Every summer, we get together with friends and travel down to the Coromandel. Waikawau Bay, to be exact. As a kid it was always on my mind, I would start looking forward to it in the winter. The day that we would pack everything into the car and drive down was my favourite day of the year. The camp grounds were exciting and there must have been a million things to see and do, but this one place, has refused to leave my memories through all this time.
The waterhole. Such a simple place, but definitely the most magical. Surrounded by trees it was like a room made by mother nature. Birds perched on delicate branches, watching; singing. The sound of water trickling from the creek into the pool. Everything designed by nature.
As soon as you stepped off that last step, it was like you had come through the closet; into Narnia. Us kids would dump our towels on the nearest log and run to the water's edge. WIth a quick look back at the adults for confirmation we would one by one, run in, letting the water slowly swallow us into its world. After a minute of relaxing in the water or paddling up the creek, then the fun began.
Towering over our little water hole by about 3m was a huge rock, and if you swam across the water hole and used a few plants to help pull you up, you had made it to the top of the rock. Standing above everyone was like you were on top of the world. Then you jumped. Whether you took a few steps back and ran off the edge, or simply stood and then elegantly dived (which I could never do) everybody took their turn of falling into the deep blue water.
I loved being at the water hole, and I loved jumping off the edge of the rock, but my absolute favourite thing was to be under the water. Everything was so peaceful and calm and the only movement was coming from little bubbles floating up past my head. I wanted to stay down there forever and ever, but humans couldn’t do that naturally; hense my favourite disney princess being Arial!! As well as the fact that if I didn’t burst out of the surface soon my dad would start worrying and I would potentially be crushed by the next person taking their flying leap of faith off the edge of the rock face!
Time really does fly when your having fun, and sometimes, you could even be the one flying! But eventually this all comes to an end and our time at the water hole was over. As we trudged back towards the campsite I sadly glance back over my shoulder. The water was calm with faint ripples caused by wind in place of our little tsunami waves we created. We would be back tomorrow, I just knew it.