PLANS ARE GEARING UP FOR THE 2006 OHAKUNE CARROT CARNIVAL. CONTACT THE FOLLOWING PEOPLE FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Carrot Carnival 2005
Chinese gardeners lead the carrot parade
Descendants of the Young, Sue and Chan families – the first Ohakune market gardeners – lead the Carrot Carnival parade.
By John Archer
Celebrating the Chinese families who were responsible for starting market gardening in the Ohakune district in 1920 was the theme for this year’s Carrot Carnival on Saturday 30 July 2005.
The lead float in the parade this year featured pioneer Chinese market gardeners hoeing rows of winter vegetables among stumps, boulders and scrub. It was a vivid reminder of the dogged determination needed bring the cut-over forest land around Ohakune into production.
A dozen descendants of these pioneer vegetable growers, from the Young, Sue and Chan families, marched in front of this float. They were led by a pair of traditional dancing Chinese dragons, animated by Jan Lim and Andrew Taylor.
Among those on the lead float, playing the role of the pioneer vegetable growers was little Jonathon and Abigail Taylor, under the supervision of their mother Marcia Taylor, and they also represented the coming generation of growers in this continuing industry. Also on the float was one of the Chinese community’s senior members, May Young.
Behind the pioneer float came a long line of giant diesel tractors, huge vegetable transporters, and complex harvesting machines, but for Henley Chan, son of pioneer grower Willie Chan, these were just a recent innovation.
“When I was a boy, we only had a horse to help us work the land,” he recalled. “As well as the farm here, we also had some land near Pokaka, and it was my job to ride the horse all the way up the road to Pokaka. The road only had a single lane in those days, with big stones on it. At the end of a day’s work, I had to ride back on the horse. It was the only way for me to get home.”
Carrots for Breakfast
TV presenter Kay Gregory interviews a group of Ohakune Primary School pupils in their Carrot Carnival costumes, as well as two members of the Ohakune Primary School Ski Race Team, on Friday. Much of the two-hour magazine programme was broadcast live from the Altitude 585 in Ohakune on Friday morning, focussing on Ohakune and carrots. One of the accommodation providers for members of the production crew told the Bulletin that they were impressed with the hospitality they enjoyed while in Ohakune, with people going out of their way to be friendly and helpful.
Carrot winners
Carrot growers winners Jharome-Kade Ruri, Bruce and Andrew Taylor and Stu Hedges. They won the Stack 'em and Wrap 'em vegetable handling race and the Sort it Out vegetable sorting race.
