Marahau

A spot where we’ve had good seaside holidays is Marahau at the south end of the Abel Tasman Park. We stayed in friend Rex’s bach/house. On our first visit his parents still had their farmhouse up the valley, full of fresh vegetables which his father insisted on sharing with us. Also up the valley was a raspberry farm. Anne’s two boys greatly enjoyed the experience of picking the berries and eating the odd one along the way. Not like the time we toured Central Otago. We went cherry picking. As we took the buckets to be weighed the youngest Patrick asked could he eat one. He’s been up in the trees and hadn’t popped a single cherry in his mouth, We took him back and sent him up a tree to eat a few.

We ate the raspberries as soon as we got back to the house with ice-cream. The berries were still sun-warm. Delectable. But the real foraging took place at low tide midst the extensive cockle beds. Up early on the empty beach filling a bucket with the delicious little shellfish, is a healing experience. A heron back-lit by spangled waves and a still pool reflecting the pair of oyster catchers standing in it completed an atmosphere of timelessness. Apart from the slight sound of waves the only noise was a weka’s call from the bush echoing across the beach.

Later, the cockles opening in a pot on the stove, the weka struts through the open door as if it owns the place, stabbed at a fly or two and wandered off again. There is satisfaction in gathering food and processing it straight away. It links a person across the ages to a shared humanity.

The house had a very sunny dunny. I was sitting there, door ajar, surveying the scene, eating plums picked straight off a tree when the weka appeared, eyed my bare toes with great interest. I think the sandal buckle took its fancy. There was a hasty pulling up of shorts and a throwing of a plum stone to divert the bird’s attention. Toes were safe for the time being.

That weka was a menace. It’d take spoons or other shiny objects and seemed to think it owned the place. Only once did it have take second place. I was reading in a deck chair overlooking the beach when I heard this tremendous noise. It was a skyhawk jet let loose from Ohakea. It screamed overhead. Too late the weka called its alarm, chattering its outrage at this intrusion of its quiet space.

We went for day walks into the park and drove to potteries and vineyards. On one of these trips we bought a box of fresh apricots. We came to a ford. Anne said “you can’t go through there” and of course I said “we can” and went ahead. Halfway across she screamed. I knew I mustn’t stop so I kept going. When we got through I found the cause of the mayhem. A giant huhu beetle had crawled out from the apricots. Anne’s character analysis of me intrigued the boys. In vain I protested I couldn’t have stopped. Silence hung over the trip home until she suddenly began laughing. She did insist, however, I empty the box. There were no more beetles. She had never seen one before that day. Nor since.

The huhu is our largest beetle. I hadn’t seen one since I’d left Okuti. An open window and an inside light was an invitation for them to crash inside. They are more scary than harmful. They were plentiful there because there were rotting pine stumps on the knoll and most of them had grubs in them. The adults only live for a fortnight and do not eat anything. They mate and die. I suspect being a huhu must be the dullest of existences.