Whanganui River Reserves - Ombler family life 1979 to 1984

Late in 1978, John became the Department of Lands and Survey Ranger for the Wanganui River Reserves, based at Pipiriki. In early 1979 we married and I joined John at Pipiriki, where we stayed for nearly five years.

First, a little context. It’s now 2024 and things have changed. Whanganui National Park (not including the river bed) was established in 1986. In 2017, the river became a legal identity in its own right, Te Awa Tupua, according to the Whanganui River Claims Settlement Act 2017. In 1979 the river’s name wasn’t even spelt correctly. Both the river and city were Wanganui, a misspelling of the true meaning that referred to a story around ‘the big wait by the chief Haunui-a-Nanaia’. The river’s name was amended to Whanganui by the NZ Geographical Board in 1991, the district and city in 2015. Meanwhile, in the 1970s, Lands and Survey established a Pipiriki-based Wanganui River Reserves Ranger.

The new ranger’s role was to manage the then collection of scenic and scientific reserves bordering the river, from around Taumarunui to about Parakino, near Whanganui. It also included providing support for several already established ‘honorary rangers’ who had been appointed by the Wanganui River Scenic Board. (Norm Hubbard, Jock Erceg and Ivan Rusling were three who I recall.) Maintaining public shelter/toilet facilities at Pipiriki, and managing huts along the river for canoeists and jet boaters who visited for recreation and for hunting, were part of the ranger’s role.

There were regular jetboat ‘patrols’ during the busy summer holiday season. There were also two rough and ready tramping tracks, the Matemateāonga and Mangapurua, These were originally roads hewn through the steep back country, in the Mangapurua as part of ambitious farm development plans for rehab soldiers post WW1. As tramping tracks, neither were much used bar a small, summer commercial walking/camping venture in the Mangapurua. (This now forms a popular part of the Mountains to Sea Cycle trail.) There were three huts along the Matemateāonga Track, which was initially developed as part of a roading scheme to connect Taranaki with the central North Island. Its nickname, the ‘Muddy muddy onga’ speaks volumes for its lack of popularity, not forgetting the difficulty of access, especially at the river end. (The track is still there, recently cleared by volunteers, still little used.)

John’s job was managed out of the Dept. of Lands and Survey Wellington District Office, headed by the Commissioner of Crown Lands Wellington. There was also a Wanganui River Scenic Board (later Wanganui River Reserves Board), comprising historians, scientists, botanists and interested citizens, its role was to oversee policy decisions, with secretarial services provided from District Office.

A ‘ute’, jetboat and tractor (used mainly for rubbish collection and launching the jetboat) were the essential vehicles that went with the Pipiriki job. The village was located at the downstream end of an 88km stretch of river inaccessible by road. From Pipiriki, two winding, mostly metalled roads offered connections to the ‘outside world’ - one heading 26km inland to Raetihi and the other 77km to Whanganui, along the river road, past several small riverside villages. I recall many trips home, squeezed in the front seat among boxes of groceries and other gear that had to be kept off the open ute deck, out of the rain or dust. A covered deck would have been such a luxury.

We also had a big vegetable garden, while meat (deer and pigs, plus wild sheep, remnants from deserted up river farms) was in plentiful supply. Being married was actually a prerequisite to getting this job, back in the day! The fact that John had even been appointed to take on this remote, sole charge position as a single man was only on the premise that he was about to be married. That’s because there were official tasks designated to be undertaken by the ranger’s wife. I’m not sure that would work these days.

