Kids into Books: The Lies of Harry Wakatipu

Several months later I was sitting on the doorstep drinking a mug of tea. Wiki was baking bread. I was so pleased to have her back I almost cried but remembered Rule Three.

"What's that noise?" asked Wiki.

"I just sniffed."

"Haven't you got a hanky?"

Wiki came to the door and listened. I heard a noise like a bottle filling. A skinny string of blue water trickled down, filled a hole in the river-bed, and ran to the next. It started filling the pool below the waterfall.

Six months later, the first water reached the lake, and you could say the Hopuruahine River was back.

It was a good couple of years, though, before it rose to its old level. My mother's home-made dynamite was pretty strong stuff.

We fly-camped up the Tundra, over the Ruakituri, and across the Waimana into the Whakatane. We poached the other deer cullers' blocks. While we sneaked into their camps and flogged their condensed milk, they sneaked into our camps and flogged our condensed milk. They also read out tracks, and word got around that Wiki the storytelling dog was back.

*Tomorrow: The unusual camp visitors.