Art vs nature

 

Waiheke's biennial Sculpture on the Gulf was our focus today, a 2.5km trail around the headland linking 30 sculptures of various sorts. Art. It can be such a lot of pretentious waffle, such as at the gallery in Gore a couple of weeks ago, where I stood in a room with 17 very expensive Ralph Hotere paintings of black and brown crosses and thought "Pft. Boring and depressing." There was some of that nonsense here too: a canine agility course, a recording and playback of visitors' comments, some peephole boxes to look through, a cluster of roadsigns; but also some lovely things.

Part of the enjoyment was muted, though, by the people, who poured off the ferry in astonishing numbers - apparently, it was standing room only - and thronged the beaten grass track along the top of the cliffs. They were, almost to a man (or woman), overweight, unfit older Baby Boomers in floppy sunhats, puffing and panting up the steeper bits, fussing over how far they would walk before the next rest stop, hanging on to trees, leaning on fences, sitting on the grass and then struggling to get up again. It was like the Zombie Apocalypse, with added chinstraps.

The only good thing was that they got strung out pretty quickly, so I was able to appreciate the more striking pieces, like delicate metal shapes strung on wires, tumbled curves of corrugated iron, an impressive shelter made from wood off-cuts nailed together with no underlying framework, a garden of pretty painted stones on long stems, red cane baubles hanging from a pohutukawa, metal cut-outs like stylised saw blades. Really, though, on such a glorious day, against the backdrop of the sparkling Waitemata, turquoise in the sunshine and a backdrop for cabbage trees and flax flowers, nature had art beaten into a cocked hat, no argument.

EcoZip Adventures Waiheke

This is new! Though not to me, actually, having done ziplining down Bob's Peak in Queenstown, and also underground at Waitomo - but it's so new here on Waiheke that the locals are still coming to try it out, along with tourists from Texas this afternoon. It's had a lot of media attention already, so the Firstborn and I had to do it as civilians, paying actual money - quite a lot of it, too: $95 each. In return, you get a really classy operation. It's a quality job in every small detail from the neatly-aligned washers on the bolts holding everything together, to the fancy braking system at the end of each cable. Our two minders were cheerful and professional and friendly, and still getting fun out of riding the lines themselves.

We got trussed up into the harnesses, which weren't too uncomfortable (even for the men, who were advised to "make sure all your furniture is in the same room"), and set straight off on the three ziplines. The first was a gentle introduction, the second was steeper and longer and the third was much steeper and faster and ended thrillingly abruptly. The last two were over bush so close that I brushed over one treetop, and the views out across the island, city and both harbours would have been wonderful too, had we thought to look at them.

Perhaps it was because at Queenstown we did six rides, this one seemed a little short - or maybe it was just because it was so much fun that we wanted more. But it was a great way to spend an hour or so, including the time it took to walk back up to the top, along a gently zigzagging path through pretty bush. After which, the only appropriate thing to do was to call in to nearby Wild on Waiheke and sit outside by the neat grapevines to share a platter and a tasting tray of their boutique beers (the wheat beer was the best) and enjoy the rest of the sunny afternoon.

Waitangi Day 2013. Sigh.

We've now spent Waitangi Day on Waiheke for the second year in a row - but it was a brilliant day today, weather-wise, unlike last year. Otherwise, though, it was as strident and complaining and as divisive as usual, up there in the Bay of Islands. Everywhere else in the country, we've just got on with enjoying our national day public holiday and left them up there to fight amongst themselves while we disported ourselves at the beach.

Having recently seen the movie The Impossible and already imagined in moderately vivid detail what it would be like in our beachfront apartment if one came surging across the road and down our drive, it's been slightly alarming today to hear reports of the Solomons earthquake and a 'small tsunami' headed our way. That's small as in less than a metre, apparently; though people in Auckland were turned away from beaches, here at Onetangi Beach, which faces north, it was just another laid-back day with no official pronouncements or alarms or even alerts.

We got the news by text from the Firstborn, working on the story at the Herald - but have in just a few days slipped so thoroughly into the Waiheke ambiance that we were more concerned that she would finish work in time to catch the ferry over for our dinner reservation. So, to sum up, that's an official tsunami warning, and not only are we lying about unperturbed in a ground-floor apartment 20 metres from the beach, but we’re encouraging our daughter to commit herself to getting out on the water. Says it all about how relaxing this place is, right?

The camera never lies?

You know that's not true, it never was, it's always been about the choices the photographer makes in looking through the viewfinder. And it's even less the case now, what with Photoshop and all. So you'll be looking at this photo of Onetangi Beach on a sunny summer's afternoon and thinking, "Yeah, right. How many people is that tree hiding? How many are on the other half of the beach?"

