Fork in the road

I have had last Sunday planned for weeks. It was the only weekend day Mike Garvey would be with us, the only real day we’d have for the whole family to spend with him. He wanted something like a rain forest, and so I picked the most wonderful one we have nearby: the stunning Kapiti island, the biggest presence on our horizon, whose shape in the distance orients me and helps me know I’m home. In addition to being magnificent to look at, Kapiti is a DoC reserve, covered with native birds—some of which are so rare that they are only found on a handful of little island reserves around the country. This idea thrilled Jim, who is quite a birder, and all the Coughlin-Harrises. So we were all off—the five in my household, cousin Mike, and the 5 Coughlin-Harrises. Or so we thought.

After a perfect Saturday, Sunday dawned slightly grey, but with lovely still silver seas. I got up and began to make sandwiches while the rest of the house slept. At 7am, Carolyn rang, her always-cheerful voice dimmed: a southerly was coming and the boat captains had decided to cancel the trip to Kapiti. Our weeks of forethought—permits, boat reservations—were all for naught. Torn hair, gnashing of teeth, and a couple of hours of the kind of delays that only a group of eleven (with five people 10 and under) can manufacture, and we were on our way to a newly-developed Plan B. Since the bad weather was coming from the south and west, we’d go north and east to Otaki Forks. Keith had wanted to go there on his birthday well over a year ago, but we had been prevented by slips from the hills covering the road; I had been curious ever since.

I hadn’t ever imagined how good it would be, though. After 30 minutes on the state highway (=two-lane road) and 20 minutes on a back road (=sometimes not quite 1.5 lanes, sometimes paved), we pulled into a hidden paradise: kelly green lawn next to clear blue river surrounded by mountains. Mike smiled broadly. Now THIS is what I wanted! he said. We picked a 1.5 hour loop track and set off, our sandwiches and water in our backpacks, the sun high in the blue sky.

The 11 of us walked over swing bridges, up forested hills, across plateaus covered with high grasses. We ate our peanut butter and jelly sandwiches under the shade of native trees and tree ferns. We talked about life, the universe and everything, as you do on a walk, alternately admiring and feeling irritated by the children (who were alternately having fun and whining). We peered over cliff faces at the river in the gorge far below. Mike opened his arms wide at one crossing, the mountains layered into the distance, the fields golden below, the river carving a path through white rock. “This is EXACTLY what I thought it would look like in New Zealand!” he told me with delight. “This is perfect!”

We took our hot bodies down the hills and tumbled—with various degrees of coverage—into the river at the bottom. Some of us dangled feet; others dove in and played with the currents. The children, so used to the sea now, were struck by a body of water that always pulls in the same direction, that keeps moving you farther and farther away from your starting point. Mike, used to Alaska winter, was at home jumping into the icy river, manoeuvring his long body into the deepest parts of the shallow water.

This too is one of the deepest gifts of New Zealand, to have so many magnificent choices within an easy commute of home that when one goes wrong, another one pops up to take its place. And, while I felt so pleased that Mike had found his perfect New Zealand landscape, I have to say that it isn’t hard to make that particular dream come true. Magnificent New Zealand landscapes are all around us—on the train to work, over the next ridge, from my dining room table. With dear friends—and family—to travel with, could I get any closer to perfection?