However, I did enjoy my wifely tasks. A big one was running the Colonial House – an information centre/museum in what was formerly riverboat skipper Andy Anderson’s cottage, in those days leased from the iwi-based Pipiriki Incorporation by the Department. (The lease has since run out.) Inside were photos from the tourist ‘hey day’ of the river, when big riverboats cruised the river carrying grandly-dressed passengers. They stayed at the equally grand Pipiriki Hotel, which occupied a site next door to the Colonial House before being burned down a second and final time in 1959 under dubious circumstances, possibly related to an insurance claim. The Colonial House was also equipped with random period furniture, some of it gathered up from the area’s early farming homesteads, which many of the settler/farmers had since left. Some of them had simply walked away. A grand ebony sideboard, found in an abandoned farmhouse and hewn with knife marks after its use by hunters butchering their wild pig kills, was a feature.

The Colonial House also came with a cute little English cottage garden some green-fingered departmental landscape architect had designed, in keeping with the ambience of this little house. Maintaining this was also my job. I gave it my best shot, though the architect would have shuddered had they known how little I knew about gardening. We opened the Colonial House daily during summer holidays. It was often quiet, and sitting on the veranda chatting with the local kids, or listening to cricket on the radio was indeed a pleasant way to pass the day, although we did get busier as the years went by. One day the visitor book reached the heady heights of 100 entries. At other times of the year, we left a note on the door inviting anyone who wanted to look through to pop up to the Ranger’s house and ask. It seemed that no matter what time I had lunch, that would be the time someone would arrive. Somewhere there’s a list of questions I was asked by visitors. Do you have electricity and where do you do your shopping were common queries. The answer to how do you get your mail (daily Monday to Friday delivered from Wanganui by river road mailman John Hammond) usually surprised them. Do you go to school here was well received, given I was in my late 20s.

Dealing with the public was usually rewarding, sometimes interesting. Many canoeists left their cars and trailers up by our house and workshop, and would often arrive wet, muddy and smelly on the doorstep asking to use our phone to let their beloveds back home know they were off the river and safe. We were always happy to let them, though not so much one chap who knocked on the door at 7am on a Sunday and snorted that ‘some people have a good job’ after, rushing to respond to the urgent knocking on the door thinking there must be some emergency I answered the door in my pyjamas. Another guy pleaded to use the phone – he needed to call his wife because she was due to have a baby that week. Obviously he got a flea in his ear. Other tasks, for which there was a small, set allowance, included typing up the ranger’s correspondence and Board meeting reports, and more that now escapes my memory. But I ended up doing lots more, essentially for the fun of it.

With Pipiriki being a little ‘outpost’ in the bush, no other employment on hand and having grown up on a farm used to being thrown into all kinds of outdoor tasks, it was a natural fit just to join in, and help with whatever needed doing. Mixing cement to build a cattle stop, routing track signs, then installing them, painting huts, driving the jetboat, fixing the blocked toilets at the Public Shelter, including one Boxing Day morning when crowds of canoeists were very much needing toilets, were some of the jobs I remember tackling. Then there were the ‘official’ visitors. Scientists, planners, board members, international trainee rangers, Forest Service goat cullers, people from head office, district office, some who I am sure just dreamed up a reason for the sake of coming to Pipiriki – where of course there was no commercial accommodation, nor restaurant, so our house was it.

We met some great people, had some great dinners, a few late nights. I was often washing sheets as one lot of guests left, ready to make the beds for the day’s incoming lot no matter the day of the week – and was invariably asked, what do you do here all day? Two young work colleagues from Tongariro, Mike Rogers and Roy Grose, were welcome visitors as they made regular and usually successful efforts to rid the river reserves of deer. We’d send the then bachelor boys home full of roast dinner – for which Roy has since repaid me many times and which is just one example of how the ranger ‘family’ of friendships and support evolved as people continued their careers around the country. We also hosted day visitors. Like Prince Edward, when he was a ‘house master’ at Wanganui Collegiate. He arrived with his entourage, security detail and two local mayors. His royal highness went up river on a jetboat trip, and then it was lunch time and of course the only place for lunch for the prince was our house. So we fed him (and the hangers-on) locally hunted, hand-minced, home-cooked venison pie, and cake that my very Royalist mother had baked when she happened to visit the weekend before. That gave her some news for her next Women’s Institute meeting.