And you know what? You're absolutely right. The beach isn't deserted at all. Here's the view looking the other way. Blackpool! (In fact, there is a Blackpool on Waiheke, and it's pretty much just like this, except windier today. Fact.)

Life's a beach (what, that's been done?)

Well, the locals didn't get their rain, and we holidaymakers didn't get our sun, so nobody on Waiheke was satisfied today. The birds on the beach didn't seem much bothered either way, the white-fronted terns gathered neatly together all facing into the wind, the black-backed gulls being nagged by their pathetically-squeaking huge offspring, and the busy oyster-catchers stabbing with their long red beaks after shellfish. None of them was concerned about me as I trotted past along the hard sand, wondering what I was being reminded of.

It only took the length of the beach (estimates vary: I'm going with 2.5km) to remember: the last time I took a long walk on sand was in the Bay of Fires, in north-east Tasmania. Named by European explorers for the cooking fires lit by the local Aboriginal people along that bit of coast, it's a series of stunning white-sand beaches divided by big weathered rocks orange with algae, and backed by dense green bush. The silica sand is truly white, squeaking underfoot, and it makes the colour of the sea that much more brilliantly blue, so that it feels as though someone has ramped up the saturation just a bit too far for reality.

Apart from one lighthouse and a sprinkling of homes near it, there's just sea and sand and nature, which included wombats and kangaroos, and one stinky dead whale. For four days we walked along the sand and over the headlands, longish days sometimes but not especially strenuous being so flat, and always spectacularly colourful on those (luckily) clear, sunny days. We stayed in fixed tents one night and in a fancy eco-lodge for two, and ate incredibly well. It's a part of Tasmania that tourists tend to bypass, but it's well worth the effort of getting there - and getting out and hands-on with it. Do it!

Change

Some things never change, hooray: like this sign. But others do. Here we are, back on Waiheke Island for the annual week of actual holiday, but this time just the one generation fronting up. Though the Firstborn, happily, is popping over for a night and a day, the Baby is well out of it this year. No more long days on the beach lubricated with melting icecream and Frujus, and sunblock - but, equally, no more whingeing over having to do the washing-up by hand, or trails of sandy footprints across the floor, or days beginning far too early - or, latterly, far too late.

This time we're not back at dear old Palm Beach, but at long, open Onetangi where, in late summer, they have Beach Day at low tide, with ponies and horses and ancient tractors and rich men's toys racing along the hard sand, while people dig holes and build sandcastles and parade silly hats and eat and drink and watch from along the top of the beach. Today, in the wind, the sand was relatively deserted, the sea enjoyed only by the kite surfers skimming along, and just a few doughty souls messing about at the water's edge, leaving the sand empty for the oyster-catchers to fossick in undisturbed.

It always amuses me that the side streets here are grandiosely numbered avenues as though we were in New York, when the place could hardly be more different. Especially this year, when after the dry summer we've had (sorry, Queensland, really truly sorry for your dreadful floods - again) people's rainwater tanks are running low but there's a more than three-week delay on getting a refill from the tanker. The grass is brown and crisp, part of the hills at Ostend are blackened by fire from some idiot teenager playing with fireworks, and the seagulls are drinking from the puddles at the garden centre. The locals are hanging out for rain: but, selfish holiday-makers that we are, that's the last thing we want this week, thanks.

Overseas experience

And off went the Baby today, on her OE, all that excitement and challenge and novelty and discovery ahead of her. She's 21, a year younger than when I set off with my pack on my back and not enough money in my pocket - she's much better equipped, with a bike in a box, an inheritance in the bank and two friends to share the experience with, and she's only going to Melbourne to begin with, thank goodness. She's just an instant text, email or phone call away, unlike in 1977 when letters took about 3 weeks to send and get a reply to, phoning was prohibitively expensive, and no-one at home had much idea of where I was or what I was doing at any stage. Independent travel was, thrillingly and scarily, exactly that then, but as the one left behind this time I'm glad things have changed.

She's not going to be travelling as I did, first around Australia and then with a friend to Indonesia on the well-trodden overland trail through South-East Asia towards Europe (though for me on that first attempt the money ran out at Singapore and I flew straight to London, sending a telegram ahead of me); but she will have plenty of challenges nonetheless, grown-up ones of finding somewhere to live and a proper job. She's already lived in Germany, and been on family holidays to Sydney and the Gold Coast and California and England and Europe, she's resourceful and mostly sensible, and she'll do fine. She'll have a great time in Melbourne, which has quietly become a much cooler city than Sydney and has all sorts of fun and culture to enjoy. I'm missing her heaps already, but's going to be a wonderful new stage of her life.

I hope, and trust.