Beginning on the third day in Wellington, New Zealand, the kids participated in Surf Life Saving at Maranui Surf Life Saving Club. The families and the weekly rhythms of the club quickly became the touchstone for our two-month stay in Wellington. How did we find Maranui? Heide Alexander, a fellow parent at Shining Mountain Waldorf School back in Boulder, lived in Wellington with her kids for two years and recommended the Kiwi traditional sport of Surf Life Saving for the kids. A month before we came, I emailed some life-saving clubs down in Lyall Bay, near where we would be staying. Maranui quickly emailed me back and said that they would happily welcome the kids, even if it was just for two months.
Surf Life Saving Club with Maranui on Lyall Bay. You’ve got to love the caps on the young kids, or “Nippers”.
Surf Life Rescue is a combination sport: open-ocean swimming to buoys and back, board surfing, partner rescue and tandem return, and also beach running and relays. Some athletes excel at the land events, others the water. It’s a superb athlete who can do them all. The team events are massive relays with swimmers, boarders and runners that takes up 75 square yards of beach and ocean.
Lorna and her teammates waiting for their events.
Lorna, especially, loves to swim and was really eager to meet kids her own age. She joined the competitive group and trained four days a week. Kai just came on Sundays and Lucy found the ocean a bit too cold. Some days were glorious, sunny and postcard-worthy; while on others, the kids swam through clusters of jellyfish or maneuvered long boards in a fierce wind. At the end of our stay we traveled up five hours to Hawke’s Bay for a three-day training camp and regional competition for Lorna. The surf was much bigger than in Wellington and tested her confidence. Lorna has begun looking into university in Wellington so she can continue her new favorite sport.
This event called “flags” is like beach sprint musical chairs, and was Kai’s favorite.
The practices include beach running, swimming through the surf out and around buoys (pronounced “boys” in NZ) and paddle/surfing on long fiberglass boards. You’re not supposed to stand on the boards, but ideally to kneel on them or lie down while catching a wave. Lorna, from Colorado, was very new to swimming in surf, let alone maneuvering an eight-foot board through it. But she was motivated to learn. The little ones surf with foam boogie boards, instead.
Santa and the elves dropped in by inflatable boat to pass out Chocolate Fishes to the Nippers.
Our Maranui has been training lifeguards since 1911 and the programs for the teens and younger set (Nippers) is alive and well. New Zealand needs well-trained lifeguards to patrol their coastline and help to reduce drownings each year. With 9300 miles of coastline, drowning is a real issue. Surf Life Saving is also a fun way to foster a love for their ocean and a comfort in all her moods. The word “Maranui” is Maori for the area of Lyall Bay in New Zealand but has now become synonymous with the café upstairs from the club. The unreal location of the club allows them to lease out the top to the café, the bottom to conferences, maintaining the club itself swimmingly viable.
Lorna’s competitive ocean swim at Waimarama. She’s in there!
For me, I enjoyed that universal parenting stance: standing on the sidelines, elbow to elbow with other parents while cheering for one another’s kids and chatting. I realized how much I missed my friends back home, missed sharing the highs and lows, empathizing and laughing about being a parent. The Maranui family gave me and my kids those daily rhythms we missed most. On our last night in Wellington, there was a small, impromptu bar-b-que farewell. We were so touched – the beauty of travel comes through these people we meet, witnessing real life not just ticking off landmarks. I hope we can welcome some Maranui friends back in Colorado soon.
