Catherine Stewart - A Wife on Gorge River

Copyright

I once thought that if I ever wrote a book I should call it No Lighthouse, since having the word lighthouse in the title seemed like a guarantee of sales. Starting with Mabel Pollocks The Children from the Lighthouse, I have read out loud in the evenings all the lighthouse books I could get hold of: Birdies Lighthouse, As Darker Grows the Night, The Red Rocks of Eddystone. I was a bit slow when I heard about Jeanette Aplins The Lighthouse Keepers Wife, as I thought it might be like The Lighthouse Keepers Lunch which we had outgrown, but we enjoyed it and The Lighthouse Childrens Mother, and look forward to the rest of the story.

Since visiting the lighthouses at Cape Leeuwin and Cape Naturaliste in Western Australia as a child, I had always wanted to live in a lighthouse. (Doesnt everyone at some stage?) Admittedly, I was somewhat deflated to find that lighthouse keepers didnt actually get to live in the round towers with furniture built to fit the curving walls, instead preferring to live in normal houses nearby.

As it was, I came to live with Robert Long, also known as Beansprout, at the mouth of the Gorge River on the west coast of New Zealands South Island. Our home is about halfway between Jackson Bay, at the end of the road south of Haast, and Milford Sound. A two-day walk north would bring us to the end of the road into the Cascade Valley, and it could be another day to walk from there to the main road if no one came along and gave us a ride. To the south, we would follow the coast as far as Martins Bay, where the Hollyford Track leads out to Gunns Camp on the Hollyford Road just below the road into Milford Sound. Roberts record for this tramp was two-and-a-half days, but once I came along, particularly later with babies and growing children, it took us at least seven days and anything up to 12.

At Gorge River we have the isolation and the exposure to storm and gale, the constant sound of the sea for company, and the exhilarating awareness of the weather and sea conditions like an inbuilt marine forecast. When we stay with the Mitchells, our next-door neighbours 30 kilometres south at Big Bay, where the house is tucked away up the Awarua River a few hundred metres behind the sand dunes and nicely sheltered, I always feel a bit out of touch with the weather. It takes a walk to the river mouth to get the same feeling, and as you tend to always be busy it can be easy to get stuck in the house and miss whatever is going on outside. At Gorge River, even in the house, you are right amongst it.

Unlike lighthouse keepers, we dont have a monthly supply-drop from the government steamer, a back-up service, a salary or any materials provided. Nor do we have to wind the lantern every 30 minutes, stand nightshifts, scrub the house spotless in preparation for the next tenants, and board the ship on schedule regardless of how dreadful the weather is or how seasick the children are.

South Westland, showing Gorge River and surrounds

Although not circular, our house has many attributes of a lighthouse. It shakes in high winds or with a big sea running, and the windows are always covered in salt spray. When I left Christchurch, a friend wrote in a card Enjoy the silence of the wilderness, but living beside the ocean it is never silent. Our windows look directly out to sea, and we keep an eye on passing boats, planes and helicopters, often knowing already where they are going, what they are doing and whether they are likely to call in on their way back. We used to fly a flag to show that we were at home, until the sea took the flagpole away one too many times, and at night if we saw the lights of a boat wed light the kerosene lantern and hang it in the window where they could see it. When our first child was big enough to climb a ladder safely, Robert built one for him up to the windowsill where he could stand on his lookout and watch fishing boats and seabirds passing by.

I first tramped along the Big Bay and Cascade coastline in 1987, but it wasnt until 1990 that I returned to Gorge River, staying two or three weeks at a time for most of that year. Robert and I came home from a visit to my sister in Canada in January 1991, pregnant with our first child, after Gorge River had been my permanent home for several months.

Lighthouses or otherwise, I would probably never have written a book if Robert hadnt done it first and so successfully. I resisted a bit longer, but with so many people asking to hear my side of the story, and the amazing feedback we have had from everyone, it simply had to be done, like most of what I do around here.

Take a peek through the skylight onto a typical day in our house.

Most days we arent out of bed very early. The summer sun doesnt get to us over the hill until nearly 9.00, although it is light much earlier. The days are long, with an hour or more of twilight after sunset. It isnt dark until about 10.30 and we tend to work late. After getting up at 8.00 or 8.30, we have lunch at 3.00, tea at 9.00, and the kids might get to bed by 11.00. Being so far west, it seems to me that if we put our clocks back an hour instead of forwards for daylight saving, Id spend less time feeling guilty. With no school bus to catch or official working hours to meet, who cares anyway?

Either Robert or I gets up to light the fire, and the other gets a cup of lemon-balm tea, half an orange and half an apple in bed. If it is my morning in bed, I stay a while where the light is good beside the front windows to mend Roberts favourite jersey, which is just about on its last legs. Robin needs new slippers for the winter, and Im knitting a pair of black possum/ merino gloves for Christan. Since he spends so much time plucking possums, he might as well wear the product.

Over in the far corner, Robin reads for an hour or more before she gets out of bed. It is a job to keep up a supply of decent reading material for her, and I must write a letter to the Hokitika Library to ask for some more books. Christan is reading Ken Tustins A Wild Moose Chase which will be a good one for his Level 2 reading log. He also needs one by a Maori author; perhaps the Correspondence School can send something.