Tuppy and Danny and Waka Gold

There are some who believe old-fashioned values like hard work, dedication and concern for others is not particularly applicable to modern society, that life is too hard and fast to be bothered. But there are some, perhaps too few, who don't buy into that sentiment and still believe dedication and selflessness will result in pride. Let's go back a bit.

One part of this story begins in Murapara, a forestry town in Te Arawa country. It belongs to Tuppy - her father called her 'Tuppence' and the shortened version has stuck.

The other part concerns her husband, Danny, who began waka ama paddling because he'd been 'bashed around' by rugby. The team were 'good fellas but misfits' but he progressed enough to win three medals at his first nationals on Lake Karapiro. As he was standing on the podium he listened to a haka being performed in the team's honour.

I had a vision that day, that I would return home and give that {feeling} to the children.

Tuppy had played rugby too, at second five-eight - running away from the big ones she calls it - but she wasn't what you'd call a water person and her first foray in a waka on the Manukau Harbour was on one of the roughest days of the year. Some how she stuck with it.

Over the next dozen or so years they continued paddling successfully and travelling constantly from Auckland to Danny's marae at Te Tii. They tried to set up a club for the kids in the early days but without either of them being there permanently it withered. As their house on the hill overlooking the Te Tii bay began to take shape Tuppy moved permanently to Te Tii while Danny stayed working in Auckland during the week and driving north for more than three hours every weekend.

It became harder and harder to go back to Auckland, he says by way of understatement looking at the trillion dollar view from his sitting room, so on his 50th birthday, celebrated at Te Tii with paddler friends from Manukau, he decided not to.

And so The Kaihoe O Ngati Rehia Trust was born to get kids in strife off the sofa and the streets and into waka ama and with the help of Kerikeri policeman, Rob Cameron, they were able to use the Blue Light canoes for the first of their 'Have A Go' days. About 30 children and their parents turned up and as word spread for other similar days that number increased. Danny might have been 'knackered' at the end of the day showing what was required and steering the canoe but two things happened.

The young kids began to respond, to get fit, even if they were 'unco' in a canoe at first. The second was a slow acceptance by the community that the presence of Danny and Tuppy Kaiawe in the village wasn't fly-by-night.

I was considered an outsider because I'm not from here, says Tuppy. But they didn't accept Danny either. We just did our own thing and at one meeting on the marae one of the kuia said to the men 'you stay in your corner because they know what they're doing' and the results began to show.

They certainly did. At the first nationals in 2011 the J16s won gold and the W12 team (two canoes strapped together) won bronze and she might have been 'shocked' but Tuppy's voice was hoarse from yelling from the sidelines.

Waimana Riedlinger won gold - he was 12 - as Kingi Herewini came fourth in the J16s. The potential was very clear and that brings us to the world waka ama championships in Calgary in Canada in August. Tuppy went with the team as mentor and team mother. Kingi won gold and returned to a hero's welcome, like the Far North's Olympic sailors had done the same week but there was more. He earned respect from his elders on the marae and stood as a significant example to his peers.

Two more waka funded from a grant from Northland Health Board were blessed and named the day Kingi returned. Part of the funding brief is to build boxed gardens on the marae and plant fruit trees and it's why Danny Kaiawe, the coach and the mentor of these athletic kids, stayed home in Te Tii when Tuppy went to Canada. He wanted to carry on working, to feed a community.

Call this couple old-fashioned - and many did - but after three years at Te Tii and after Lake Karapiro on one side of the world and Calgary on the other - it's true meaning is manifest.

- Sandy Myhre.