nz travel • pauanui photojournal

a couple of weekends ago, we took a couple of extra days off and drove to pauanaui for a long weekend. we had no plans aside from turning up, staying in bed late, swimming and exploring. we’ve never been there together and i was really surprised at just how much i enjoyed our stay. time slowed down and we moved with the sun. we read, slept, ate lazy breakfasts long after the sun came up. the heat of the day forced us into the ocean, or had nic retreating indoors and me out to lie in the sunshine with a g&t and a book.

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there’s a little ferry that runs every hour, taking passengers and bicycles across the inlet from pauanui to tairua. we turn up without cash and are let on the ferry anyway. “give it to me on the way back” the captain says. he looks like he’s been doing this job for more years than i’ve been alive. lunch is a fantastic find called flock. we order waaaay too much food and wash it all down with a refreshing jug of pimms.

i regret nothing.

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stepping into this space somehow feels as though we have stumbled across a private party. friends share picnic blankets, beanbags and plastic goblets of white wine, the pine trees looming overhead and children splashing in the shallow waters of the lagoon below us. a speaker setup on the bonnet of a car throws 80’s rock into the cooling air – tonight we go where the locals too tired from a day in the sunshine go for dinner: woodfired pizza down at the wharf.

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this place oozes charm and substance. lives are lived on bicycles, in backyards, on blankets beside the ocean, in the waves. the little airfield buzzes with the activity of tiny planes flying in and out. we watch from the backyard of our holiday place, then bicycle past the airfield through sidewalks that wander in and out of the nearby streets.

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swimming is a daily activity. the waves become a rhythm as familiar as my heartbeat by our last day here. mermaid heaven.

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my daily writing practise continues, even on holiday. three pages, every morning. some come easy, some not so much. still, i persist.

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one more swim before we go.

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we make a detour to colenso cafe on the way home. a favourite of ours for as many years as we’ve been married.