A Bonnetful of Bees

In 1948 Dad bought a section on the beach at Big Bay on the northern tip of the Awhitu Peninsula, and using army surplus materials which were freely available at the time built a bach for the family.

Shortly after that he bought a  runabout which was powered by the engine from an old Bren Gun Carrier, and had a rooster tale about 6 foot high, but for a start we had a couple of dinghies, the first 8 feet long and the second 12 feet.

Both were kauri clinker boats from the yard of Freddy Brooks, whose farm is now a regional park on the Awhitu Peninsula. He was renowned for the seaworthiness of his small boats and later, in the bigger of the two, Dad and Roy Hull each caught swordfish at Mayor Island with the other crewing and managing the outboard.  When I read The Old Man and the Sea for the first time, I already knew about my dad’s adventures with a 314lb black marlin.

So, every school holidays, Dad would drive us up to the bach, and leave us there while he looked after the farm, and came and joined us when he could organise cover.  When I was about 14, Mum became very ill, and spent most of the year in hospital.  The bach was sold to pay the bills.  But those years in between are still magical, the characters as real as any that Bruce Mason brought to life onstage in The End of the Golden Weather.

The bach was an hour’s drive at least over winding gravel roads, and carsickness was almost inevitable.  Usually it was Mum and Dad in the cab of the truck, you’d call it a ute these days, but then it was a truck, a Ford, with high sides, and all of the bedding and clothes for the stay were wrapped up in blanket bundles and roped together, and us kids fitted in among them on the tray, usually with an adult for company.  Uncle Denis played a mean harmonica.

Anyhow, it had been nearly 30 years since I last visited, so I decided to combine a family visit to Waiuku with a day at the beach.  It was eery, looking at the landscape with two sets of eyes simultaneously, the old Pollock Store long gone, the dreaded Tram Gully section all paved and twice as wide as I remember, Zuill’s store on the Big Bay turn-off corner converted to a house – or replaced – difficult to recall exactly -  and hidden behind trees. And beach homes, growing thick on the ground as I headed down the hill to Big Bay.

I pulled up at the far end of the road, where a winding private driveway had replaced the old farm track that led up the hill and over to Orua Bay.  I checked for WE HATE DOGS signs, and there were none.  Alice approved and we set off down memory lane.  I could see flocks of wading birds down the beach further so I slipped the long lead on.

Alice discovered sand fleas.

The baches are a lot more substantial, and the lawns carefully manicured.  Along the beach further is a huge brick home and a man on a ride-on mower is cruising back and forth on a vast section. Alice is more interested in the water’s edge and so am I,  just for the moment.

Looks like there’s been a bit of a blow recently – the tiny mussels are usually found fastened securely to rocks at the far ends of the beach.  And the seaweed—that rings a bell or two.  Great seaweed tides I remember, when swimming was like wading through a swamp.

And here it all is again, great thick banks of it on the beach, drying out slowly and smelling.  Nothing like a smell to bring back memories. Nothing like a smell, full stop, says Alice.

Very good for the garden says my sister when I tell her about it.  We could have mulched several acres with this lot.

We carry on, and I search, at first in vain, for our old bach.  I can see what could be Austin Park’s old two storey fibrolite bach, but next to it where there used to be a small bach and a creek, there is now no creek, and a large, modern and sparkling beach residence. (I find out later the creek has been piped underground.) Next door is one that could be our old bach, but somebody’s photoshopped it.

It reminds me of the oldest hammer in the world, which had seen 47 new heads and several hundred new handles..  Basically, the floor plan is right, and the distance from the Parks’ old bach is about right.  The lupins have gone, the bunny grass has gone, the ice plant has gone and hibiscus are growing where no hibiscus ever grew in our time.  Aluminium joinery has replaced all the doors and windows, and the boat storage area-cum-extra sleeping space at the left hand end of the verandah is now fully enclosed. And somebody wastes valuable beach time mowing lawns.

