Our adventure begins with a peaceful two-hour drive along a winding coastal road to Whitianga. Our twins (we decided on twins because: efficiency) gaze out the windows with quiet wonder, listening exclusively to curated soulful playlists. No ‘Baby Shark’. No shrieking. No food thrown. We see other families, pulled over on the side of the road, their children projectile vomiting and wailing about the corners. My own children smile knowingly as they chew on organic, sugar-free ginger lollies. They smile at me, with sincere gratitude and the sort of overwhelming love that only a mother can recognise.
We’re all wearing neutral-toned organic linen and feeling profoundly connected to nature. The environmentally curious twins play games, pointing out Tūī and Pīwakawaka with the calm reverence of a David Attenborough documentary. I glance at my husband, both of us glow with smug, screen-free wholesomeness, and whisper, ‘we should do this every summer’.
At the campsite, the little ones leap gracefully, with glee, from the car and immediately begin constructing elaborate flax bird feeders. They tie perfect little knots, use biodegradable twine, and discuss ecosystems and the circle of life.
We watch on, proudly, as they admire the river, the trees, and have no interest in attempting the sort of circusy that other feral children seem to be engaged in. The twins do not throw sticks or rocks. They don’t chase a duck with a fistful of crackers. They don’t wander into a young couple’s zipped closed tent, that has a clearly written sign outside asking for privacy, yelling, “IS THIS WHERE THE LOLLIES ARE?”
My husband and I erect our tent in perfect harmony. No swearing. No passive-aggressive commentary about who ‘read the instructions wrong’. No stakes bent at a 90-degree angle, and quietly evaluated for their ability to cause slight, but meaningful harm to your significant other.
Dinner is a textural masterpiece, a campfire version of Bœuf Bourguignon. My refined, worldly children eat every bite. They do not ask for chicken nuggets. They are unbothered by texture issues, colour groupings, or the universal childhood belief that herbs constitute ‘green bits of poison’.
As the sun sets, other families struggle. The neighbouring circus has lost its main act downstream, the rest of the clowns are gathering burnt marshmallows from the dirt and shoving them in their mouths. Others are engaged in hand-to-hand combat over a single glow stick. Meanwhile, our twins sit quietly, handcrafting s’mores with the precision of Michelin chefs, obeying every fire safety rule, while wrapped in fire-retardant foil blankets.
Then we all assemble, cross legged in our own corners of the tent. My children read adventure books in perfect silence, while I read a novel, and my partner sips a well-earned beer. Bedtime is peaceful. The children snuggle into their sleeping bags and drift off by 7:00pm, despite the sun being aggressively present until 9:15pm. My husband and I then get to enjoy a romantic evening by the fire, revelling in how blessed we are and how rewarding parenting is. We all sleep until 9:00am. because small children always sleep in, especially in tents.
I wake up smiling. Radiant. Renewed. Ready. Then reality… I’m still in Auckland!
One child is screaming because the other stuck Barbie inside the dinosaur’s mouth, and when that didn’t work, forced the duo of toys deep into the toilet bowl. The other child is laughing while hurling Weet-Bix into the toilet, to ‘make it muddy!’ My partner is yelling from the garage, “WHY IS THE TENT MOULDY?”
And suddenly, the clarity washes over me. In three hours, we will be trapped in a car with two feral humans who both suffer from motion sickness in their Bugaboos. Car rides and corners demand hazmat suits and the reflexes of a forensic specialist. We arrive at the campsite seven hours later to sand, stress, one tent pole missing, a duck with a serious agenda, and 4000 other families who also thought this would be a fantastic idea.
We attempt to erect a tent with a tree branch, while being eaten alive by sandflies. We have forgotten the BBQ, so we eat cold spaghetti from the can. All the children in the camp ground cry simultaneously, not in harmony, but in a jarring, shambolic pitch that makes dogs howl, or hide for cover. At 2am, we wake to the hiss of the inflatable mattresses deflating, the children shrieking at a possum that’s entered the open tent door and is staring at us like we have a serious problem.
But still… we’re going. Because optimism is hereditary, and delusion is the number-one symptom of parenting.
