A Morning Sail.

So, rolling up our flax sleeping mats and blankets—we didn't trouble about a tent on those simple-life camping cruises—we stowed our camp-gear under the thwarts, launched our boat, stepped the mast and set sail for the Ohau rivermouth three miles away. Our boat was a sixteenfooter, with a spritsail; small canvas, but, as it turned out, quite enough for our needs that cruise.

Once well clear of the mountain-island the westerly breeze caught us, and away we ran before it, sliding along at an page 28 exhilarating rate over the grey waters. We boomed out the foot of the sail with an oar, and our spritsail tugged at mast and tackle like a team of bullocks. Less than half an hour took us across and through the choppy little seas on the Ohau sandy shallows. We beached the boat on the white sand just where the overflow waters of Rotorua swirl into the Ohau River round a projecting clump of low willows. The billy was soon on the fire, with the frying-pan to follow, and we were busy with tea and bacon and fried bread when the sun came up over the far dark ridge of Matawhaura Mountain. And then the transformation: the mists swept away from the face of the waters; the grey lake became blue, the white beaches and the pumice banks glistened; the bird life of the creek and its sedgy shores woke to life. Presently we saw, too, coils of smoke go up here and there along the lake and we knew by that token that the “little villages that cuddle in the sun” were waking to thoughts of kai, and maybe another day's fishing with those long funnel-shaped hao-koura, the nets stretched on poles to dry on the creamy sand.