Wha¯nau time is quality time
After years of independent travel around Europe, I worried how I’d readapt to holidays with the whole wha¯ nau. Yes, I love them and yes, I was keen to see more of New Zealand (and yes, I’m one of those who went overseas before seeing their own country properly). But I wasn’t sure that seeing the country with them would do our relationships any favours.
I have a bad habit of getting irritated with travel buddies who don’t want to climb every mountain, ford every stream, ransack every market and overindulge at every restaurant until they find their dream.
Or at least get to see as much of the place as possible in the usually too little time you have. And I worried they would get highly irritated with me as a result.
But mothers must be granted their wishes on their birthdays so, with mum approaching her 60th, we hired a bach in Motueka, planning to spend our few days in the Nelson-Tasman region sunning ourselves on its famously golden beaches, checking out some of its reputedly excellent vineyards and restaurants, and doing a kidfriendly bush walk or two.
Things began as I feared they would, with my then 6and 4-year-old niece and nephew waking me earlier than I’d get up on a workday to play games far too energetic for the pre-caffeinated. A tantrum over breakfast would typically ensue but, once we’d got in the car, the unfamiliar fields full of hops and plums and glimpses of turquoise ocean through thick native bush commanded our attention, and the screaming soon subsided.
We visited Kaiteriteri Beach and Anchorage Bay in Abel Tasman National Park, both longtime bucket-list destinations of mine that proved even prettier in real life than in the very pretty pictures I had seen.
While we spent our time there differently than I would have if I had been on my own or with a friend – splashing about in the shallows and building sandcastles rather than hiking and kayaking – I had just as much, if not more.
When the focus of your trip is on enjoying the company of your travel buddies rather than rushing around sites, you inevitably laugh – and relax – more.
Even Cyclone Gita couldn’t spoil it: The kids got the swimming pool they’d wished for when the torrential rain filled the ditch next door and my sister and I got footage of mum trying to retrieve outdoor furniture in a gale that still puts us in hysterics just thinking about it.
Lockdown has given us quantity time with the people in our ‘‘bubbles’’ but it’s hard to beat the quality time you get when you go away together on holiday.
Now we’re free to travel around the country again, I’m looking forward to helping plan the next family getaway and I have a feeling Carmen Parahi, who wrote this week’s cover story, might be too. ‘‘When I reflect on five decades of travel journeys, it is shared experiences with family and friends still influencing my everyday life,’’ she writes.
A trip to Te Tai Poutini 20 years ago proved particularly special, drawing her back time and time again. Read more about it on page 24.