People in Taranaki are proud of their mountain, and they’re also proud of it’s usefulness as a forecasting tool. A popular saying is that If you can’t see the mountain, it’s raining. If you can see the mountain, it’s going to rain. When I visited DOC’s Dawson Falls’ visitor’s centre in 2007, they’d pinned a very funny and typical poem on the wall, all about rain and attributed to an anonymous tramper in 1984. I neglected to write it down at the time, but I made a point to transcribe it when I visited again early this year once I found it still there:

Rain

It rained and it rained and rained and rained
The average fall was well maintained
And when the tracks were simply bogs
It started raining cats and dogs

After a drought of half an hour
We had a most refreshing shower
And then the most curious thing of all
A gentle rain began to fall

Next day was also fairly dry
Save for the deluge from the sky
Which wetted the party to the skin
And after that the rain set in

— Anonymous tramper, 1984

I thought this was the end of it — just a very amusing poem from an anonymous tramper in 1984, seemingly very New Zealand-like to me (as a New Zealander) — until I started to look around the web.
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