We walk down in darkness, hand in hand. The sky is devil blue. The witching hour. We can barely see a few steps in front of us but as they say, that’s all you need if you’re taking it slow.
Step by step, hand in hand, we descend. Sunrise in less than an hour and we hope to catch it.
The ghostly brush of giant ferns against our faces. The calls of unfamiliar birds — oh but when have bird calls ever been familiar to us city boys? — the only signs of life other than ours. I remind you of a similar descent we made a couple of years ago in Bergen, walking down Mount Fløyen after sunset.
Then we were navigating the dusty shadows of conifers, spruce and pines imported from centuries prior, into the humming web of city lights. (Still hand in hand, then, always.)
Here we are entering a coastal forest. We are surrounded by strange, beautiful trees with Māori names that dance in our imagination: kauri and puriri, rewarewa and pohutukawa.
We can barely see anything. Just the hiss and chatter of leaves, the song of invisible birds, shadows slowly giving way to morning light.
So when we finally arrive at the cove, we feel as though we have passed through some unearthly gate into another realm. The colour of the sky still surreal. The rumble of the waves. And the view of the islands through the cave. That design, that nature’s hands have made! A vision of eternity we so briefly glimpse!
The scene before us evokes another: that midnight, starry beach from Danny Boyle’s backpacker fever dream, The Beach. Kafkaesque. Trancelike. Magical.
A large wave splashes over us without warning. The tides turn treacherously. Our shoes and the ankles of our jeans are soaked.
We laugh, breaking the silence. We must have been holding our breaths all this time. We exhale. Then inhale, as we receive this sacred memory for safekeeping. This small moment of grace.