The waka haka

If it feels like we’ve been in New Zealand forever, especially in relation to the rapid succession that we bopped between countries and continents on the first leg of our trip, it’s because we have! Of the 10 months making up this ‘grand traveling trip’ as the boys like to call it, nearly 2.5 of them are focused on New Zealand. When you think about land mass to day ratio, it’s quite high, and we couldn’t be happier to have it that way. When designing our itinerary, we decided to dedicate a significant portion to this far away land, enough time to feel like we could really explore and understand its landscape, people and history. It is comparatively easy to pop over to Europe or even South and Central America on future trips, but to return to the Antipodes is a significant financial and time commitment, so we figured we might as well make the most of it!

We spent our last eight days on the South Island at its northern most point, the port town Nelson, not far from the Abel Tasman National Park. We lucked into a beautiful Airbnb in Tahanui, a little beach enclave about 10 minutes down the road from Nelson city center. It had giant windows and endless sunlight, a big open kitchen and the most beautiful bougainvilleasurrounding it, distracting you every time your eyes wandered outside with a massive swath of vibrant fuschia and magenta. Perhaps best of all, there was a badminton net in the yard that the boys instantly found, becoming the dominating force of our next 8 days. They dedicated hours of their lives to figuring it out, going from barely being able to make contact between the racket and birdie when we first arrived to laughter filled ruckus matches by the end that had us all volleying and diving across the yard. I was recently listening to an episode of the Freakonomics podcast titled “Can our surroundings make us smarter” that discussed the impact our surroundings have on our ability to focus, learn and be happy. It has been one of the most profound realizations of our trip so far, the impact that our house or hotel has on how settled we all feel and how deeply we’re able to connect to a place. I don’t mean in the way of luxury or fanciness, but in an energetic, grounding way. Our little beach cottage in Scarborough only cost $80/night and had a gap in the front and back door that was so big a resident mouse would sneak under it multiple times a day to snag scraps of food off the floor, and we couldn’t have loved it more. Sunlight would stream in the windows, and the kitchen, even with its electric coil stove (that didn’t work half the time when ‘load sharing’ power blackouts hit), invited us to cook whenever and whatever the boys were craving. The beautiful yard was filled with trees to climb and native plants and flowers that all together grounded us in space and time. From a homeschooling perspective, I’ve noticed that when we’re in a place filled with natural light, be it a kitchen table, a blanket in the backyard or the upper deck of a boat, the boys’ ability to focus and learn is monumentally different. Sorry, random tangent by Coral, but in a year marked by instability and forward motion, it’s interesting to discover what truly helps grounds us.

The ocean decided to go completely flat during our time in Nelson which meant no surfing,much to the boy’s dismay, but instead led to long exploratory kayaks and paddle board missions, hours and hours spent on the beach collecting shells and driftwood to decorate sandcastles and build massive stick-fort shelters. It was also a good opportunity to take advantage of that aforementioned grounding energy to catch up on some school work. We collected shells on the beach and made a clay/mud mixture out of flour, salt and coffee grinds to make our own fossils and practice being paleontologists. We started up Duolingo for daily Spanish lessons in preparation of our upcoming time in Ecuador. Huxley finished up his non-fiction book on Chameleons and Holden wrote his first opinion piece of “Why people should climb more trees”. We perfected our Badminton skills for PE and did our best to visit as many of the amazing playground/parks that seem to be around every corner here in New Zealand. I found a babysitter one day and Will and snuck into the Abel Tasman National Park for a long run along the coastal track, part of the 60-mile 4-day Abel Tasman track. We parked in Marahau and started cruising along, relishing the wide rolling nature of the trail that snaked through old growth tree fern forests (which I learned in our study of the history of the earth are some of the oldest plants on this planet, dating back 360 million years). Before we knew it we had reached the anchorage 8.5 miles away and realized we still needed to get back…I guess we got a little carried away by the novel nature of a rolling trail and running together 😊. 17 miles later we limped our way back to the car exhausted, happy, and very thankful for the fact that most national parks and nature attractions in New Zealand happen to have delicious little restaurants and cafes associated with them, this one specializing in woodfired pizza, ice cream and brownies.

We loved the park so much we brought the boys back the next day, this time for a day of homeschooling in the form of a Māori Waka Paddle. A ‘Waka’ is the traditional Māori boat, essentially an outrigger canoe, that was the travel and landing vessel on which the Māori came across the sea to New Zealand via over 800 years ago, a rather unfathomable feat when you pause to think of it! They use wakas for fishing, journeying, warcraft and, in this case, as a part of a cultural tour to connect visitors to native traditions. Our guide, Thomas, welcomed us in a Māori greeting ceremony before teaching us the basics of paddling, a few key Māori words, and into the waka we went. We took off on a 2-hour paddle adventure, Will and I at the front attempting to set a steady rhythm and pace, the boys behind us trying to match our strokes, and another family behind them rounding out our little tribe. We stopped at various islands and sacred sites along the way for Thomas to share insights and stories, and docked on a beach by Split Apple Rock, a wonderous giant round boulder that split perfectly in half during one of the last ice ages, to explore the native plants and learn about their medicinal qualities. The combination of physical adventure, story and culture could not have been more perfect for the boys and such a wonderful introduction into the beautiful, complex and intriguing Maori culture. We spent the remainder of the day on a little rental boat, crashing through the wind whippedwaves and exploring tucked away beaches and tiny remote islands without a person in sight. The Abel Tasman coast is a truly magical place.

Our time in Nelson marked the end of our South Island excursion. The last five weeks have been beautiful, inspiring and given us just enough of a taste of this beautiful land to make us all excited to come back. When the boys are a bit older, we can’t wait to return for all the multi-day treks across the island (The Routeburn Track and the full Milford Circuit are firsts on our list!), and I think we’ve convinced Holden that New Zealand would be a pretty good place to attend university…