Playing pooh sticks

"Bother,” said Pooh, as it floated slowly under the bridge. So Pooh went to get another fir cone, but then thought that he would just look at the river instead, because it was a peaceful sort of day. So, he lay down and looked at it, and it slipped slowly away beneath him, and suddenly, there was his fir-cone slipping away too. "That's funny," said Pooh. "I dropped it on the other side, and it came out on this side! I wonder if it would do it again?"
-The House At Pooh Corner, by AA Milne

So here I sit in an air-conditioned newsroom, getting ready for the New Year’s Eve rush. I’m writing this in bits and pieces, in between doing actual work.

This time yesterday he and I were standing on a bridge in a sun-drenched valley, playing pooh sticks. If you don’t know what pooh sticks are, you’re missing out on a lot of childish fun.

Here’s how to play pooh sticks:
Take two to five people.
Collect a handful of sticks each.
Find a bridge and stand on the upriver side of it, so the current is flowing towards your back.
On the count of three every one drops a stick over the side.
All players then run to the other side of the bridge. Whoever’s stick is first to make it under the bridge is the winner.

We had both been lulled in to a semi-soporific state by the heat and lack of sleep, so we decided to go for a walk. And it was when we came to a picturesque stream shaded by poplars, at the bottom of the hill, that the idea of pooh sticks occurred to me. Fortunately he, like me, isn’t above being a big kid when the mood takes him.

The stream may have been picturesque but it wasn’t an ideal pooh sticks stream. The current was very sluggish – it took the sticks about 15 minutes to drift under the bridge and they never really made it. So we walked to the next stream down the road. Nice fast current, but lots of rocks for the sticks to snag on. Ooh, the tension, the drama! Will it make it through or will it be doomed? Most of the sticks became stuck, so there were very few outright wins.

But who cares? In a quiet valley redolent with summer heat, not much seems to matter. Not even who wins at pooh sticks.

Save our rivers

(Warning: serious ranting ahead)

E.coli has been found in the lagoon at Flounder Bay.

According to an article I read online today, the lagoon has been declared off-limits for humans and animals after water testing there on Christmas Eve found E.coli levels which “significantly exceed the maximum levels recommended, [with] excessive amounts of faecal matter”.

Yuk.

Apparently heavy rain in the hills washed effluent and other discharges down from inland farms and tributaries and in to the stream that feeds the lagoon.

The article ended by saying the lagoon often exceeds bacteria levels and “is generally not safe for swimming”.

The sea at Flounder Bay is dangerous and unpredictable; but the lagoon is very calm, with lovely warm water. It’s deep enough to swim in, but not deep enough to be dangerous. There was a time every summer afternoon would see families parked up on the shores of the lagoon, the kids splashing, wading, boogie-boarding or wallowing in it. But I haven’t seen any one swimming or even paddling there for at least five years. When I was there at the beginning of this month, the water stank and looked disgusting.

How many generations of East Coast children have grown up pottering about in that lagoon? Perhaps my generation was the last.

+ + + +

Almost every day I wear a pendant made from a piece of Manawatu river greywacke I found at Ashhurst, just because I love that river so much.

The Manawatu river is one of the major rivers of the lower North Island. It begins east of the Ruahine range, cuts through it and travels for 300km before eventually spilling in to the Tasman Sea at Foxton Beach, on the west coast.

The Manawatu is an ancient river – it’s been there longer than the mighty mountains it passes through. There is no other river in Aotearoa-New Zealand like it.

Its estuarine mouth is a wetland of such value it has been declared an international RAMSAR site. Thousands of birds, some of them rare and endemic, live, breed, feed and migrate at the Manawatu estuary.

But we humans treat this river like a rubbish dump. Sewerage from Palmerston North, Feilding, Shannon and Foxton spill in to it. Fonterra’s dairy plant at Longburn pours over 8,000 litres of wastewater a month in to it, along with wastewater from a piggery and a tannery. [Edit: actually that figure is wrong. Fonterra dumps 8,500 cubic metres of wastewater in the Manawatu river per day.] The Manawatu region is one of the most dairy intensive parts of the country, so all that nice dairy effluent is also dumped in this once-majestic river.