Locally, social life ranged from parties at the pa, to visiting neighbours for a cuppa, to helping with transport for school sports days down the river road. I recall a Tupperware party hosted by a farmer’s wife, there was even a River Road social netball team one winter, we practised at Ranana and played in Whanganui. Pipiriki was a village of around 20 to 30 people. An extended whānau of Ngāti Kurawhatia, a hapu of the river iwi, Te Atihaunui a Pāpārangi, lived around Pipiriki’s small Paraweka Marae. Two of them, George and Bandy, were the local council roadmen, a couple of shovels their work tools, George’s yellow Humber their work vehicle. A family from Parinui (upriver) also had a house in Pipiriki. Another family lived upriver at Ramanui where they farmed, ‘did possums’ in winter (for skins, a lucrative business then), ran jetboat tours from Pipiriki in summer and home schooled their kids. They later transformed their farm house into ‘Ramanui Lodge’, for guests. They often stayed with us when they came down to ‘civilisation’. (Two of the kids from these families, Kenneth from Ramanui and Josephine from Parinui now run Pipiriki-based Whanganui River Adventures - jetboat tours, cycle trail shuttles and the Pipiriki Camping Ground on the former school grounds.) There was the school teacher and his wife. (Sylvia Ashton Warner was once the teacher here, before our time). The school roll was barely big enough to keep the school running and the young ranger and his wife were under considerable pressure to add to it. And there was a local farming family. Helping farmer Andy muster his cattle, and riding his horse Brimstone to clear my possum line along the bush edges on his farm were highlights of my Pipiriki life.

Our friendships extended beyond Pipiriki. Along the River Road were several small settlements, each with their own marae and wharenui. They’ve been there for hundreds of years, built beside the river when waka provided transport. Then came riverboats, which brought tourists, farmer/settlers and some employment but destroyed natural river channels and massive tuna and lamprey weirs, not to mention the traditional way of life for the river marae. All this disruption formed a significant part of the grievances expressed during ongoing Whanganui River Settlement Claims. In the early 1900s a road was built, which further transformed things for these communities. In our time on the river most people were local iwi, or farming families, or both.

I recall Ma and Tommy Butler, in Ranana, community leaders who also who tried to pioneer a kiwi fruit orchard, Ranana farmer and once the local post office manager Polly Teki, who fostered lots of kids and could party all night long, farmer Mike Potaka who let us onto his land for hunting, and Atene’s George Ranginui, who hosted us for many a cuppa and let us use his phone during a search for two staff who got lost overnight when scouting the new Atene Skyline Walk. We were driving through Koriniti once when the ute’s axle broke, so wandered down to the marae to use a phone and ended up at Mrs Metekingi’s house chatting for hours. She had a boil up going on the stove which I can still smell, taste buds salivating.

There were the two Sisters of Compassion living at the Jerusalem Convent, who visited the river road schools each week, and who I loved visiting. They spoke about Mother Aubert’s incredible legacy, and recalled firsthand the chaos and debauchery when James Baxter and his commune settled in the village for a brief time, about ten years before we arrived on the river. We’d visit the ‘hippies’ in the Ahuahu Ohu (commune), Annette Main at her Flying Fox Retreat, long before she was the Mayor of Whanganui, and the Caseleys, farmers at Parakino who, like Annette, had a flying fox cable car for access. We had a lot to do with avid river enthusiasts Norm Hubbard, a builder, historian, honorary ranger and board member, and Arthur Bates, historian and author of ‘The Bridge to Nowhere’ which chronicled the Mangapurua settlement story. And I treasured the connection with Matahiwi kaumātua Julie Ranginui, who shared much history, traditional wisdom and her gentle sense of humour with us both. I’d had next to no experience with Te Ao Māori then. When Nanny Te Huia passed away, there was of course her tangi at the marae. When is the funeral, I asked, a pākehā question. Our friends who lived up the river gave me some schooling in tikanga. We should go and see Nanny before the actual funeral and pay our respects, they said. So I wandered over to the marae, to the path we always took for social visits, then noticed a group of people standing at the gate beside me. Calling out, in Māori. I didn’t know them, and had no idea what was happening, or what to do. I was rescued by the village kids, they’d been sent down a back track to get me. ‘Come with us Mrs Ombler. It’s a bit strange eh.’ And so the kids looked after the local pākehā as the manuhiri were welcomed on.

