- A leasehold crib by the water in the Canterbury town of Moeraki is for sale at $160,000.
- Moeraki has links to author Kerri Hulme and her prize-winning novel The Bone People
- Vendors Lindsay and Janne Miller are selling to upgrade, praising the community.
A tiny crib in author Kerri Hulme’s old stomping ground has come up for sale for $160,000.
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The leasehold crib at 32/125 Kaika Road, Moeraki, is one in a tiny community that Hulme used as a backdrop for her Booker Prize-winning novel The Bone People. The tiny community has both biographical and literary connections to the author, who died four years ago, aged 74.
Hulme and her family spent holidays in Moeraki, on the Otago coast, and she later identified it as a deeply formative place in her life – her “turangawaewae-ngakau” (the standing place of my heart).
The author lived in Moeraki for periods in the 1980s while writing The Bone People, and she set parts of that novel in a thinly disguised version of the area, called “Moerangi”. Hulme frequently referenced Moeraki in her work, particularly in her poetry.
The vendors have loved their time at 32/125 Kaika Road. Photo / Supplied
The crib looks out to the ocean. Photo / Supplied
One thing Property Brokers agent Amanda Watt expects that Hulme would have seen a lot of all those decades ago, is seals. They abound even today.
Watt got quite the surprise when she first viewed the property and came face to face with one. The steps down to the beach come right off the front deck. “The first day we went there, we stepped down onto the beach, and there was this massive seal just lazing around right there, right at the bottom of the steps, and then when we left, we drove around,” she told OneRoof.
“It’s a lovely, sleepy little village. There’s no traffic or noise or anything - just seals. They come up off the beach and just sunbathe all over the lawns.”
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Watt said the fishing village was home to many original cribs like the two-bedroom, one bathroom, 64sqm waterfront one she is selling. They are mostly handed down through the generations.
“It has that sense of a good old-fashioned crib, like what we had growing up,” she told OneRoof. “There are no airs and graces. No fanciness at all. Just a very special place by the sea.”
The property is in one of two kaik [Ngai Tahu dialect for kāinga/village] in Moeraki, near the urupā, that sit on land owned by Te Rūnanga o Moeraki.
The purchaser requires approval from the rūnanga to take over the existing lease. Currently, there is about one year remaining of the three-year lease with a right of renewal in April 2027.
Vendors Lindsay and Janne Miller are selling the property because their children have grown up, and they’re buying a bigger crib at Otematata in the Waitaki District.
Kerri Hulme at the Writers Festival in Auckland in 2014. She died in December 2021. Photo / Marcel Tromp
Seals are a common sight in Moeraki. Photo / Getty Images
The Dunedin-based couple told OneRoof that the rūnanga was the best neighbour and landlord. “They’re just really, really good to deal with, and great people, and they mow our lawn for free,” Lindsay told OneRoof.
The Millers bought the property some 15 years ago to give their children the fishing and boating childhood Lindsay had, living at Lake Waitaki, and holidaying in a caravan at the beach.
“We used to have plywood boats and all that sort of stuff. And yeah, this one came up, and I just liked it because it was right on the seafront and had a deck around it. It was owned by a fella in Timaru who had used it for years and decided he wanted to sell it. It needed a lot of work, so we restored it,” Lindsay said.
“We had young children at the time, and it’s been a really good place for them. We’ve done a lot of fishing. It’s been really cool. We’ve hooked a Mako shark about less than a kilometre off the kaik and we were in an inflatable at the time. It jumped out of the water when my son and I were fishing, and luckily, it broke the line. That was probably the biggest fish tale I’ve got there. But obviously a lot of blue cod. It’s always quite a reliable place to go fishing to get a feed.”
It’s a tight community, Lindsay said. “They have a New Year’s Day golf tournament. All the cribbies set up their own mini golf hole. You get put into teams, and then they play a game of golf around all the cribs. Then you have a good feed and a bit of a prizegiving at the end. It’s a pretty good day.”
Before the Millers’ time, Hulme had a crib in the same kaik, and Sullivan said she had been working with a local group in Moeraki to have a plaque attached to the property.
- 32/125 Kaika Road, Moeraki, Waitaki, is for sale for $160,000
