During the last week a total of 50 reasons have been posted on why Turangi is such a cool place to visit and stay. Then yesterday the analysis was narrowed down to just one motel. The reasons were provided to explain why it is the best known motel in this volcanic region without mentioning the most important of all. Did you guess it? You are reading it!
This may be commercially sensitive and confidential, so keep it to yourself.
TRM’s Secret to SUCCESS
When we started at TRM there was no budget for advertising/promotion, so the desperate old retired fisho composed daily fishing reports and posted them on the website. The results have taken over 20 years. The wide range of content may be unbelievable for a fishing report but has never been published before. SWMBO did not feel obliged to warn the competition of how advanced Her marketing strategy is. We do not pretend to understand it, but we know it works.
This is entirely thanks to our regular readers who have faithfully followed and supported TRM.
When TRM started the daily blog in 2004, the first fishing report was headed “Where’s Wally?” after we tried to follow an Irish angler inmate who had booked in for two weeks on his first bucket-list fishing trip down-under. He promised to give us a daily update on his fishing progress for us to report his success or otherwise. We thought it was a great innovation back then before Facebook arrived. We did not anticipate nor reveal that his first week was mainly worshipping Guinness at an Irish pub in Taupo, so his fishing progress stories were more imaginative than usual, provided by other inmates, but that’s another story.
Since then for 20 years, TRM had religiously posted a report most days – now over 7,000 reports on anything of concern to amuse and titivate tourist anglers on whatever was happening at TRM – from fishing tales to local events to quirky inmates, whatever. As other tackle shops and fishing guides started to provide more comprehensive fishing reports, we left them to that and expanded TRM blogs instead, to include inmates’ comments, usually complaints, and other associated tourist information.
Then in 2018, after the website was hacked, the reports temporarily disappeared and re-emerged in the “facebook” format, which was adopted to continue the fishy theme with more regular TRM updates. After the daily pattern of the previous 14 years was broken, TRM continued to post on Facebook instead.
This provided TRM’s readers with better opportunities to respond and provide feedback on any controversial, contentious issues. Fishos – trout anglers on the Tongariro – have too much time to think and are never slow to let us know of problems that annoy them. We are sure TDC (Toe-Paw District Council) and DOC (Department of Conservation are the fishery managers) have valued their advice over the years… Since 2018, their contributions have made for much more interesting scandalous stories, after years of my drivel.
We had not realised how popular the blogs were until we were hacked and off the air for a few weeks.
SWMBO was then asked by several if/when Daily Reports will resume? One Taupo angler drove 50 km down here to call in with his subscription (a bottle of fine red wine!) in 2018 to complain he did not do facebook and how he would miss the updates. We suggested in future to just click on the F (Facebook icon) on the home page. This became the pattern for the future. When TRM has something worthy of more in-depth consideration, we referred to it on Facebook. So, despite the hacking, it continued ever since.
We appreciated and reacted to all the positive messages demanding TRM to continue, such as this typical 2018 letter of concern from another West Island inmate :
“I have just read your FB comments about your website. I am really surprised that the hacking may well spell the end of the website. I truely hope that this is not the case as your website is legendary and to be completely honest is what got me through the last few years of my working life. Until a couple of weeks ago it has also been one of the first sites I visit when I wake up each morning as it always puts a smile or a smirk on my face. My “SWMBO” has noticed I am more twitchy and distracted in the mornings and when I explained she now understands.“
TRM’s historic wind vane
Did you know where the Tongariro River Motel (“TRM”) adopted its logo from? It is a direct copy of the finial on one of the most famous fishing lodges in the world, with direct links to Izaak Walton.
Walton, the author of the angling ‘bible’, The Compleat Angler (sic), spent hours on the banks of the River Dove with landowner Charles Cotton, who built their retreat in 1674 in honour of his friend.
The Compleat Angler is reputed to be the third most widely published book in the world after the bible and Shakespeare. Trout fishing must have been more popular back then.
TRM’s logo was originally designed as the finial for Charles Cotton’s “Fishing Temple” on the banks of the River Dove about 350 years ago. This was built for his fishing buddy, Izaak Walton. – the father of fly fishing.
There was one necessary, essential alteration to adjust to the antipodean Tongariro River location compared to the classical River Dove version. TRM’s trout is, of course, much bigger!