Meanwhile John was busy expanding the job. He earned the heady promotion to Senior Ranger. Extra staff Dube (Duncan Rison) and Milo (Myles Gembitsky), from the PEP unemployment scheme of the day, were employed to help. They and other casual staff were based in the ‘staff quarters’ across the gully from our house and the scene of not a few lively parties and hangi. (Milo stayed on in Pipiriki, retiring from DOC in 2017, and then he worked as a contractor on goat control. He was a keen hunter. Last time I visited him he sent me home with a whole deer in the boot!)

Meanwhile, my role also expanded, largely focused around writing – brochures, interpretation signs and the guide book John and I produced together: ‘A Scenic, Historic and Wilderness Experience, a Guide to the Wanganui (sic) River’. All done on an old typewriter, draft after draft after draft. There was increased remuneration recognising this extra work, though at one point I did receive a phone call from a Wellington bean counter querying the time sheet that I’d sent in marking down hours for what was a Sunday. He spoke like he’d ‘found me out’. But to us the days of the week really didn’t matter, we just worked when the work needed doing. There was also increased interest in the river from ‘higher powers’ of decision making. To give them a better idea of the extent, history and management requirements around the river and its reserves, hosting these visitors ranged further afield from our house, to river huts and camping – which obviously involved rather more logistical planning. There was the National Parks Authority visit, I recall Alan Mark (now Sir Alan) and Dick Dell – there were about 20 all up including district and head office people. They stayed a night in a river hut, then camped in the Mangapurua Valley, with catering, transport and other logistics arranged by John, Milo, Dube and myself. Jonathan Elworthy, then the Minister of Lands, and his wife, joined by another entourage of Board members and Wellington staff, were boated down the river and stayed overnight at a river hut. Again, I was on catering, Milo and I boating up the night before to have everything ready for when the guests arrived. We thought the red-checked table cloth on the old hut table was a nice touch, the Italian theme continued with some kind of pseudo-Italian dish that included olives and definitely wild venison – it’s pretty much all we ate on the river! It was a rather raucous night, from memory I was happy to be sleeping in a tent as the party went on – however all these visits couldn’t have helped but make the decision makers more aware of the things they were making decisions about.

Possibly my experience wasn’t any kind of ‘typical’ ranger’s ‘wife’ experience, if there was even such a thing. Each ranger position obviously had its own peculiarities, depending on where the job was based. For me, I loved being involved in the job and I guess it suited John, with few others around to employ. Critically though, there was always time for helping farmer Andy with the mustering, or docking his sheep. There were also adventures. With canoe trips and many work-related jetboat trips we got to know the river well, especially the stunning middle reaches where immense, sheer papa cliffs, covered with clinging trees and ferns and mosses, tower above the river. It was beautiful, it was also numbingly-cold on long, winter trips through those shaded gorges, exacerbated by the wind-chill factor and often rain hitting the speeding jetboat. I’d sit with my back to the bow, huddled into my parka. Thus I was a sitting-duck for the time John decided to gently veer closer to the cliff as the boat approached one of those gorgeous waterfalls canoeists acclaim and photograph and with no warning this massive deluge of water dumped on me. I can still see him laughing.

