic Central Hawke’s Bay marinescape with playful pods of handsome boulders in the briny.
Luckily for me, a near-complete stranger who lived locally accepted my invitation to have a beer on the deck so as to explain some of Mangakuri’s rhythm.
Many people don’t know it exists, he says.
This is a niche beach between big beaches and I get the sense residents love its little-known existence.
Then something telling happens. His phone rings. He lets it ring. And ring.
“Was that your phone?”
“Yes.”
Astounding. I can’t think of the last time I witnessed someone ignore their phone to concentrate on the current conversation. Big kudos. That’s a nice pace and a prime example of Mangakuri mindfulness.
I was warming to the judder bars.
From the bach’s deck you’d be forgiven for thinking there’s a covenant prohibiting all vehicles except side-by-sides.
The transport of choice, known here as “Mangakuri mobility scooters”, are like golf carts with more colour options and the same fun feels.
Their friendly purpose is based on a no-door design to facilitate easy waving.
The bach’s kitchen sits in the back west wing and is sun-soaked at day’s end. I didn’t bring any condiments or seasoning – so dinner was a plate of pork sausages – bach cooking at its most refined.
It’s late in the day, late autumn, and sadly the aged fireplace is decommissioned. The 125-year-old, high-stud lounge laughed at the small heater at my feet.
The frigid lounge and plain bangers were a reminder that baches have always been a celebration of everything we can do without.
Still, the chill threatened to usurp the charm.
Mercifully I’d packed a single-malt whisky in the event of emergency. Bless the Scots.
On the couch, covered in blankets, and one dram too many, I drifted off.
Some hours later and unsure where I was, I woke in a strange late-Victorian lounge with the Mona Lisa watching on.
Da Vinci’s work is an example of what makes these older baches so endearing – the time-honoured accumulation of random decor.
Collections of curios and fascinating frames wouldn’t make sense in any other environment. It’s why we love baches, they shun any notion of theme.
Multiple design eras speak to its age and colourful chapters – from Georgian-style sash or “guillotine” windows, through to the dining room’s 60s formica, and in some spots, curtains in place of doors.
I’m thinking, when we refer to any residence as a “character” home, it is of course to personify it. We lend it human attributes.
Maybe that’s because we want them to talk. We crave their wisdom, covet their longevity.
I’m in awe of this structure’s seeming immortality in a hostile environment.
For one and a quarter centuries it’s gazed out over a mood-altering beachfront. I wonder what that does to someone.
What was it like to ponder the horizon through two world wars.
Does it prefer the era of the side-by-side – or the horse and dray.
But of all the questions, I’d love to know which of the more than 45,600 sunrises was its favourite.