The scene in front of our bach is constantly changing. On fine mornings, there’s the entertainment of horse schooling, in the sea, in harness, trotting to and fro along the beach. When the wind gets up, the sky above the bay is alive with brightly coloured whirling kites beneath which scoot the surfers on their tiny boards. They fizz across the water at tremendous speed and sometimes leave it altogether to leap and perform flips and pirouettes in the air. On the sand, there are dogs, joyfully charging in and out of the sea or racing each other along the shore for the shear fun of it.
There are people too, of course, occasionally calling to their dogs or running bare foot, three abreast. One evening we witness a lovers’ quarrel, the angry stance of the woman unmistakable. They give each other a shove almost into the water and then she marches off along the beach, occasionally turning to him to gesture in exasperation. And all the while the sea churns, a mass of turbulent white horses breaking on the sandbars and crashing into each other in a muddled jumble of mini explosions.
This bach which shares with a few others on this promontory, this wonderful view, sits on leasehold Maori land, a legacy of the Treaty of Waitangi, not always honoured and a paltry compensation for what was stripped from them by the British Crown. What the Crown couldn’t take by negotiation, they took by invasion and war and this area experienced some of the worst of British aggression. And yet, New Zealand is often sited as an example of benevolence and mutual cultural accommodation.
In truth, the history is a shameful and shocking one. The Maori, who had been here for centuries, were culturally advanced with a well organised society. They were prepared to negotiate with the new settlers. As it was, they were duped, dominated, pushed out and stripped of many of their assets. Recent attempts at recompense go someway towards healing the wounds but New Zealand is now an established democracy with a majority Pakeha (white European) population and fairness is an infinitely debatable ideal.
On Saturday, Adrian’s keen to climb Mount Karioi. It’s a steep assent that, in places, consists of heaving oneself up a rock face by means of a vertical chain. The owners of this bach have already warned against making the climb in wet conditions and, as it’s very wet and very windy and the mountain is more or less hidden in cloud, I decline to join him. Having a bad head for heights even in the best of conditions, I take a moment to consider my options and then bravely wave Adrian off and settle to my writing. Half way through the day, he phones to say he may be some time. The climb is hard going with (surprise!) mud and slippery rocks. He arrives back around five, covered in mud, tired out, but rather pleased with his performance, completing the climb in two hours and ten minutes.
In the evening, we take a trip into Raglan to the local flicks. An Emma Thompson film is showing: ‘Good Luck to You, Leo Grande!’ and the evening is a total treat from beginning to end. The cinema is housed in the little assembly room of the old school house. There are sofas, armchairs as well as rows of standard seats and in the foyer a group of volunteers are serving drinks and home baked cakes. It’s my first experience of a film accompanied by lemon and ginger tea and my first taste of hummingbird cake, a New Zealand creation involving bananas and pineapple and absolutely delicious. (google it for the recipe)
The film, if you haven’t yet seen it, based on the relationship between an uptight, retired, widowed R.E. teacher and a gorgeous young sex worker with mother issues, is absolutely worth the viewing, if only for the dialogue, which is brilliant. And Emma Thompson, revealing her sixty year old body like a Renaissance Eve, is a delight.
Today, the wind is whipping itself into a frenzy. Our run back from Raglan is accompanied by a facial sandblasting and, after lunch, just as Adrian and I are dozing with our books on our noses, it hits the bach so dramatically that it shakes the walls and vibrates the satellite dish into a scream like a banshee. The scene in front of us has changed once more. The beach is deserted and the white horses appear almost flattened by the the wind. All activity has ceased and, as if at the sound of a siren, everyone has vanished.