Anyway, we turned to exploring the tributaries, which was even more adventurous - rafting the lower Manganui-o-te-ao and the Retaruke, not knowing what to expect around each corner. One salient lesson learned was that a big Canadian canoe was not always a sensible option for these adventures on smaller rivers, happily I was usually on our little raft watching these lessons unfold for others. Then John came home one day after a helicopter trip over the Taranaki forest-covered ‘hinterland’, buzzing with a bright idea. He’d seen the Heao, a tributary of the Tāngarākau, which was a tributary of the Whanganui. We should raft the Haeo! He said. ‘It looks amazing, this tiny stream in total wilderness. We’ll need to do it after rain so there’s enough water.’ So we did. Four of us. John and me, Milo, and Board member John Skipworth (see below). The trip took two nights/three days. There was plenty of water, and to be safe we portaged around a couple of tricky looking rapids. Before the trip we’d searched but found no reports or evidence of anyone having previously rafting the Heao. We definitely didn’t know about the waterfall, which we first heard when we were still far up river from it. The noise got louder and louder and louder and finally we came around a corner and saw vapour rising as the water roared and crashed out of sight ahead of us. We pulled out with metres to spare. For two hours we portaged our cumbersome raft and Canadian canoe through tangled bush, consisting mostly of bush lawyer from scratched, stinging memory, then lowered everything by rope down a steep bank to the river below the falls. We survived. (After this trip we did meet two guys who had been down the stream, at a lower flow. There was no waterfall, they said, just a bare rock ledge with a trickle of water to one side, and they simply climbed down.) Our clunky craft were definitely not ideal; today’s pack rafts would be rather more appropriate.

When it was first mooted that the reserves and other forested areas surrounding the Whanganui River could merit national park status, the work really kicked in. In 1975, the then National Parks and Reserves Authority requested that all Lands and Survey district offices assess areas for possible suitability as national parks. The collection of Whanganui River scenic reserves, unoccupied Crown Land and State Forest in the area was identified for examination. This kicked off with a visit by Gerry and Wayne, two District Office planners, to ‘check it out’. They arrived in Pipiriki quite dismissive of the idea that such an assorted collection of reserves and other bits of land could possibly warrant lauded national park status. John’s plan was to show them the actual extent of these ‘bits of land’ by walking them over the Matemateāonga Track, through the heart of a huge tract of pristine native lowland forest in the Taranaki hinterland. He helicoptered them directly to the western, Mt Humphries end of the track, close to the Lands and Survey boundary with Taranaki district. I joined the party, but not for a free ride. While the guys sauntered off to check the view from Mt Humphries (Whakaihuwaka), I spent the afternoon digging holes into the very solid papa soil to erect a rather large ‘Wanganui (sic) River Reserves’ sign (which I’d previously routed) to mark the district boundary on the track. (For whatever reason.)

On the second night, we stayed in Otaraheke Hut. At about 4am, we were blasted awake by a terrifying electrical storm. It was right at the hut, high on the range. Lightning lit up like it was daylight, simultaneous thunder crashed and clapped and rumbled, the hut trembled, we trembled. We had a brew, eventually everything settled down, but not before our two planners decided this really was a remote wilderness and quite possibly did warrant national park status. A “National Park Assessment, Whanganui River Basin”, to assess and evaluate the area in terms of national park criteria, was required. This was to include resource material covering the geology, flora, and fauna of the area, a history of Māori and Pākehā settlement and many other things. Various District Office people were involved, such as our planners of the storm.

Also helping was the aforementioned Heao Stream adventurer, Professor John Skipworth, a botanist/ecologist from Massey University who had become a good friend. (Tragically he died following a car crash a few years later.) ‘Skip’ often went hunting and tramping with us, he once got bailed up by a wild bull on a cleared flat in the Mangapurua Valley, while John and I wondered why he was taking so long getting back to camp. When he finally arrived and told us about the bull, one of the feral stock still roaming in the formerly farmed valley, we worried that it might rampage through our camp in the night. Skip pointed out old wooden railings blocking the track from our little campsite, so we figured we’d be safe. And so we were. We were also shocked to discover next day, at the other end of the flat, similar wooden railings smashed to smithereens, telltale bull prints in the mud identifying the culprit. The learned, albeit it with a dry sense of humour professor was a huge and helpful source of knowledge for us in our writing of various reports, brochures and now this national park assessment. John and I got busy, gathering the resource information.

