On The Pong Track

Nothing stinks worse than a media beat-up.

It was 2.30pm, September 21, 2018, and something was rotten in the heart of Wairarapa. Weirdly, it appeared to be a primary school in Carterton, coincidentally a town that bills itself as the “heart of the Wairarapa”.

Spookier still was the unhappy happenstance that meant we and our friend Slow Train, after indulging in a slap-up lunch in Greytown to mark the dear boy’s birthday, were driving through the very town at the very moment the great “mysterious substance” brouhaha was brewing.

Heading home to Masterton, we pootled through Carterton stuffed to the gills with warmed olives, homemade dumplings, fried calamari, bao buns, Korean spiced chicken nibbles and seafood chowder. Unsurprisingly, we were burping a little, though otherwise all seemed quiet. Save, of course, for the usual ungodly rumble of logging trucks – Carterton’s on State Highway 2 – and, this day, standing by the not-very-fetching clock tower at the heart of the heart of Wairarapa, two men who, to put not too fine a point on it, were suspicious looking characters. “Ban 1080”, said their signs. “Get up, stand up”, said their dreadlocks.