KEY POINTS:
The weather forecasters might be able to say ka kite ano but their knowledge of the Far North is abysmal. Unlike the weather up here, at Tokerau Beach, to be precise, where I've spent Christmas and New Year before filing this column then heading further north (the Far, Far North?) to camp out until my next deadline. Just one teensy little column - surely readers won't notice its absence, I argued with my conscience. Alas, a column missed is a pay cheque forfeited. Needs must, when there is a university student to support.
So here we are enjoying endless days of glorious sunshine, contrary to what has been predicted each night for this part of the country. In the minds of the staff at the Met Office, does Northland end at Whangarei?
Or has this become New Zealand's forgotten territory, discarded in the rush to package the news and weather as light entertainment?
Unfortunately, the beaches have not been forgotten by the petrolheads, hoons, and noise polluters. While other formerly peaceful retreats I've long given up on, the Marlborough Sounds for instance, have been taken over by jet-skiers, Tokerau Beach - and other public beaches up here for all I know - is heavily populated by trail- and quad-bikers. It's not just the noise they make, like one hundred chainsaws amplified through boom-box speakers atop the car instead of inside, it's the beach and road hazard caused by these inconsiderate, spoiled children of ghastly rich parents.
Daddies drive 4WD utes with front and back seats, wear wraparound sunglasses (sometimes on their heads), and singlets stretched over huge bellies. They're usually called Barry, as in "giz another chardonnay Barry" (from the wife), or "roadie Baz?" (from the mates).
Mum's huge too. Bosoms (you could never call these nungers breasts) like ferrets fighting in a sack. Voices a politician would die for - clearly along half this 20km beach you can hear them calling "you bloody kids" home for dinner. Ultimate family member? Stupid, ill-trained yappy dogs like Jack Russells or Bichon Frises.
And everywhere are crashes waiting to happen; newspaper headlines in the making, as little kids zoom around on huge (and sometimes mini) quad-bikes, barefoot and hatless, all over the road and tearing out of driveways without looking.
Returning from our evening stroll about 9pm, when darkness reduced visibility to about 4m maximum, two youngsters on two quad-bikes were greeted by their parents with only the caution: "Be careful on the road with no lights."
No lights and a mere "be careful"? I could see the front page already: distraught parents - "they were such good kids; we hope they haven't died in vain; we only just bought the bikes for Christmas."
Good kids no doubt. Stupid parents undoubtedly. The children don't deserve to die and they do die in vain, because no one takes any notice when it happens to someone else. I know, because this paper has run that very story about a quad-bike fatality, and still parents insist on believing these things are toys.
So there'll be a campaign by a grieving parent for new laws to be passed, just as there was when Carolina Anderson was bitten by a dog. And as with the mandatory micro-chipping of dogs which only responsible owners obey, all the sensible owners of quad-bikes, who know their potential for lethal outcomes, will be lumped in with the idiots and punished.
Perhaps if the Government is seriously considering road user charges for all vehicles, they could take a look at just how many quad-bikes are illegally driven on the roads right now and extract some revenue from that direction.
But having had my little grizzle, and bikes notwithstanding, this Far North is still one of New Zealand's idyllic places where holidays can still be enjoyed simply for the price of getting here (in our Subaru, about $150 in petrol from Wellington). Campsites are abundant.
It's like returning to a happy childhood - taking the track through sand dunes down to the beach for a morning run and swim; pushing through the popping lupin bushes, pussytail grasses, and flax bushes still damp from the overnight dew.
Collecting scallop, turban and the occasional paua shells. Fishing for snapper off the rocks, or casting from the beach. Giving up after a morning of bites, and digging for tuatuas instead, to steam open and eat from the shell or mince and make into fritters.
White sand beaches stretching for miles and miles with unlimited access for everyone, rich or poor. In Europe, equivalent coasts have long been fenced off from the hoi polloi. But here it's ours to enjoy and, I hope, preserve for a future without trail- and quad-bikes.
