Sisterchicks Down Under (11 page)

Jill and I continued along the twisting river trail. Well-watered trees rose above us and shaded our path. One after another of the gentle giants stood guard on their thick trunks and stretched out long strings of quivering leaves that they dangled over our heads. Every time the wind blew, a few more glittering gold coin leaves showered over us and tumbled down to the green earth. I selected a collection of them for Dorothea.

“I feel like I’m in Narnia,” Jill said.

“I know. This is a fabulous place, isn’t it?”

“You know what’s amazing to me?” Jill stopped to snap a picture. “Do you remember my saying that Christchurch is the launching point for journeys to Antarctica, because this is the closest major city to the bottom of the world?”

“Yes, I remember your saying that.”

“Well, you would think that for being so close to all that ice and all those penguins it would be much colder here. This is a place of surprises.”

I agreed with her as we strolled past a large arch labeled the “Bridge of Remembrance.” The inscription commemorated the gunners from that region who had served in World Wars I and II.

“Have you noticed a lot of war memorials since you’ve been in New Zealand?” Jill asked.

“Not particularly.”

“You’ll probably start to notice them now. If I remember correctly, over one hundred thousand troops from New Zealand fought in World War I, and over half of the soldiers were killed or wounded. For a small nation, it was devastating. Everyone knew someone who lost someone. I think it affected that entire generation in a deep way.”

“I never thought of New Zealanders being involved in either of the world wars.”

“That’s because you and I grew up only hearing about America’s part in fighting for world peace during the past century. It’s a little stunning, isn’t it, when you slip into a place like this and realize that we’re not really the center of the universe after all?”

I stopped walking along the river trail and looked at Jill.

“Are you okay?”

“What you just said got to me. It’s true. We’re not the center of the universe, are we?”

“Certainly not the way we think we are.”

I felt as if all kinds of new ideas were coming at me today. Jill’s and Hika’s comments weren’t earthshaking, but they prompted me to think beyond myself. Both of them presented thoughts that were larger than the small, familiar world I’d lived in for so long. I decided I liked being shaken out of my comfort zone every now and then.

We picked up the pace and found the Antigua Boat Sheds without any trouble. Next to the rental stall was a waterfront cafe. The handwritten sign on the front offered pumpkin basil soup with bacon as the special of the day.

“What do you think? Should we eat first?” Jill asked.

I didn’t have to be invited twice to try the local special of the day. We slid onto the bench of a picnic table on the patio and watched dozens of ducks as they paddled up to the river-bank’s edge. They looked up to us, waiting for a snack to be sent their way. Once Jill’s sandwich was served, she shared more than half her bread with them. We laughed as their bobbing white tails wiggled every time they ducked under for the next bite.

Several refined swans arrived, turning their long necks to gaze up at us. Their elegant forms alongside the pale pink roses that had climbed over the wall and lined the railing between us and the water set the perfect fairy-tale scene. The river was as blue as the sky and was all lit up with the sparkling reflection of diamond-cut sunshine. I couldn’t wait to get in a canoe and paddle along with the ducks and swans.

A cocky young man at the boat rental stall greeted us with a tip of his straw hat. He seemed to think it humorous that the two of us “older” women wanted to rent a canoe and take it out by ourselves. He tried to convince us to wait half an hour until Evan, the boatman, returned with the fancy flatboat that most tourists “our age” preferred to take. Evan was, after all, an excellent punter.

Jill and I exchanged glances, and I knew we were of one mind.

“No thank you,” we both said.

“We’d prefer to take out a canoe on our own,” Jill added.

“All right then. You can have the red one there at the dock.”

We paid with cash, picked up our paddles and life vests, and clambered into the canoe while the young man at the boat stall watched.

Not being particularly experienced at canoeing, Jill and I got in facing each other instead of both facing the same direction.

“That’s not the way you should be seated,” the young man said with a snicker.

“This is the way we seat,” I said.

“Seat?”

“Sit,” I declared, settling in with as much dignity as I could at that point. “This is the way we sit.”

Jill was no help. She was laughing, and that made me want to laugh. But the situation wasn’t as funny as she may have thought because the challenge of swinging my legs around without unbalancing the canoe was more of a risk than I was willing to take.

“Do you want to turn the other way?” I asked Jill quietly.

“No, we can make this work. Come on, I’ll paddle us out of here.”

I am happy to report that we pulled off the procedure as graceful as swans and floated with the current into the center of the shallow river.

But once we moved away from the dock, our challenges came to the forefront. That’s when I put my paddle in the water, and Jill and I couldn’t synchronize our paddling. Every stroke I made seemed to cancel hers.

“Right side,” Jill called out.

I paddled vigorously.

“Your other right side!” she said, laughing. “We’re headed for the tules!”

I never was good at determining my right from my left when in a pinch. With four bold strokes, I managed to ram us right into the tall grasses along the riverbank.

“Let me try to back us up,” Jill said. “Don’t paddle.”

I realized then that the current was more of a problem than we had anticipated. In the deeper water toward the center of the river, the current appeared to gently flow back toward the boathouse. Along the side, where we were now wedged, a different, swirling current was at play.

Jill single-handedly maneuvered us out of the reeds and back into the calmer current, which, unfortunately, carried us right back to the dock at the boathouse before she and I had a chance to regroup and coordinate our paddling efforts.

“Hallo!” the smarty boat-boy greeted us from the launching dock where he had no doubt seen our entire escapade. “Does this mean we can sign you up then for the punting tour?”

“Just ignore him,” Jill said under her breath, as if we were two girls at summer camp and the older boys from the neighboring camp had invaded our lake.

