I (Still) Do

On Saturday, while the rest of the world was commemorating the 60th anniversary of the Atomic Bomb, Ali and I were celebrating a different anniversary. In 1994, we were so preoccupied with our wedding plans that we hadn’t realized we were getting married on Hiroshima Day. However, it’s been an easy day to remember ever since.

We bought a car last week (a’98 Mitsubishi Diamante, like-new with only 50,000 km), so after breakfast we headed to the Waitakere Range. It’s a huge Regional Park just west of Auckland, full of trails and hugging the best surf beaches in the area. We hiked through bush for a couple hours, following a trail that rewarded us with stunning views of the Tasman Sea at the ridgeline, but that was completely flooded just before we reached the dunes. There was nothing to do but get soaked – the water was up to my knees at one point. Fortunately, although the water was cold, the black sand was warm enough we could take off our boots and walk barefoot across the dunes.

When the trail seemed to split, we tried different paths, calling to each other as we topped the dunes until the paths were too far apart and we got out of sync. The dunes seemed to go on forever: undulating sand hills sporadically covered with grasses and shrubs, lagoons filled with shorebirds in the low spots, the sound of the waves the only reassurance that the ocean really was in front of me. With no sign of anyone else, for a moment I could imagine what it felt like to be a castaway, utterly by myself. But a moment later I reached the top of the last hill, and the endless beach spread to both sides. Ali, already down by the water’s edge, waved and I was alone no more.

Cheers,
Sandie