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Layover at Orewa Holiday Park

It looks like a layover day today. Not a terrible choice, considering the weather prediction of high winds and storms; but a little tough mentally, as the ready-to-be-burned energy swirls and builds.

Luckily the Holiday Park has a beautiful, mostly glassed in gazebo, decorated in nautical colors to wait out the weather. I call my mom, and try to call my aunt. It’s so good to hear family voices! We straggle one by one back into town to get food for the day, and kill some time indoors. Parker finds internet for a project he’s working on, and the rest of us straggle back to the gazebo. The wind has picked up as promised, and as we walk back, practically able to lean against the wind and be held up, we enter the straightaway of the beach, and are treated to a visual delight. The entire surf is filled with kite surfers, each bright airfoil a different set of colors, each colorful wing dipping and swooping and spiraling in a seemingly, yet impossibly, choreographed dance. The surfers themselves weave in and out of each other’s paths, passing so closely together it is baffling and magical how they avoid becoming entangled.

Swoop, skim, dive. Bank, stall, turn. Dip, curtsy, pirouette.

Beautiful.

Back at the glass gazebo, sheltered from the man handling, the roar, and the forceful energizing of the wind, we sink into an afternoon of contemplation. Writing. Reading. Planning. Daydreaming. Prana and Bro pick up work on a fun but impossible, partially filled in crossword puzzle, deeply and passionately debating synonyms. Parker walks in sporting new shoes, wide enough at last, which is a cause for celebration, at least we hope. It will be better than one Teva and one flip flop, however they work out. Earlier in town at the grocery, Ellie had suggested sharing a salad together for dinner, which we do. Pumpkin! Beet! Avocado! A wegetable masterpiece. Contented, I crawl into the dry little nest of my sleeping bag.