How's your day? Blog 105, Hostage to Health

How’s your day? Blog 105 Hostage to Health

© Peter A Taylor, Monday 22, April 2013

My new blogger .com address is http://peterataylor.blogspot.co.nz. This is the last day you will find me on Posterous.com.

 

Driving toward Cooks Beach on Easter Monday  invited us to look upon flat and well managed Dairy farms, The Mercury Bay Vine Yard  and very little else, that is until you round the bend and over 300 holiday homes of various sizes fill the vista.  Cooks Beach is another long stretch of paradise, calm waters and a head land at each end.  The southern end of the beach with a narrow channel opened into the serene waters of an inland harbour. Children were swimming over pristine sandy bottom, the water about waist height and warm for 5- meters. Hosting a myriad of fishing boats of all sizes, the narrow channel took the boaties past the iconic Pohutakawa drooping to the water and one claiming a large rope from which children were swinging into the crystal clear water.

 

This area was named when Captain Cook   discovered while searching the area to view the ascent of Mercury, the constellation. A phenomenal feat when his only instruments were sexton and stars to guide him. This event only occurs every 140 years or so (Google to get the correct info). Hence the area is called Mercury Bay and this beach is where the ‘Endeavour’ his ship anchored to trade with the local Maori.

 

This Idealic curve of the harbour invited Rodney to use his wave board and paddle for further investigation. Lying on the sand I caught a few rays and rested under my large straw hat. My energy had not yet returned as expected.

 

Hearing the soft splash of the paddle and with one eye open, Rodney slid his red board from the water onto the sand.

          ‘This place is remarkable. The harbour is huge. I past a boat ramp with a house sited among sprawling Oak and Pohutakawa  with a view of the bush on one side and the beach on the other.’ Drying off in the sun, Rodney spent with excitement and exercise, I watched the kids jumping from the rope through my binoculars.

 

          ‘This is how I remember growing up as a kid in Napier, playing and swimming on the beach,’ Rodney smiled at the memory.

          ‘My experience was similar except my beaches were up in Northland and the Whangarei Heads,’ I answered.

 

The only two places to eat in Cooks Beach is ‘So Vino’, the local wine bar with an outdoor garden or the local get a bit of everything sort of shop for a pie and a liquor off licence. The take-away was not open.  We bought two lamb pies from the shop and decided the local cafe wine bar would be our coffee stop. 

 

The coffee was bitter. As we sat with a grimace we looked at our surrounds, the garden.  We both came up with the same ideas that this space would look fabulous with lights around the giant palms, a smart flower garden, and pull out the gone –to-seed herb garden and dump the cane table with the hole in it. We had the expertise to make this; the only bar on the eastern Coromandel a hit during the season. This opportunity is ideal business for a couple with one being the cook and employing local staff during the season. There was room and potential for outdoor entertainers under the three sails. Once ticked up this little place would hum. It probably is the choice of many on the coast during the season. Sadly we had arrived at the end of the tourist time when passion was spent. However while we finished our coffee 4 couples and a set of parents with two little children all ate and drank wine.

 

Then like a slap up the milking side, reality hit me. Sitting on the op shop outdoor sofa, so wide my short legs couldn’t touch the ground, I remain hostage to my health. Here I am sitting with weak limbs trying to recover from treatment and hostage to the hospital every three weeks. A great opportunity ruined by reality.

 

The redeeming factor was the extremely high standard of the photographic exhibition on the inside walls. A National Geographic photographer friend of the owner exhibits during the season.

 

The last of the dusk sun squeezed out from behind large ominous clouds turning our sky into a 15^th century Christian renaissance painting. This spectacular back drop was the sign to head back to our sanctuary when the majority of other campers moved on or returned to the city to start work the next day. The heavy dew bought with it the deep bush fragrance I loved from my childhood when growing up on dairy farms. The time had come to savour a gin and tonic and to discuss our successful day.