How much longer can this continue with out affecting the river’s health, not to mention the health of our wetland bird populations?

+ + + +

These are just two examples, and unfortunately they’re not unusual.

Here in Aotearoa we like to think of ourselves as “clean and green”. That’s how we market ourselves overseas; yet we do little or even nothing to be clean and green. Sure, we’re not as badly polluted as many other countries, but do we want to be? We’re only lucky we have such a small population.

When are farmers, councils and ordinary New Zealanders going to realise what we are doing to our rivers? They should be treated as the taonga they are. They are the life-blood of our land and as such they need to be cared for, looked after, nurtured; not treated like a sewer.

I’ve written this under the steam of a furious rage. This is some thing I care strongly about. I feel as though I must do some thing about the situation: but what? Most people couldn’t give a toss about the fate of the rivers they see every day.

Well, may be they will care when their rivers are so badly polluted it's too dangerous to go near them, the fish have died and the birds have left. What a depressing thought.

Solitude. Melancholy. Bones.

"And the Sea became a word of fear among them, and a token of death, and they turned their faces away from the hills in the west."

-Prologue from The Lord Of The Rings, by JRR Tolkien

For what am I thankful tonight? My legs, which carried me there and back and are now sunburned, salt-grimed, blackberry-scratched and bruised. All indications of a fantastic day!

I puzzled at first over the impulse I had to invite him here. After all, didn’t I come here for solitude? But he has proven to be the perfect companion for this place. We appreciate the same things: the bird life, the trees, the sea, the soaring cliffs, the isolation. The solitude. Although we have talked lots (and lots) I don’t feel in any way that my solitude has been broken.

So perhaps a sympathetic companion can be just as good – if not better – as solitude.

I just wish he wouldn’t walk so fast.

By 9am there were already 25 cars on the beach, this being Saturday and a very fine day. The camp is full of families. I am literally the only woman here who doesn’t have a swag of tamariki attached to her.

So I stayed away from the beach and headed inland instead. Over hills of kahikatea and redwood and pine and through hidden valleys where nothing stirred but the insistent call of the kotare: ha-ha-ha-ha! Lonely places I probably had no business to be tramping through; but no-one saw me, so who cares?

I’m reading The Lord Of The Rings just now, and this landscape made me feel as though I had wandered in to the book. Some thing about the lonesomeness, the slight air of threat that pervades this place, the ancient feel. I’m sure those are elves singing in the redwood forest; and any minute now the Rohirrim will come thundering out the head of that valley.

After I had walked up a good, hobbit-like appetite (he’s convinced I’m an elf but I think I’m more of a Pippin or Merry), I went back to the redwood forest where I settled down under a tree beside a tiny stream, to eat my lunch and read for a few hours, undisturbed.

I left at just the right time. As I was nearing the forest’s entrance I passed a family – the first people I’d seen all day. A bright-eyed boy of about five called out, Look! There’s a mighty hunter coming in from the forest!

(I’ve been called many things in my life, but never a mighty hunter.)

His older brother replied, That’s not a mighty hunter, that’s a girl. And she’s got a ring in her nose, he added, in a tone of deep disapproval.

I saved the beach for this evening, which is in any case my favourite time to be there. I took the scenic route – along the camp road, through the kahikatea bush and the village (the sign says, Welcome to Flounder Bay: population 11) and on to the beach.

On the camp road I met six horses wandering about. Now, I’m not a horse person. I never went through that horsey phase little girls are supposed to. I’d go so far as to say I’m a little scared of the beasties. But I had met these horses before and they seemed friendly. So I picked a handful of clover and held it out to the nearest horse. He ate it, let me stroke his nose, and I carried on walking.