We carry on, past a large flock of wading birds

Alice behaves herself admirably.  Up to the right as we near the end of the accessible beach is some iceplant at last.  It hasn’t all gone.

This was one of the best sand holders around when we lived here, and you can still find it here and there, on the Manukau and on the Kaipara.  Another bunch of memories flood in.

About half way along the beach, a large creek runs into the bay, and beyond that the beach is rocky and the baches are perched on the cliff where the Buttimore kids used to wait in ambush.

Just to the right of centre you can see a line running along the cliff about 2 metres up.  In our day, it was a ledge about a foot wide which we had to negotiate at high tide.  I am surprised to see anything of it left.  The creek is bigger and deeper than I remember, in contrast to most childhood things which tend to look smaller when we revisit them after many years.

Alice has a swim in the creek and we head back.

There were never as many waders here in our time, mainly seagulls and black backs.  Along by the van a couple of men are fishing and a bloke approaching my age is watching and we chat.  He’s been here for around 25 years, and I catch up on some of the familiar names.  Alice and I head back down to the campground and the beach store.

The clock on the first day of winter time says 11 o’clock, but my tummy says lunchtime and I order fish and chips.  They are superb.  I also inquire about prices for an overnight stay, which are very reasonable, and they are, he tells me, the only campground on the peninsula to accept dogs.  I had totally forgotten that Alice was a dog in the accepted sense of the word, and I found myself nodding.  It’s a dog-friendly beach and a dog-friendly campground.  What higher praise is there?

We have a half a day ahead of us and I decide to check out neighbouring beaches.  Graham’s Beach is stiff with campervans having lunch in the reserve alongside of NO CAMPING and WE HATE DOGS signs. We sniff loudly and head over to Orua Bay and find more of the same, but nowhere to park in any case.  There’s a good view out to Puponga Point with Cornwallis just over the hill.

It’s a rather wonderful cloud day.

We continue along the road to Wattle Bay and this one does all sorts of magical things to my memory.  The beach left by the receding tide is pristine.

I let Alice off the lead and she takes off for the sheer joy of it all,

even ignoring a wading bird along the way which quietly carries on about it’s business.

We carry on as far as the creek

I imagine this a descendant of one of the original trees that gave the beach its name.  Alice and I head back to the van and I put my feet up for a snooze for half an hour or so, and then we head back towards Waiuku and the wild west coast, stopping to check out the location  of Dad’s old farm at Te Toro.

We pause en route for a look at the old church at Awhitu Central

Right beside it is  a cenotaph, one of thousands like it throughout New Zealand, a memorial to those from the local district who served and those who died in the New Zealand armed services in two world wars.

Like most kiwis, I’m still reeling from the Christchurch earthquake and its 200 odd death toll, and it’s difficult at this remove to realise what the loss of 11,600 soldiers over six years must have meant to a small country.  Like the aftershocks in Christchurch, the deaths just kept on coming, around 200 a month, for year after year after year.

Westhead Rd takes us down to an overgrown public reserve, small size, and a piece of architecture right out of my childhood memories:

Back to Waiuku and out to the coast.  I reckon on some rissoles for dinner but the cold section of the fridge in the van is working so well the mince is solid.  Bacon and eggs and toast instead, and a cup of coffee.  Then off for a walk.  It’s a different piece of coast from Rimmers.  The sand is fine and black and hard – and invasive.  Even when vehicles are doing doughnuts, they hardly penetrate the surface.

Instead of sand dunes, there are soft clay cliffs bordering the beach, and the low tide beach is flat and wide.

We head south for half an hour and return.  The beach is popular and the carpark is usually occupied.  There is an active surf club with large headquarters. When Mum was alive, this beach was a regular haunt of hers for long walks and her house was full of shells and old glass fishing floats and strange bottles and other treasures.

We climb into the van and head back to Carol and Peter’s for the night.  It’s been a good weekend.