his seat for the duration of the trip.
For once, he felt torn between duty and desire.
A park ranger awaited them all outside the bus. Ngaire dawdled at the back. Kel kept close, not wanting to force the situation and mindful of her look. His grandma had had one that could strip paint off walls, and Ngaire’s had run a close second.
Grouped with the other passengers in the car park, he’d no problem seeing over their heads as he listened to the ranger. He and the German guy were the tallest, with a couple of Taiwanese runners-up.
Maori Bay was small compared to the other beaches nearby and sheltered by the arms of land stretching on either side. But in this kind of weather with the wind from the southwest, every now and then a gust whipped the ranger’s voice away. “So easy to get the feeling of being dominated by Muriwai…” he shouted, standing against a backdrop of sand-churning waves as gray as the sky, the black silhouette of a lone surfer balanced on top like a bolt holding the two together.
“Powerful elements…wind and sea formed, dominate…this wildlife park.” Ngaire appeared intent on the ranger’s spiel as she clutched the straps of her day pack, arms crossed. Just then a crack of sunlight broke through the clouds, caught her for a second, disappearing as if her black hair had swallowed it.
“Imagine the lifeblood…earth, lava, spilling here from a massive undersea volcano. Where you…stand was born of fire from that eruption.” Every time the ranger paused, the tour guide filled in with translations, and while the cameras whirred and clicked gannets and terns performed a ballet over rocks of greenish black like a licorice stick newly bitten in two.
“This fire still rages beneath the surface.” A ripple of in-drawn breaths punctuated the translation. Their guide spoke so swiftly, she had to know the spiel by heart.
“Imagine its rhythm beating a pulse…echoing its heartbeat.”
Finished, the ranger turned, leading them up the path to the summit, their heels on the gravel sounding like crunching toffee.
Two paces ahead of him, Ngaire’s dark braid bumped against a bed of yellow, begging to be tugged. He caught up to whisper, “That guy’s a shoo-in for the lead in The Tempest.”
She forgot herself long enough to give him a glimpse of her smile. Gaining her trust was like pushing sludge uphill, one step forward, two steps back. And though he’d gone ahead, he was aware of her every move. As they crested the path, a squeal made him turn. “You okay? What happened, did you turn your ankle?”
For a microsecond she took her eyes off the view beyond the rail. “No.” She gestured with a hand flung out to encompass the horizon. “I saw all of that.”
He guessed it might take your breath away if you’d never seen Muriwai beach before, its black sands fringed with gray-and-white surf, curving for more than sixty kilometers into the distance. Too far to see on a day like today when it resembled a monochrome photograph.
“What makes the sand black?”
“Nothing romantic. Just plain old iron,” he said, but she’d stopped listening and was focusing her camera instead.
To reach the viewing platform they walked across a wooden boardwalk, which wound through a tunnel of pohutukawas. It was one of the only native trees that didn’t mind salty air, but it was too early yet for the red tassled flowers that heralded Christmas. There was still beauty to be found in the twisted shapes from its no-holds-barred tussles with the wind.
All too soon, they stepped out of the green-washed light onto wooden treads that softened their footfalls and led to a cliff top spiked with flax plants.
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