The First Morning
Waking up in the morning by the sea I cannot believe the gorgeous view. The sea is sky blue, smooth, and so serenely pretty. It is early morning. Stepping outside, the air is cool and crisp.
There is a sense of peace and stillness. Outside the bus door is a large log. I feel like time has stopped. All I want to do is cook toast for breakfast over the little cooker, and sit on the log to have it. I have this sense of stepping back into the past of many a camping trip in days gone by, sitting for hours getting a fire going in the shallow fire and bbq area, and cooking breakfast over it to the sound of the birds, and quiet beauty of the NZ bush.
We make ourselves breakfast, sitting and eating it on the log. The log is the trunk of a tree, sawn off at each end, placed I guess along with others to mark the edge of the carpark. It would be easy to arrive in the dark with the tide out like we did, and having no idea where the sea came up to and parking for a time to end up in the sea when the tide came in. As we enjoy the morning stillness fishermen arrive, towing their trailers and boats. One after another they launch their boat into the water, park their vehicle, and then hopping into their boat, cruising slowly away. Their wake coming into shore, barely makes a dent in the overall calm surface. This is glorious. So calm and peaceful. Birds come and go, a shag sits on a stick poking out of the water at the river’s edge. It is unexpectedly idyllic. A promise of days to come.
This, though is not where we had intended to be today. We had left later yesterday than we planned, not stressing because we had known about a spot we could park at. It was our first night in the bus, and we were naive thinking it was simple job finding places to park. When we had got to our chosen spot we found it was cordoned off for a half-marathon. We had found ourselves in a quandary not knowing what to do. I had run into the only shop, a little dairy nearby and asked “Was there a campground here”. We were told to carry on along the road about 10 minutes to a small settlement and there was one there. The journey in the dark along the narrow, winding road, was slow and took us much longer than I had been told. When we finally got there we couldn’t find the campground. We drove up and down the road, all the way to the beach, and back and couldn’t find it. Turning around, we had driven back to the start of town – and then back to the beach and back. Still we couldn’t find it anywhere. Time was long getting on. We hadn’t known what to do. I knew from previous camping days that even now we would be unlikely to find a camp office open anywhere else, let alone the long drive we had before us to find another campground. At a loss we had gone back to the beach. Piles of people were there having a party in the carpark. In the end had we stayed there, not knowing what to do. We realized for the first time, and definitely not the last time, camping was not what it used to be. In the days when the children were little, and we were younger, spots to set up the tent were everywhere. As long as there was a clearing and a toilet of some description you could camp for the night. Often times down some goat track somewhere, a long drop beside a stream was our home. Where-ever we could find. Now it has to be much more planned. You have to go armed with lists of places you are allowed to stop at, and its is all ruled and regulated. There is very little spontaneity in it anymore. We were fortunate to find ourselves such a picturesque spot and to stay the night without any trouble. We could have had a problem, one that we were not equipped at this stage to solve. We had nothing on us we could use to find another place to stay. Turning up late at night,too, can be an obstacle if things don’t work out at your chosen parking spot. Time will show we are a slow learner on that one. Day one has turned out to be a learning curve.
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