FIRST MAN, FIRST LOVE
LOOKING BACK, I can recognise my childhood as idyllic. At the time, though, do we ever realise how good we have things? Rarely. More often, the truth dawns later, when we catch ourselves as adults trying to recapture the magic of days past.
I grew up on a small horticultural farm in Gisborne, on the east coast of the North Island. My family also had what we call a bach, a tiny holiday home about an hour’s drive south in a beautiful spot called the Mahia Peninsula.
Split between those two places, my boyhood revolved around the sea. Among my earliest memories are my dad pushing me onto waves on a surfboard and taking me fishing. He taught me how to go around the rocks at low tide and find paua (abalone), how to snorkel and how to head out to sea
