Craypot Cafe

By Warwick M. Harvey

For Mako, a twelve-year-old boy growing up in Kaikoura, New Zealand, life changes for the better after he throws a stone accidently through a church window. This incident begins his friendship with Hariata, an elderly spiritual Maori woman who opens Makos eyes to the spiritual aspect of his local environment among naturethe forest, the Kowhai river, the birds, and the ocean. Set in the summer of 1988, the adventure of growth for Mako and reconciliatory healing for Hariata unfold under the watchful eye of the sacred mountain. There is no beginning or end to nature, just as there is no beginning or end to life. The collage of beautiful colors in the paua shell comes from these elements, the heart and soul of our mountain. Again, do not be fooled by what you first see. These shells are the gems of the ocean. They are the rainbows of the sea, Mako. They are the mana from the sacred mountain that watches over all of us.

This adventure was written twenty months before the 7.8 magnitude earthquake that shook the Kaikoura township and surrounding region on the 14 November 2016. Everyone in the area has been affected by it. My heartfelt thoughts go out to them all. Their struggle since to resurrect their lives has brought them closer together. As you read this story, send your positive thoughts to Kaikoura and the community. We wish them well for the future.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris NZ
• Release date: Sep 13, 2018
• ISBN: 9781543495027

Book preview

Copyright © 2018 by Warwick M. Harvey.

Library of Congress Control Number:         2018909655

ISBN:       Hardcover         978-1-5434-9504-1

                 Softcover           978-1-5434-9503-4

                 eBook                978-1-5434-9502-7

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted

in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,

without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the

product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance

to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Rev. date: 09/07/2018

Xlibris

0-800-443-678

www.Xlibris.co.nz

782803

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Chapter 1 Broken Window!

Chapter 2 Crying Mountain

Chapter 3 Craypot Cafe

Chapter 4 Sitting Seat

Chapter 5 Puhi Puhi Forest at the Feet of the Sacred Mountain

Chapter 6 Seiko Hamasaki’s Arrival and the Local Sites

Chapter 7 Shipwrecked

Chapter 8 Matariki Celebrations

Chapter 9 Home by the Sea

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thank you to the wonderful people of Kaikoura, their township, the wildlife, the mountain, the forest, and the sea. Thank you to Manaia, Lorraine, Heather, and Maurice for their guided Maori tour of Kaikoura. Thank you to my wife, boys, parents, and mother-in-law for sharing a trip to visit the township and the amazing wildlife. Jonathan, through your artistic eye for clarity and detail, I thank you for bringing the book alive in your amazing artwork. Thank you to all the seals, albatrosses, dolphins, and the one sperm whale that came up from the depths below to greet us. Thank you to Mother Earth and for the gift of nature. Thank you to the spirit that watched over us during our trip, sharing in our fun and gifting this story for our enjoyment.

INTRODUCTION

The Kaikoura Township and the surrounding area is a brilliant place for all kinds of adventures amongst nature and the plentiful marine wildlife. Many people from all around the world stop there almost by accident to look, not really knowing what they will find. But nothing is really an accident in life, so make sure that you allocate more time than you think you’ll need. Some stay, mix with the locals, and work in their vibrant cafes and restaurants. We were served by adventurous working tourists from Italy and Ireland. It is the kind of home away from home that makes you feel at home. Kaikoura is a breath of fresh air that needs to be shared with the rest of the world, so why don’t you come down under and see it for yourself?

Until you make your own journey to visit the Kaikoura area, you have this fictional story to read. It is the adventure of a thirteen-year-old boy who lives in the township. His life is changed when he meets an elderly Maori woman named Hariata. Through her friendship, he starts to see and experience his surroundings with a spiritual understanding that begins to change his life. This story was written for your entertainment and enjoyment. It might just help you view your own life and surroundings in a different manner too. But if nothing more occurs, I do hope that you enjoy it for what it is: a fictional adventure about an open-minded teenager. And an open mind is a blank page, ready to be filled with adventure.

Warwick M. Harvey

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1

BROKEN WINDOW!

The end of the dusty gravel road at Hariata’s house is where the beginning of Mako’s summer adventure slowly began to unfold. It was an obscure place for a twelve-year-old Pakeha boy to find himself visiting—and not voluntarily at first, I might add. Before this summer had started, Mako had never been down this dusty road. Nor had he any intention to venture near it, let alone follow it down to Hariata, an elderly Maori woman. She had been called Queenie by the locals for as long as he could remember. She wasn’t really a recluse; she just lived in a cottage by the river at the back of the township. Until now, their paths had had no reason to cross.

But as he was starting to appreciate his regular late afternoon visits, he was learning to go with the flow and trust his inner guidance. Or as Queenie put it, Boy, you are in the right place, doing the right thing, even if it feels a bit prickly and uncomfortable at first. When my father was your age and learning to hunt in the forest, he was taught by his elders how to push slowly through the prickly, dense undergrowth to the bird calls beckoning on the other side, no matter how dark and eerie the forest felt. The darkness and prickles in life are there only to slow you down. They make you take stock of your true surroundings and teach you how to push through them to the other side. Be still, and listen for the bird calls.

To Mako, Queenie was a magic encyclopedia-cum-kaleidoscope to his life. Visit by visit, twist by twist, he found that she had an immense wealth of understanding to share. She had many answers to the meaning of life that neither his teachers at school nor his parents and older brother, Joel, could teach him. Over the summer holiday break, he would slowly come to realise that Queenie had two key traits that make a great teacher. First, she had a broken heart that could only be truly healed through the process of giving selflessly through random acts of love, guidance, and compassion. Second, she had time. Luckily for Mako, she had plenty of it in the summer of 1988. Unbeknown to them both, this was to be a summer of spiritual reconciliation for Hariata and spiritual growth for Mako.

Right from his first visit to her home at the river end of Kowhai Ford Road, she had affectionately called him Sparkles. Initially, Mako thought Hariata was taking the mickey out of him, just like his father had of late. Ever since the incident ‘in the eyes of God’ (as his father had called it), he had been given explicit instructions from his father, Jerry. Each afternoon, he was to deliver a leftover fish from the Craypot Cafe, wrapped safely in newspaper, for Queenie’s dinner. Jerry had lectured that this was retribution for his foolish, boyish act of vandalism, now commonly referred to by his family as ‘the incident’.

On his second visit to her house, Mako’s misinterpretation of his new nickname was set straight by Queenie. She had explained to him that the name Sparkles was a descriptive oxymoron of himself. Given time, boy, your lifeless eyes will gain the necessary essence to live up to your new name and sparkle like the night sky full of stars. From darkness, there will come light. All in good time, boy. First things first, we must start with the end in sight and then manifest towards it. Given time, the connection will be made. Be patient. Have te faaroo, boy. Have faith.

The incident that had sparked the last two months’ visits had occurred at the annual Boy Scout breakup at the end of October. The Scout leader, Mr Thomas, had been running late whilst trying to gather together the last of the supplies necessary for the party. The boys in the troop had been milling around, full of exuberant testosterone as they waited in the shade of the Presbyterian church next to the hall that they occupied for their weekly Scout meetings. One of the older boys, Peter, had picked up a stone and, in the blink of an eye, had propelled it straight up and over the church roof into the dense vegetation yonder.

There was a moment’s silence before a joint cheer from the onlookers signified the brilliance of the spur-of-the moment action and the success it richly deserved. One after another, there was a copycat reaction, as randomly shaped stone missiles were selected and fired over yonder. The banter of the boys bubbled like the nearby local stream, where the car park stones had originally been gathered from.

Now