Something a friend said gave me the idea of making day trips, or half-day trips, to small towns in Canterbury, which I’d otherwise probably never go to. These are the towns which we shoot through on our way to somewhere else, or are off the main highway. My idea was to make deliberate excursions to see what’s there, and what the ‘vibe’ is. I thought why not just go to some places with no purpose but to go there because it’s there, and I haven’t been before?

It sounded good in my head.

For my first purposeless foray I went to the village of Leithfield, about 42 kms north of Christchurch, and which once played an important role in Canterbury’s history. It has a population of 1,060 – but there’s a catch. That’s the combined population of Leithfield and Leithfield Beach, which are on opposite sides of State Highway 1, down side roads. These side roads are maybe about a couple of hundred metres apart from each other.

Leithfield Beach has a slightly smaller population than Leithfield, with no shop or pub that I could see, although the sign at the turnoff indicated that there was somewhere to eat. I couldn’t see it myself, although there was a blackboard propped up against a lamppost next to a park with something written café-style in chalk on it, so if I’d stopped to read it, I may have discovered where that somewhere to eat was. The beach itself is rough and rugged, and has a sign stating there are driving restrictions along the shore. The first thing I saw when I got to there was a vehicle driving on it, leaving tyre tracks in the dirt like calling card. I’m going to be generous and presume the driver was obeying the relevant by-laws.

At least it was a sunny day, and the sky was blue.

And, as is par for the course these days, I was also ridiculously pleased to see single-sex public toilets, with one unisex wheelchair-accessible toilet. Long may these facilities at Leithfield Beach last in all their glorious unpretentiousness. I’m not a fan of unisex toilets, although it’s true that I’ve sometimes chosen to use one even when single-sex are available, but I don’t like unisex being all that’s on offer. Time, place, and context matter. However, unisex everything seems to be the vogue now. Not sure that’s going to turn out to be the best plan ever, but for now we’re stuck with them – but not at Leithfield Beach just yet.

I then ventured on to Leithfield, with the (historic) pub being the first building of significance encountered. It’s clear that my photography on the right below is way inferior to that of the person who took the PR shot on the left.

There was no shop here, either, that I could see, although there is a primary school, apparently. However, I only noted that incidentally sometime afterwards, when I finally thought way too late to check the map on my phone for the whereabouts of the elusive Kowai Track, which I had intended to at least walk along part of – if I’d found it. I belatedly remembered from a previous incident a number of years ago, that small towns are sometimes not very good at signposting things, particularly if they’re not a ‘tourist’ town. Although it might seem an oxymoron, the lesson I got from this is that discovery and exploration go better with a bit of preparation. Sure, sometimes we can get a thrill from discovering the unexpected, but my lesson for further forays of limited duration into the wilds of small-town Canterbury is to go with more homework done beforehand, if possible. I’m happy to throw it all away if a better plan takes shape once I’m there, but I won’t just rock on up again expecting a satisfactory experience to fall into place of its own accord.

Many years ago, I and my partner at the time passed through Canada on our way elsewhere. We were confident that winging it for accommodation, sightseeing, and experiences whilst there was a solid plan. We ended up wasting so much time in working shite out, we couldn’t really make as much of our time there as we’d have liked to. That memory has stayed with me, but I never thought of putting it into the same box as the small-town Canterbury one, before now.

Besides the pub, the unseen school and missed Kowai Track, there is a church and clusters of rural delivery letterboxes on the side of the roads.

Amongst the things I later discovered was Leithfield’s community Facebook page, which, I admit, I only visited out of idle curiosity. However, I was pleasantly impressed to see on it that the school’s debating team had had a win. In hindsight, I think I might have liked to be on my school’s debating team back in the day, although it was only an option in secondary school at that time. A hat tip to these kids.

So, what was the ‘vibe’ of Leithfield Beach and Leithfield? One of the things that is instantly palpable is the feeling of getting out of the maelstrom once off the highway. Although, comparatively-speaking, ‘maelstrom’ might be laughable when describing New Zealand with its total of 5.3 million people, the feeling is still there. As with all small towns, too, which seem to be dead quiet, there is a feeling of something under the surface which an outsider will only ever catch a glimpse of at best. Maybe my small town spidey senses will get more honed as time goes on.

But, will I go on with my small-town hunting quest, or not? In its favour is that we learn from every exploit, and it paves the way to do more of either a similar or more expansive nature. So, did I learn enough to do better next time? The jury’s still out😊