Solitude is bliss

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Travellin mama finds that sometimes the best kind of travelling happens when someone else is out there doing it (ie. hubby and kids) and she is sitting on her fat ass reading an excellent novel with a fab view of the Tasman Sea.

SMUMs of this world: Get a life

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Acronyms being all the rage these days, I was amused to learn recently of the modern-day phenomenon known as the SMUM: a Smart Middle-Class Uninvolved Mother, generally well-educated and intelligent, who finds motherhood and her children tedious and uninteresting.

And since I’ve got a bit of time on my hands, I can’t help but wonder what a SMUM would think of me and my small clan here today as we get ready for a morning of school on the beach.


Annie and Molly have brought to “class” two of the seven teddies they’ve dragged halfway around the world (and oh, what I wouldn’t do to have had a frequent-flyer account for Annie’s green rabbit, Hippity, who has not only been driven across Canada three times and the US once, but has flown across the Pacific to NZ and Oz at least six times in the past eight years.) Molly’s Midnight is a new addition to our family, having been acquired in Calgary after much cajoling and praise from Molly herself: “Mom, you are so great. Mom, you are so beautiful. Mom, you are so perfect. Mom in fact I love you SOOOO very very much could you please drop 100 bucks on this build-a-bear and a coupla matching outfits?”


Anyway, no SMUM in her right mind would think I was cool or fun or halfway interesting to be doing a year-long, 24/7 adventure with my kids. But to her and her stuck-up urbanite, nanny-dependent friends, I say: Get a life! Realize that although motherhood can absolutely be tedious at times, it is what you make it. And know that your kids are often, if not almost always, more interesting than anything you could dream up in your pathetic adult-centric world. So get on the bandwagon, SMUMs, before you add yet another unflattering acronym to your repertoire ... SMUM: as in Shitty Mean Unappealing Mother.

School's such a beach

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We've now been on the road for about 60 days and nights and it's places like these - where the girls' classroom for the day is one of my favourite beaches in New Zealand - that make it all so worth it.

This wee slice of paradise, in Golden Bay at the top of the south island, is called Tata Beach. Like many other places in NZ, Golden Bay is gloriously and ever so slightly behind the times, if not completely frozen in time, and it's a place where women can still hitchhike and farmers will still stop to pull hapless drivers out of the ditch - as one did for us on this very day when my husband pulled too far over to the left to let the school bus pass. He must have been lost in nostalgic thoughts at the time (his family used to holiday here, foraging and eating pipis and mussels until they would puke their guts out) but we're hoping the rental-car company that loaned us the Loser Cruiser doesn't notice anything amiss.


Ditch landings notwithstanding, nothing could ruin this perfectly perfect day.

Baaaaaad jokes

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Beyond the more obvious charms of this picture-postcard South Pacific nation – beyond the scenery that never quits, the whale watching and hot springs and quaint villages, the jet boating and bungee jumping, the hiking and kayaking and sheep-shearing and rugby - lies a wonderfully quirky side of the “real” New Zealand that the average tourist might never see.

To get an insight into the local humour, it helps to be familiar with the odd sheep joke (which obviously you don’t need to share with the kids) but bear in mind that when a Kiwi is telling the jokes, Aussies are the butt. Any sheep joke will do, really, but this is one of my favourites:

"Two New Zealand sheep farmers are flying the herd to a new farm. Suddenly, the engine fails and the plane begins to plummet. Farmer 1: Quick! Grab a parachute and jump! Farmer 2: But what about the sheep? Farmer 1: Fuck the sheep! Farmer 2: (pause) Do you think we have time?"

Piggie porn, out of left field

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One minute, it's cute kids feeding the piglets; next minute, it's a live sex show out in the paddock, starring a poor fat sow at the mercy of a horny old boar.

We're at an auntie's farm just south of Auckland and I can't help shake the feeling (not for the first time) that being a female in the animal kingdom isn't worth two shits. Because, really, what's in it for the ladies? It's not like they get dinner, or a date, or any scintillating conversation out of the whole thing.

So I watch in fascination - trying not to be juvenile for the girls' sake - as the sow and the boar start going at it right in front of us, but my God, the boar cannot find where to put it and I collapse in giggles as he starts trying a whole new approach, doing a full 180-degree turn till he's in a piggie sixty-niner and banging away in her ear. Hump, hump, squeal! Hump, hump, squeal! She's clearly used to the humiliation, poor thing, and no doubt sneaking regular peeks at her piggie watch hoping it will all end soon. And the boar? Well he's a typical man if ever there was one: rubbing up against anything as long as it feels good!

I'm glad I'd already explained the facts of life to the kids but there's no explaining this boar's attempts to get lucky. Fortunately Annie and Molly let me off the hook - no questions, just giggles.

God of the forest

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Every time we find ourselves north of Auckland, we make a point of visiting the Waipoua Forest – a truly awe-inspiring place famous for its living giants, including Tane Mahuta (God of the Forest), the biggest kauri tree in New Zealand. It’s 51 metres tall, about 14 metres around and somewhere between 1250 and 2500 years old. Unfortunately, the girls are more interested in the chocolates we have bribed them with to make the short walk into the forest … but Doog and I are totally charmed. This forest is often overlooked when time-pressed tourists are making up their itinerary and maybe that’s part of the attraction. In my experience, the fewer the people, the better the experience.

Bad parenting: The re-enactment

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Here on Baylys Beach, on New Zealand's north island, my husband shows his true, non-law-abiding Kiwi colours by giving the girls a driving lesson - confident in the knowledge that, you know, being six and seven shouldn't preclude one from learning to drive.

In a comfortable fog of jet lag just hours after arriving from Singapore, we drive up and down, up and down this gloriously deserted beach, the girls taking turns behind the wheel and me keeping a wary eye on the rising tide. Later we let them sprawl out in the back with the van door wide open as we take turns at the wheel. Doog's favourite New Zealand singers (Bic Runga and Dave Dobbyn) are cranked to the max and we are blissfully unaware ... until a guy in a Jeep drives right for us, gesturing wildly towards the back of the van.

“Hey! HEY!” he screams. “Your kid!”
And we're all like: “What? What? What?!!!”
And he’s yelling “Your KID! She just fell OUT!”

And there in the rearview mirror, yes indeed, is our Molly sprawled out on her back, spitting chunks of wet sand into the air. We do a quick U-turn. A mouth full of sand and barely a tear - now that's one tough kid. She's even cool enough to re-enact her tumble for this picture, and then we all hastily agree on one thing: Never, under any circumstances, tell Grandma.