The age of innocence has truly passed

When first impressions are way off the mark.

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• I was in the hot pools at Hanmer Springs when I saw a little girl at the side of the pool wearing a bathing costume that had long pockets stitched right around it at waist level, with small cylindrical shapes stuffed into each pocket. Given that each of these had similar dimensions to a stick of dynamite, my immediate impression was that she was kitted out as a suicide bomber. When she got into the pool and immediately floated, it became clear she was wearing a new type of inbuilt flotation device, but that was my second thought. The first was to thank God she did not blow up. Truly, the age of innocence has passed.

• The pool complex is lovely and my family spent an enjoyable couple of hours there. But this paled in comparison with our “discovery” of a perfect swimming hole in the Nile River at Charleston, south of Westport, which was one of the highlights of our holiday this summer. I use the word “discovery” advisedly, since locals have known about this place for generations. Yet somehow, even though we had holidayed there regularly, we had never swum in this spot. Partly that is a result of my own wimpish fear of currents and other dangers, but this time, aided by helpful locals and a beautiful, cloudless 26°C day, we were in the water in the little bay, then floating on inner tubes through the narrow neck where native bush comes down to the waterline, just before the river meets the ocean. It was idyllic, and even too hot for the voracious sandflies that, if they missed breakfast, could probably bite a hole in an inner tube for lunch.

In the early evening, my kids went back for another swim, and this time I stood on the beach, watching as they jumped from big rocks into the deep, clear water while I chatted to friends who live in a bach right on the high-tide line. It was like a scene from a romanticised retro ad about how summer should be for Kiwi kids. I couldn’t help but compare it to the pools at Hanmer, although I shouldn’t have, because they are completely different experiences for very different markets. But the fact there are many places where, at no cost, families can go to jump off rocks, swim in clean rivers and share the beach with fishermen (and, after dark, little blue penguins) is among those things we take for granted, rather like the absence of suicide bombers, whether they are dressed in pink lycra swimming togs or not.

• My brother took us for a ride in his jetboat up (and down) the Buller River. He’s one of those blokes who has never got around to owning a house but loves precision machinery, and the boat is a perfect example of this. It is completely pared down – really it’s a big Corvette engine in a hull and it goes like the clappers. I felt like (Dr Hook’s and, later, Marianne Faithfull’s) Lucy Jordan, roaring along the Buller with the warm wind in my hair.

We did not enjoy the same level of sophistication when it came to communication. Much of Buller – possibly most of it – has very patchy cellphone coverage, the house we stayed in had no internet access and there was nowhere handy to buy a newspaper. In theory, I like the idea of being cut off from the media for a while, but in practice it makes me edgy.

When I did catch up with the news, it was dominated, of course, by the ballooning accident. We had probably all hoped 2012 would be free of random and shocking tragedies but, alas, no. It is no consolation to know that after Christ­church’s earthquakes and Pike River, we have not become indifferent to suffering. Of course we have not. For 11 people to die unexpectedly in any circumstances would have been reason to mourn, but for them to have died while undertaking an experience that should have been a wonderful and special occasion makes it all the more tragic.