ABOUT TOWN TE ANAU
Te Anau still smells like my childhood summers. Outside it is sunscreen and sandfly repellant, boat fuel and that earthy musk of native forest: fern and mouldering beech leaves and soft wet wood. Inside the musk comes from old dry wood: our weatherboard crib furnished with Great-Auntie Ellen’s dressers and Nana Wilson’s lounge suite. The wallpaper holds the scent of 40 summers too: boiled new spuds, mint, and Christmas ham cooked in the oven that’s older than I am — an old Champion that bakes if you set it to grill, grills if you set it to bake.
The scent of this town: breathe it in, exhale slowly, and relax. Even now, when I’m down here trying to get some work done,