When it came to plants of the region, we pretty much had to start from scratch. John had the bright idea that I would go for walkabouts, in different reserves and other areas, and make a list of the plants I saw. I’d bring samples of those I didn’t know back for John to identify. The outcome was returning from each exploration with a very short written list and a pack crammed full of samples. At night we’d pull these out and John, who is pretty good on his plants, would usually identify the specimen. For those he didn’t know, we’d refer to text books (no iNaturalist then). The outcome was a huge plant resource, the discovery of the presence of several rare plants, and a significant boost to my plant knowledge. (Except that we moved to Fiordland soon after, where much of my newfound botanical knowledge was irrelevant and quickly forgotten.)

In 1980, the assessment was completed, its finding that the area contained ‘outstanding visual qualities of natural landscape which were not already represented in existing national parks’, and thus warranted national park status. At this point, I should point out, this was an ‘in-house’ report, at the very early stage of the national park proposal. Before the proposal was progressed further, we left the river. John was appointed senior ranger at Fiordland National Park and we headed south to Te Anau, and to a very different life for the ranger’s wife.

Something very special did happen, just three months before leaving Pipiriki. Our daughter Jenny was born – in Whanganui Hospital, and we were transferred to Raetihi Hospital for a few days before heading home to Pipiriki. I’d had no experience with babies, and living in such a remote spot with this precious little human was all a tad terrifying. Meanwhile, the national park proposal sparked significant reaction.

Only after years of consultation and negotiation between Te Atihaunui-a-Pāpārangi and the Department of Lands and Survey, and an investigation into the Crown’s title to lands, was Whanganui National Park gazetted, in 1986. The park encompassed 742 sq. km and included one of the largest tracts of unmodified lowland forest remaining in the North Island. Critically, it did not encompass the bed of the Whanganui River, the focus of the long, bitter (and now settled) Settlement Claim.

In today’s more enlightened world, it’s easy to feel quite gobsmacked about how little I knew of Māori tradition and culture when I went to Pipiriki. My life growing up on a Waikato dairy farm (most likely on confiscated land) was so far removed from what I experienced at Pipiriki. And even living there, while we shared a lot of social time together with the locals, Māori values and traditions weren’t really spoken about. Perhaps I could have asked more, but I didn’t know what I didn’t know? I’ll touch on one example. There wasn’t much to do for the increasing number of visitors who started coming to Pipiriki so with the best of intentions John built a walking track through a small reserve, to the summit of a hill behind the village. We heard, second hand, that the locals weren’t happy about this. I sometimes used to visit Johnny, the local kaumatua, for a cup of tea and a chat. So on one of these visits I asked his advice. He said the track was fine, and said nothing more about it. Eventually, the locals became more vocal. There was an urupā on the hill. Reserve or no reserve, it wasn’t the place for a walking track. John closed the track.

Kaumātua Johnny later told John that he didn’t talk about it with me because I was a woman! In retrospect, at that time there was also no Departmental training or preparation about or support for staff working with iwi, in places critically important to iwi. We, John especially in the ranger role, were pretty much thrown in at the deep end. This definitely changed and improved with the advent of DOC. In 2018, I interviewed Gerrard Albert, chair of Ngā Tāngata Tiaki o Whanganui, the post-settlement governance body for Whanganui Iwi. This was for a story I was writing for FMC’s Backcountry magazine about the new legal status of the river. I recalled with him some of my experiences living on the river. He had been a schoolboy at the time. He said the older generations often didn’t say much. “We need to break out of our blinkered state and recognise our common interest. There are good pākehā people out there who have always fought for the very same things. There is a collective view about how we should harmonise with the natural world and it’s not just a Māori view. It’s about saying to people you can all respect this river.”

