A trip down memory lane

 

Punakaiki River Valley

 by K John Toomer.

 I was visiting a friend in a rest home when  this painting on the wall in the foyer caught my eye. I thought I recognized the area, it's the Punakaiki River on the West Coast of the South Island, NZ. As a child I spent a lot of summer weekends in this area as my uncle was building a batch on the river and he frequently took a carload of cousins, aunties and uncles out there for the day and, after the batch was completed, for the weekend.

The batch has long been sold now but here is a photo of Aunty, Mum, middle sis and me standing outside it when we visited it a few years ago when sis and I took Mum and  my eldest grand daughter over for a holiday. And this, below, is where we all rushed through the bush to the river to play and swim. No gates, fences or paths in those days though, just tracks we made of our own accord.

We swam in the river and at some stage there was a canoe we took turns in and just generally had a lot of fun. The boys went eeling under the bridge and uncle went whitebaiting. It was a great whitebait river and there were several people there in the season. Uncle, and others, would also go surf casting in the sea but I can't remember that we ever ate any fish. We must have.

Grand daughter just down river from the 'eeling' bridge.

The pancake rocks were just a couple of kilometres further up the road and on occasion everyone would go up for a look and see if the blow holes were blowing. The sea had to be fairly rough for that and an incoming tide but it was a great spectacle. We'd have a great time clambering over the rocks with the mothers shouting at us not to fall in because they weren't jumping in to get us :). 

That was in the days before it became a tourist spot and fences and paths were built. It all seems very tame now when I go back and remember what we got up to and I'd rather remember it the way it was. Maybe we were a bit foolhardy but it was a lot of fun and we survived. We only ever got into trouble the one time some of us went up by ourselves and didn't tell anyone until we got home to the batch.

One of the paths around the blowholes and pancake rocks.

Although I remember the boys taking a couple of kitchen knives and going into the bush for the day. Pig hunting they said when they got back. Needless to say they never saw a pig, which was probably just as well and they got a sound telling off when they got back. I think they were probably about 10 or 11.

I hope you enjoyed my little trip down memory lane, I have.

The photos are all more recent  but still give an idea of how things were.

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My prayers and thoughts are with the people in the Marlborough, Nelson, Tasman area.

Keep well and keep dry.

Diana