Steve Braunias on five hours of quality loafing.
There they all were these past few weeks, every New Zealand family - whitey, Māori, mixed-race, blended, in-laws, old codgers, fat babies, dogs - hanging out together in holiday homes and tents and caravans and motels, enjoying that holiest and most precious single event in New Zealand life: summer. Summer, which makes the rest of the year in our cold and dangerous archipelago worth all the effort. Summer, radiant and easy. And there I was, too, enjoying and experiencing the great New Zealand ritual of a family summer holiday, for five hours.
I stayed home a lot. It was nice. Auckland emptied out like a shell; you could put it to your ear and hear the sea. The city was as quiet as a country town or a seaside town in winter. I slept, I barbecued, I swam in the pool. But every now and then I thought: I wonder what summer feels like on some distant Kiwi shore, with sand on the pavements, a fish on the line, a game of cards played on deckchairs in the shade.
A family generously invited my daughter to go camping with their daughter somewhere in the Coromandel. We arranged that I'd take her on the bus to Thames and they'd take her from there. The timetables meant that I'd arrive at about 2.10pm and return at 7.40pm. That sounded great to me: an afternoon to loaf around Thames, that flat, watery town on the edge of a plain.
The bus ride was only two hours. We wanted it to last a lot longer because we had so much fun chatting and playing cards and pointing at pretty trees and fields outside the window. It was nice to travel in the countryside on a warm day, the sun high in the sky, the grass short and brown, the day dazed with summer. "I love you so much," she said.
"You're the best dad in the world." And then: "Are you crying?"