For me, I cherished how I was able to work closely with John in the job at Pipiriki, to meet so many wonderful and inspiring colleagues, scientists, historians, and locals, and to be part of and to learn so much about what is a special spiritual, cultural, historic, beautiful and in many ways remote place of New Zealand.

And so to Te Anau, where there was not only no work lined up for ‘the wife’, there was, somewhat ironically after Pipiriki, none allowed. With a few exceptions (like remote Deep Cove) ranger partners were not permitted to be employed in any park role. But to be living in a town, with shops, services, a squash club, and an entire community that included the support of other mothers were definite positives.

Postscript: After a little over two wonderful years in Te Anau, the call came for an ‘Assistant Supervising Ranger’ in Head Office. John got the job. After Pipiriki and Te Anau, Wellington was a shock. Not just for moving from a supportive small-town community to capital city oblivion. Soon it was Christmas. John came home to our little Berhampore flat (no Murchison Mountain view from our house here) with much excitement. There are two Christmas staff party choices, he said. One is in the office, the other is a day out for a picnic. Let’s do the picnic (thinking of the family, now there were three of us.) The next day it was a long face that came home – ah, the picnic is only for staff, not families. It was a world away from the Christmas party in Fiordland the year before, a lakeside barbecue outside the office for all the staff and their families, with Santa delivering lollies from a helicopter flown courtesy of a local pilot.

Soon after, we got out of Dodge (Wellington). We returned to the river, to the city this time, and John became the first Chief Ranger of the new Whanganui National Park. That lasted five months, until April 1987, when DOC was born and a whole new regime of conservation management began. DOC wasn’t the only significant birth of the time. In March, 1987, daughter Sally was born, coincidentally in the same hospital with the same staff as with Jenny back in 1983, despite our travels around the country in the years between. We’d come full circle. And from Whanganui, we were able to renew our river road friendships.

One story from this time encapsulates the river road and all its character – and characters. John, baby Sally and I set off up the river one morning, Canadian canoe tied on the roof, and went for what turned out to be a successful hunting expedition, in a reserve across the river from Ranana. With canoe and deer on board we headed back to Whanganui, in good time to collect Jenny from her babysitter. We were driving past the Parikino bluffs and spotted something odd in the river. Turns out it was farmer Roger Casely, hanging on for dear life to a raft that had capsized. He’d been ferrying cattle across the river on the raft. They’d swum to safety. The raft was attached to a cable, stuck in the middle of the river. As was Roger. Roger’s wife Heather appeared, she’d come across from the farm house on their flying fox. Roger can’t swim, she said. And here we were, with a canoe on board. We carried it down to the river and John set off to Roger’s rescue. Heather invited me ‘over’ for a cup of tea while we waited. So we (Sally, Heather, me and a couple of farm dogs) hopped into the flying fox, a little cage with wooden sides and floor, that hung from a cable and was propelled by electricity. Sally sat on the cage floor with the dogs. Half way across the river, at a point where anyone with vertigo would be totally stressing out, the cage stopped. We hung there, swaying ever so slightly. Down below, the river rescue was done, John and Roger were safely clambering ashore from the canoe and spotted our dilemma. There must be a power cut, called Roger, I’ll phone the power board. He did, came outside and called again. Yes, there’s a power cut. Bertie Baak shot the line down. It’ll be about an hour. Bertie was a bit of a character, he lived up river a bit. We have no idea why he shot the power line, and we were up there for an hour, chatting, Sally on the floor playing with the dogs, before the motor started up again and we slowly made our way to terra firma. So many things about that day typified life on the river. I missed a kindergarten meeting that night – and didn’t even start to try to explain why.