NOT TO WORRY

Naseby is a small place. Tiny, even. Its permanent population is 120 (an increase of six since 2006, according to the 2013 census), it has 66 permanently occupied dwellings, and the dairy is so small it only takes up half a shop. Yet I’ve rarely been somewhere where there’s so much to do.

There are two solid pubs, an excellent café, a curling facility (more on that later), a skating rink and luge track, a wealth of Victorian architecture with lots of attendant information plaques, and 50 kilometres’ worth of history-laden and yelp-inducing singletrack carved through a working forest, which, due to periodic logging, is constantly being rebuilt and reshaped. More on that later too.

It’s one of the first places in New Zealand I rode a mountain bike (we went in spring and it snowed—I was horrified, then thrilled), it’s where my son got his first scar (plastic three-wheeler, pilot error), and somewhere I’ve returned to over and over again, for weekend missions, weddings, birthdays and, more