At least, I tried to. But the horse walked right behind me and gave me several not-so-subtle nudges: I want more clover. I ignored him and kept swinging along. But now the other horses sauntered over to join in the fun. The horse was walking so close – his head right over my shoulder – that his whiskery nose tickled my cheek. Suddenly I became aware of his jaws chomping and looked round in a panic. The rascal was attempting to eat the woollen hood of my jersey!

So, picture me: afraid of horses, not visible from the road and at least half a kilometre from the big house, being followed by a string of horses, one of which has attached itself very firmly by the teeth to my hood.

I tried walking faster. Stupid idea. I felt hot, horsey breathing in my ear, then a sharp tug at my scalp. The horse was chewing on my hair. That was it; I’d had enough of these equine antics. Some how I managed to pull away and turned to look the horse right in the eye.

NO! I said, very firmly, and held up a warning finger. Just as I when Little Princess or Teddy Bear are behaving badly. To my surprise (and great relief) the horses backed away, their ring-leader snorting a little. They blinked their big eyes innocently as if to say, But we were just playing a game!

The beach was deserted but for two boys who popped out of the sea and waved cheerily at me as they stowed their surf boards in the car. I walked south along the beach; the familiar long arm of Te-Matau-A-Maui looked eerie and distant – a deep mauve colour with a band of peachy sky above it. I crossed the river and sat down on an old log with my back to the sea and contemplated the cliffs.

All along this coast the cliffs are impressive: twisted layers of sand and mud and limestone. They’re dangerous too – crumbly to the touch, and great chunks often fall from the heights to smash on the beach below. I love the way these cliffs echo the sound of the sea. It’s bizarre how the echoes seem to come from inside the cliffs. I remembered a conversation he and I had had two evenings earlier as we sat at that very spot at twilight.

When I was a kid, I whispered, I was convinced there was a secret world behind that cliff. If only I could find the hidden entrance.

I believe you, he whispered back. Look over there, next to that blackberry bush.

I looked. A dark shape, like the mouth of a cave.

I’ve never seen that before, I said.

That’s the secret portal, visible only at twilight and dawn, he replied solemnly.

Shall we go and explore?

Well, we could…But, you know, once you go in you can never come out.

Oh. I thought about that for a bit. May be another time. Let’s go back and have a brew.

An excellent idea, he said, and stood up.

Just as well neither of us was entrusted with the One Ring, isn’t it?

I have been fixed by a powerful melancholy, which I seem unable to shake off. It started yesterday at Earthquake Bay, as we turned back towards Flounder Bay.

How different Earthquake Bay was from the last time I was there, when it snowed – all sunshine and hazy sky and turquoise sea and peaceful hills. But still that brooding, bewitching magic, a hint of menace, tingled in the air. It could be all in my head, knowing as I do the violent history of Earthquake Bay. But he was affected by the place too.

I really didn’t want to leave. I lay in the sand collecting cat’s eyes and watched him drifting up and down the waterline, taking photos. We were the only people there. All I wanted was to stay there and fade in to nothing but a memory, my bones picked clean and eventually crumbling in to the sand…

Strange thoughts! That was when the melancholy started. Melancholy isn’t necessarily a bad thing – although left too long it can become depression; and that is bad. Depression is an absence of colour and pleasure and hope, and it’s frightening. But melancholy is a temporary sadness, often caused, I find, by a loss – of some thing I had, or some thing I never had. What is it that I want?

Melancholy can also hold me when I have solitude in a beautiful place – and, paradoxically, melancholy makes me appreciate beauty and solitude even more than normal. Today I walked down to the beach in the afternoon, and was blasted by a stiff easterly wind. I felt myself overflowing with salt and sand and tang and fresh air and aloneness. As if I had become what I had imagined at Earthquake Bay – exposed bones, bleaching in the sun…

I could have a worse fate.

+ + + +

Photos:
1, 3 and 4 by Anne-Marie
2, 5, 6 and 7 by Pohangina Pete

(This post is made up of bits and pieces written in my journal over the week. They’re not necessarily in chronological order.)
(All place names have been changed to protect the innocent.)