KEY POINTS:
Apparently, as cicadas sense that summer is drawing to a close they become increasingly noisier. There must be an apocalyptic change in the seasons drawing nigh then if the cicadas outside our Akaroa cottage are any indication.
I wonder what they can sense that I can't. It's a baking hot Canterbury morning, the sun wringing out a honeyed, aromatic smell from the manuka that is growing on the hillside above us. On a day like this I can't even imagine the chill of a southerly blast, the crunch of a heavy frost, the gloom of showery days.
Today we are taking our UK friends to Okains Bay, one of the deeply incised inlets that punctuate Banks Peninsula.
I'm used to the winding drive up the inside of the ancient Akaroa volcanic crater and the way the road clings to the rim. As a child I spent many a summer's day sitting on the side of the road as various family cars boiled with the effort of reaching the summit road.
However, our visitors are likening the road to something in the Pyrenees. Maybe it's the result of growing up in England's East Midlands where cathedral steeples are taller than most hills.
Windsurfers are zipping across the harbour far below us as we turn down the switchbacks into Okains Bay but to the north a deep layer of sea fog hangs over the Pacific.
We stop, with a palpable sense of relief from the Brits, outside the bay's Maori and Colonial Museum. Local resident Murray Thacker started the collection in the 1960s and since 1977 the museum has been open to the public, housed in the bay's former cheese factory.
The museum reflects the blending of the bay's Maori residents and European settlers who, in the 19th century intermarried. Whaling, then forestry and later agriculture saw a thriving settlement develop.
Inside the museum grounds are rare Maori artefacts, personal treasures from the early settler families, totara slab cottages, a meetinghouse and storehouse, even the old grandstand from Akaroa. The smithy is still fired up regularly and the printshop still has working linotype machines.
We wander fascinated among the exhibits for several hours until the lunchtime sandwiches, nicely cooking in the boot of David's rental car, start to call.
Unfortunately nestling somewhere near our picnic are the car keys which he has accidentally locked inside. The Akaroa AA man is called. Museum custodian Jackie Evans makes us cups of tea.
The AA man arrives, wedges a couple of blocks of wood into the door of the late model Holden and feeds a length of wire towards the dashboard. Muffled expletives filter up through his hunched frame. He's joined by a young Swiss backpacker, a roadside mechanic from Zurich. Mr AA is rather nonplussed at first - Kiwi male pride is at stake. There is visible bristling.
But despite the multi-national efforts (and thankfully a thawing of Swiss-Kiwi relations) it's to no avail.
It is, the AA man says, the first car he's not been able to break into in 25 years. Other than putting a brick through the window he's stumped. The b****y Aussies have got us again.
The rental car company has to send a staff member from Christchurch with the spare set of keys. While all is now cordial in the roadside engineering world, things are a little fraught in the English camp. It seems a good idea to keep both parties away from the selection of weaponry on display in the museum.
Jackie though has the perfect distraction. One of the museum's two fully functioning waka, Kotukumairangi, has to be returned to its shelter after its starring role in Waitangi Day celebrations. Would we like to help paddle it?
The waka, built entirely on site by local young men from Banks Peninsula totara, is tied up in the Opara Stream nearby, waiting for the tide to come in. We join about two dozen locals and half a dozen overseas tourists at the water's edge.
Murray, his shock of white hair blinding in the sun, organises us aboard. Kiwis, Swiss, Brits and Belgians paddle upstream before performing a rather ragged u-turn. I would have pondered longer on the significance of our racially mixed crew all trying to work together in the same waka, but I'm concentrating on a tricky reverse paddle manoeuvre as directed by Murray.
"The lady in the middle - stand up and count for us!" yells Murray.
The lady in question, after squeaking "Who me?" stands up.
As she's about five foot tall there is little discernible difference in height but our paddling does become a little more coordinated.
We glide past the school, Murray making a plug for more permanent residents to ensure it stayed viable. Our next u-turn is much slicker - a few more hours' practice and we could make it around to Lyttelton.
Back on shore Jackie lends us her car to take our visitors down to see the beach while we wait for the keys.
They are astonished: "But she doesn't even know you!"
But of course she does - her whanau and mine have just been paddling in the same waka.
- Jill Worrall
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Pictured above: A multicultural crew paddles the Kotukumairangi across Akaroa Harbour. Photo / Jill Worrall
