Escape to the Country

First Impressions of Kaiwaka – Northland, New Zealand. After heading north from Auckland and hitting Kaiwaka it is almost shudderingly quiet. A small rural village with lots of green, lots of paddocks, lots of trees, lots of mud, rivers, and streams, lots of history, Greenies and organics and a complete absence of city life ! Still, the library is quaint and there is even a cheese factory and the small town lights up at night like a Christmas tree.

Where did I put my designer gumboots?

We have recently moved here from the city to keep chickens, grow vegetables and enjoy the rural life.

Our new neighbors are Tuis, Paradise ducks, Pukekos, (our native swamp hens) a herd of cows, two black hens, Antoinette, (she is the one with the crown type hairdo) and HENrietta who were both terrified of us until they discovered humans equaled food and are now almost cemented to the back deck waiting for handouts.

We came the week of the floods. The normally tranquil, slow moving streams became raging torrents, the paddocks grew into a variety of lakes and the cute hens became bedraggled and spiky and we needed to put boots on to move in any direction.

Its not usually like this said everyone we met. Its been exceptional they muttered. We tramped mud everywhere, our gumboots became twice the size with the adhered mud and we ditched the designer boots and drove to the nearest warehouse to find the tallest and strongest gumboots we could find and added another layer of oil to our oilskins.

The first night in the house a baby rat ran across my bare feet and scuttled into the newly arranged pantry. Newly arranged as in not rat proof. Suddenly I saw the obvious advantage of tins, metal containers and glass that I had laughed at my sister for the previous year as she crammed every edible item in. Nothing seemed as simple as it was in the city – even the rural mail seemed to be non-existent until we discovered that we needed to apply to receive it ! We now have a large plastic grocery bag tied on to the collapsed arm that signals the rural Postie we have mail to send ! Yes, we are learning quickly that you need to make it, or think ahead, no whizzing down to the local shop and we are only a short distance to the village!

Slugs entered the bathroom from, it seemed almost every available nook and cranny. We both felt miserable and missed the noise and bustle of the city as we listened to the wind howling around the house ready to lift any loose iron and fling it to the winds.

The river rose almost as we looked at it and the ducks swam up and down what were previously paddock and pasture and the Pukekos had a ball in their new extended territory.

We hadn’t even noticed the elements in the city, never got to see the sky or experience the wind as we went from one centrally heated place to the car and back inside again.

Then the sun came out. Suddenly it was all changed. The land became drenched in this wonderful light and the swollen rivers with their cargo of fallen trees became enchanted forests of brilliant mossy green. Tuis were calling, the ducks were flying around, the hens started preening and sunning themselves and we both emerged into the light and into a whole new world. After all the winds and rain and wild weather and all the mud the sunshine and green sheltered Valley suddenly seems like a paradise here. No wonder there are paradise ducks!

Could the gypsies actually be settling in?