I thought she was hilarious to say we should ignore him, but I couldn’t do it. I had to smart off. After all, he was wearing a straw hat and a bow tie like a missing member of a barber-shop quartet. He was begging for sassy comments from the tourists.

“We’re not sissies in this scenario.”

“That’s right. We are managing just fine, thank you,” Jill added politely.

“Yeah. Save your punting tickets for some other old ladies.”

“Kathy!” Jill flipped a sprinkling of water on me with her paddle. “Who are you calling an old lady?”

“Not us!”

“Exactly,” she agreed. “Not us.”

We managed to paddle from the boathouse and successfully move up the lazy river. The secret was for me to paddle
backwards from how Jill was paddling, as well as on the opposite side. Somehow this procedure seemed fitting in light of everything else that felt upside down and backwards in this place.

The farther we paddled up the river, the more peaceful and shadowed the river became. On both sides of the water were long stretches of green grass with trees, benches, and concrete bike trails. Women pushing baby strollers smiled at us. Little children waved at us. A man on a bike took such a long look at our unorthodox seating position and paddling that his front tire went off the trail. He wobbled himself back on course and kept going, still casting glances at us over his shoulder.

“It’s nice to have all the boys around here looking at us, isn’t it?” Jill asked with a giggle. It seemed to me she was feeling the lightness of being adorable for the first time in a long time.

I considered reminding her why all the boys were paying attention to us middle-aged mamas. We weren’t a couple of cute, young cheerleaders; we were inexperienced tourists, demonstrating our strange canoe-maneuvering techniques. I thought we resembled Dr. Dolittle’s pushmi-pullyu creature, that endearing, two-headed alpaca that was joined in the middle. But if Jill was feeling young and flirty and having a great time, I wasn’t going to be the one to spoil her fun.

O
ur canoe slid underneath
a charming arched walking bridge as Jill chattered enthusiastically. “Don’t you love the colors on the trees? They are so gorgeous. And that green area on the right must be Hagley Park. I read about it. When the city fathers built Christchurch, they set aside almost a square mile for a public park. A restaurant is at the edge of the herb garden. We might have to include a visit there on our pressing itinerary.”

“Oh, yes, our pressing itinerary. I like the way you think. Eat a little, float a little. Eat a little, walk a little. My idea of a true vacation.”

The river took a turn and came into a sunny area where more bobbing ducks peeked underwater for treats. They seemed to be on the same schedule as we were: eat a little, quack a little. Eat a little, paddle a little.

Floating toward us was a beautifully painted flatboat with a young man standing in the back, wearing a straw hat, white
shirt, and bow tie. He was using a long pole to punt his passengers down the river.

“Look, Jill! It’s Evan the punter we heard so much about. Should we wave?”

“We can do better than that.” Jill paddled faster. “Come on.”

She maneuvered our canoe within six feet of the sedate, “older” tourists who were sitting back with terry cloth hats on their heads and cameras around their necks.

“Hi, Evan,” Jill called out.

“Hi, Evan,” I echoed.

We were the two most popular girls on the lake at summer camp all over again.

“You’re doing a great job, Evan,” Jill said coyly.

“You’re the best punter on the river, Evan,” I added.

The tourists were all looking at us, startled at such enthusiasm in the middle of their placid float.

“Would you sing for us, Evan? Please?” Jill was pushing it now, but I remained her faithful sidekick.

“Yeah, Evan. We love it when you sing.”

With one motion all Evan’s passengers turned their heads and looked at him. He had gone red faced under his straw hat.

Evan kept punting, ignoring us and our request for a song. With a few significant strokes of the long punting pole, he was out of range from us and heading around a bend.

“Oh, Evan,” Jill called after him, “you’re breaking my heart!”

“Just one song!” I pleaded in a shout that echoed off the riverbank.

Evan was too far around the bend by then to glare at us. Jill and I leaned toward the center of our canoe and burst into laughter.

“Did you see the look on his face?” Jill said. “It was like his mother had come to check up on him his first day on the job!”

“I know. Poor kid. Too bad we aren’t seventeen anymore. I think we could have talked him into taking us to the movies tonight.”

“I never would have imagined you to be such a big flirt,” Jill said. “You must have had all the guys wrapped around your little finger in high school.”

“No, never. I would never have tried to pull a stunt like that in high school.”

“I would have.” Jill flipped her hair behind her ear.

“I can believe that. It’s just one more reason I’m glad you and I met now instead of then.”

“It’s much more fun being flirty now. Trust me, you saved the best for the second half of life.”

With more skill than either of us realized we could manage, we turned our little red convertible around and headed down the Avon River with the current speeding our journey. It seemed a symbol of how my life had been filled with so many years of paddling upstream, and now the current was hastening me forward into the fast-approaching second half of life. I knew I was going to be a different person. I already was.

“Look.” Jill giggled.

Evan was waiting for us on the dock.

“Hello,” Jill said calmly. All the silliness had subsided.

“I wanted to thank the two of you.” Evan reached out a hand to help us from the canoe.

“Why?” Jill asked, as if by playing coy she could deny that we were the sassy canoers at the bend in the river.

“They liked your girly stunt back there.”

I hid a smile. Those other “older” women who were punting with Evan were as young at heart as Jill and me. No doubt they wished they had rented the red canoe instead.

“They wouldn’t stop badgering me about the song.”

“Did you sing for them?” I asked.

“Yes, I did.” His wide grin revealed a crooked front tooth and a light heart. “They liked the song so much I was given the most tips I’ve ever received from a tour group. So thanks. Thanks a lot.”