JUSTIN EADE
For nearly thirty years, Rod Witte has been flying flags from around the world, and his Atawhai Drive property near Wakapuaka Cemetery has become a familiar landmark for anyone driving past. Almost every day a new flag appears on the wooden yacht mast repurposed as his flagstaff, sparking plenty of curiosity from locals.
Rod, 70, a retired DOC planner, says he was interested in geography and started flying the flags in 1998 at a previous property as a sort of community feel-good thing.
When he built his current house in 2015, the flagpole came with him.
“I’ll fly the flag of a particular nation if there’s a public holiday or something significant there that day… if I don’t have a flag for the country having an occasion, I’ll fly the Ukraine or Palestine flag instead, or the Nelson flag.”
Rod now has about 200 flags, including nautical and city designs, and has collected most of the world’s 195 national flags.
He has flown flags at half-mast for New Zealand state funerals, and flew a huge old linen Union Jack on the death of Queen Elizabeth.
The community response has been huge. Rod says people often leave notes in the letterbox, including one from a parent who wrote, ‘thank you, I’m taking my kids to school, and we’re spending the rest of the day guessing which flag we saw’.
“I had an amazing experience one day… I was flying a flag on Hungarian Republic Day in memory of those who died in the 1956 uprising, when an older man came the door,” Rod recalls. “He was Hungarian, visiting New Zealand, and was remembering his brother who, as a student, was killed in the 1956 uprising. He was quite emotional. I invited him in for coffee and a chat.”
Rod says there’s sort of an informal little group in this area who fly flags for different reasons, and he gets to know them as they stop by and talk, so there’s quite a little international community feel about the place.
