Every week my partner's extended family gather for a nosh-up at his 90-year-old mother Tina Koppen's house in Tamahere. On Saturday, I was biking back to my house, thinking about pumping up my flat tyres when, KABOOM!
I swear the force of the explosion propelled me faster downthe road. When I twigged it wasn't thunder, I turned and headed towards the sound and the sight of a big fireball jetting into the sky.
Then I thought there might be more blasts so I swerved into the yard of my partner's brother, Arnold, to keep my distance from Icepak's coolstore, which was starting to bleed flames.
Looking pale, his partner Raewyn joined me. Her windows had blown out; things had fallen off her walls. She'd dialled 111.
People came running from the wedding reception, the Tamahere School's Pumpkin Festival (where I'd planned to eat tea) and from the Koppens compound - Leo, Arnold, sister-in-law Liz and brother-in-law Paul. Everyone did what they could.
It was scary watching people do CPR on a firefighter. The firemen were bloody and black and staggering. People helped them away. The flames grew, the smoke billowed out and up.
The firemen had no water. We tried to help them get some from Arnold's tank. The hook-up wouldn't work. Then the water tankers started to arrive. More fire engines.
With no other useful thing to do, I thought I should record things and biked home to get my camera.
We headed home around 9pm. We ate, showered, looked constantly out the window at the frightening sight. I went to bed around 2am and was awake at 4am. I put the clocks back for daylight saving but couldn't sleep the extra hour. Before dawn, we went to take another look at what had happened to our paradise.
* Stevenson, a former Herald journalist, is a freelance writer.
