After two decades in Auckland building a celebrated career in radio and television, Kara Rickard could no longer ignore the pull of her hometown calling her back. Initially, she thought returning to her ancestral lands in coastal Waikato town Raglan would mean turning her back on her successful media career to focus on whānau.
“When we went to move home, people were like, ‘But you’ve built this amazing career – why would you throw it away?’” recalls mother of three Kara, 44.
“But I thought, ‘I’m happy if I end up working at the Raglan Four Square. I’ve spent 20 years doing real cool stuff, and what’s important now is being home and with my kids.’ Staying in the media wasn’t on my mind.”
Instead, Kara’s found the best of both worlds, embracing work projects like hosting Whakaata Māori series Once Were Gardeners and RNZ show Music 101, while also reconnecting deeply with her community.
Finding her way back home
“In Auckland, I couldn’t go to town in gumboots and pyjamas, but I probably would in Raglan,” she laughs.
“There’s no sense of me having to look or be a certain way. I’m more settled here.”
Her children, Haea o te Rangi, 14, Kaihu, 12, and Iver, eight, play touch rugby on the same team as their cousins, train at the karate dojo her dad Pablo Rickard has run for the past 40 years and even go to the same school Kara attended.
“Our whānau names are still up on the wall for various things, and my youngest is in the rūmaki unit [te reo Māori immersion classroom] that my nan and Katerina Te Heikoko Mataira set up,” shares Kara. “I was one of the first students there.
“I know 90 percent of people involved in everything my kids do, and that is really nice after being in Tāmaki [Auckland] and not really having whānau or support around.”
Surrounded by her village
Now Kara’s mum Donna Rickard lives at the top of the driveway, and her dad and multiple siblings are just around the corner.
The former George FM radio host tells, “Being Māori, there’s something very special about living on your own whenua [land].”
But it took leaving as a teen for university and living in the big smoke to truly appreciate what she has.
“Every time I came back, I’d get that sense where you can feel it in your bones – your wairua [spirit] knows you’re home.”
Honouring her nan’s legacy
It’s something Kara will never take for granted after her nan, prominent Māori land activist Tuaiwa “Eva” Rickard, spent years fighting to have their family’s land returned.
Kara explains, “Our whenua got taken off us in World War II under the Public Works Act because the Crown wanted to use it as an airstrip. Then it was turned into a golf course.”
For almost two decades through the 1970s and ’80s, Eva protested and lobbied the government until the land was finally returned.
“I am forever grateful to her for everything she did for us and our people in general,” says Kara, who was five and living in Christchurch when her dad got the call from Tuaiwa to move home and help on
the land.
“She was always there for te iwi Māori… and paved the way for others to do the same.”
Memories of her koro
Kara remembers her green-fingered koro James Rickard tending to his plant nursery and recalls how she harvested kūmara by his side as a child.
She says it’s been a joy to reprise some of that traditional Māori gardening wisdom while exploring different māra kai (food gardens) and learning from local kaitiaki (guardians) for the television series
Once Were Gardeners.
“There’s something so nice about having your hands in the soil, being outside, looking at tohu from the taiao [signs from nature].
Growing a future for her whānau
It has inspired her to plant an orchard that she hopes her kids and eventually her grandkids will run out to pick fresh fruit from.
“Ultimately, one day, the goal is to be self-sufficient,” Kara enthuses.
Meanwhile, hosting RNZ’s weekly music interview show Music 101 reconnects Kara to where it all began.
“My first job hosting was TV show Coast for Whakaata Māori, profiling artists and musicians. To still be doing that 20 years later is pretty crazy. I feel very lucky and I don’t take that for granted.”
Saying yes to the unknown
Kara credits her longevity in the media industry to a combination of being in the right place at the right time – she had just finished training to be a flight attendant when she was asked by a friend to audition for Coast – and leaping in the deep end, even when she’s uncertain.
She admits, “There have been times when I turned down opportunities because I was too scared. But generally, my mantra is, ‘Say yes to everything and work it out later.’”
Stream all episodes of Once Were Gardeners on MĀORI+ app, or maoriplus.co.nz
