A camper’s tale - the sequel
So much for my Elysian camping holiday. I’m bodysore from sleeping – I use the word poetically – on a narrow torture-rack of a stretcher, then lumpy ground.
My feet wear galoshes of pain from sunburn, rowdy teens run riot in the ‘hood, and my diet for the last four days has been cheese sandwiches, with the cheese a liquid because my ‘car-fridge’ chillybin thinks it’s an incubator.
I finally own a gas-cooker to heat soup, but the wind has picked up, turning my pup-tent into bellows that thump, thump with each gust – ‘slumber’ unlikely again tonight.
I’m also lonely, to be honest, surrounded by large family groups of three or four generations, creating their own cheery nylon oases.
The surf is piddling, so the teens put out the call for another game of drop-bat cricket in my front yard. My nightly tour of the Tawharanui Regional Park campground, north of Auckland, is opportune. As I enter the ‘All Modes’ section (campervans permitted) I spot an ambulance next to a rental motorhome, or ‘moby’, as I call them.
Those old ambos make stylish camper conversions, and this owner has even retained the St John livery. Bear in mind my brain is fogged by sleep deprivation and mutating dairy products. I soon clock that it’s a real ambulance. Not good. I complete my circuit, and now the ambulance lights are flashing. Seriously not good.
I amzipped back into my bellows when the sickening beat of a rescue helicopter rallies campers. We are stunned to see a full fire-crew, who had slipped in to secure a landing site in the Tents Only area.
The ambo waits as the rescue chopper sweeps down. Why land here instead of in the All Modes, some distance away?
A doctor exits the chopper carrying gear, and hops into the ambulance.
From the lack of urgency, campers guess the emergency is no longer acute. Tensions ease.
Sure enough, the aircrew switch off the rotor and disembark to stretch legs. Pukeko lope around their boots.
This being New Zealand, a camper recognises one of the pilots, and sidles up with his kids to say hello. The youngsters gawk at the chopper while old mates chat.
After 10 minutes or so, the ambulance drives back to All Modes. Firefighters maintain their vigil, roasting in heavy kit under the last-gasp sun.
I dawdle back to my tent, which is a sweatbox all of its own. The medical drama becomes soundtrack only as the helicopter coughs into life and departs. Immediately after, the ambulance fires up its siren to leave.
Trauma unites people, and the campers now have conversational glue. The next morning the teens’ mother/carer reveals good sources – she asked a ranger – and solves the jigsaw puzzle.
The motorhome tourists had only been in the country a few days. They’d done well to suss out beautiful Tawharanui, but heaven turned to hell the split-second their toddler ate a pistachio nut and plunged into anaphylactic shock.
The poor child was in good hands quickly, and stable when returned by ambo to the family’s moby. However, medics decided on a precautionary night in hospital, hence the finale ride.
The teens’ mumand I express a universal relief. She’s a good sort, and yeah, the kids are okay too. They apologise whenever the tennis ball threatens to dimple my bonnet, and while normally I feel cricket is God’s way of preparing us for death, their ragtag game is an entertaining cabaret.
I’m already on a high, though. That morning my beach-walk acquired a companion – a large stingray cruising along the shallows for a good half-kilometre. They are majestic creatures, and benign – you’d have to stand on one to provoke its wrath.
(The whole Steve Irwin mishap we can write off as fated – he was never going to die of old age in his bed.)
After a swim and lunch, I tackle the Ecology Trail because it’s an easy stroll through regenerated bush, plus farmland. (Tawharanui, the Swiss army knife of conservation, is an ‘open’ bird sanctuary and a marine sanctuary rimmed by postcard beaches.)
A couple of fat, juicy kereru almost land on my head. They are fully protected, of course, but they’d still do well to blunt temptation by hitting the gym more.
The cries of tui and bellbird fill the air. I’m hunting the rare saddleback. This little tyke enchants birdwatchers despite having a song, I’m told, like an old motormower starting up.
No munted Masports detected, so I’m disappointed as the bush thins out.
Not 20m ahead a couple of bulbous pukeko skitter into the scrub. Holy mother, those aren’t pukeko, they’re takahe – a bird thought extinct until half a century ago, nursed back from the brink through heroic effort.
I’d seen signs saying they’d been released into the sanctuary, but you never imagine sighting one. As I creep forward, there they are, just inside the bush cover, watching me as I watch them.
I’m looking at living ghosts, and my crusty heart is racing like a lovesick greenie. The walk finishes on a bubble of air.
Perhaps I’m sleeping on the same cushion because I manage some decent shuteye at last. Refreshed by cereal and tea, I walk the long bay for the last time. My stingray pal is a no-show. I make the mistake of looking down at my scarlet feet.
Goodness, that’s a pretty shell. And that. Wow, a delicate koru … Retracing a 30min stroll takes two hours, pockets bulging.
Beachcomber Mode has kicked in. It always happens at holiday’s end. Then again, another day and I’d be weaving a loincloth out of flax leaves, or extracting my own teeth.
Goodbye youthful camping. Not a stellar reunion. Lessons learnt? Head-height is a must. Likewise orthopaedic queen mattress, plus watertightness and soundproofing.
Who are we kidding? Buy a moby.