Some short observations near a short river

THE shortest river in the southern hemisphere, at a length of just 1200m, is the Turanganui, and from the balcony of the Senator Motor Lodge in Gisborne I can see about a quarter of it. I’m curious to know how a river gets to be so short and I could easily set off upstream and find out, but it’s a warm evening and I’ve got a glass of scotch and in the end I’m not quite curious enough. Besides, if there is any point to being on holiday at all, it’s sitting still to watch the world.

Two bridges cross the river: the first a concrete road bridge as dull and straight as the National Party; the second a delight.

It’s a singletrack rail bridge, elegantly slender. But the wonder of it is that, as it spans the slow river, it curves through 60 degrees or so. I don’t know why it is so pleasing that a bridge should curve, but I am not alone in being drawn to it.

Now is the hour of evening promenade, when the heat has waned and the low sun’s like soft toffee and couples and families and tourists and old folks have emerged to walk gently from here to somewhere else and back, and several of them set foot on the bridge just because it’s there.

A boyfriend and girlfriend take selfies together, then the girl, laughing, lies on her back across the rails, and writhes as if tied down. The boy kneels to take a photo then pretends to be a train bearing down on her and she squeals in delighted terror. (The boy looks young enough to have been born this century,, yet the train he mimes is a steam train. The human psyche never took to diesel.)

A middleaged man in shorts and Tshirt zooms past below me on a child’s scooter. Some distance behind, like ducklings, come three little girls also on scooters, each wearing a pink crash helmet. ‘‘Wait, Daddy,’’ cries one, ‘‘wait for us.’’ But Daddy is away, deafened by speed, as some men are.

A battered white station wagon draws up at the kerb and a shambling man and his shambling wife get out and the car’s suspension visibly rises. They fetch rods and tackle from the boot and shamble splayfooted down to the river’s edge.

Both cast their lines, he much further than she. He plants his rod upright in a holder and feels the line with his finger. She sits on the sloping closemown bank. He comes over, takes the rod from her, winds in the line, casts again, hands the rod back and then sits behind her, his legs either side of her, his arms around her, as if the two of them were fishing from a bobsled.

A mother and little daughter stand at the start of the rail bridge in silent debate then venture out on to it. The girl clings tight as they step out over the water, but little by little her fear diminishes and then she steps up on to a rail and walks along it on tiptoe, like a gymnast on a beam, and it’s her mother now who is nervous and keeps close with arms out ready to catch her if she topples.

Scooter dad comes back, now wheeling his steed instead of riding it, reined in by responsibility, his ducklings proudly scooting at his side.

A middleaged woman in a young woman’s dress, and heels that are almost a circus act, totters up to a wastebin with a bag of fastfood rubbish. The bin has a lid like a volcanic cone and the hole in the top is too small for the bag. She tries to cram it through, gives up, looks round to see if anyone’s looking, and leaves the bag bulging out the top.

Twilight comes quickly this far north. Over the course of a second glass of scotch I watch the promenade of people dwindle to nothing, though the fisherman and wife fish on, seemingly there for the night. I watch the shadow line climb quickly up the trunks of the palm trees on the near bank of the river

And as another day draws to close at the mouth of the shortest river in the southern hemisphere, pigeons sail in to roost in the palms, their wings curved up like chalices to catch the last of the honeyed sun. (The shortest river in the northern hemisphere, by the way, is the Kuokanjoki River, in Finland. It is three and ahalf metres long.)