I can hear her. Motueka. She’s roaring down below me but rising, rising, rising.  Threatening to meet me once again. I turn on my side, my camp mattress gives a squeaky protest. I try not to imagine what could have been, what I might have allowed to happen. The drumming of rain has stayed a consistent drone, almost a white noise, here to sooth my heavy body into unconsciousness. If only it weren’t for the drips of condensation the rain flicks off my tent inner and onto my face. I flinch as another strikes my temple.

The memory of the day seeps into my mind and body. I feel the fear again. I’m looking down at the swelling expansion of her. Motueka. She’s a golden-brown snake shivering at the base of the valley. The ranges around her spill their overflowing waters into her. She takes it on greedily, filling her, growing her, bigger and bigger she became. I stand, torn between setting up camp on this side of the river- or trying a little harder, looking a little longer for a safer crossing. There’s a hut just up ahead, I could get there if I make the river crossing. My stomach churned as I imagined scenario after scenario of me loosing my footing, being pushed down and swiped away- hiking poles and all.

I folded my fear into something smaller, frustration. I heaved my pack and struck out along the swelling banks of her. Letting the tea-trees whip me and splatter me with more dew. I didn’t mind, it hadn’t stopped raining since last night and showed no signs of stopping anytime soon. I slipped and slopped across the bank, baring the deifying roar of the river. I found what I was looking for.  A narrower section of river. It ran faster and the channel seemed deeper, yes, but maybe I could get across with fewer steps.

I slunk into her. One step and Motueka thrashed around my waist. I spun purposefully, faced upstream and begin a slow sideways walk. I lean against my hiking poles begging they find purchase between the smooth boulders. I moved in increments by feel alone, unable to see beneath the clayish brown water. The river pulses and my body shakes, I lean harder against my hiking poles as Motueka rises around my chest. I feel my foot slip and lock itself into a gap between boulders underfoot. This isn’t ideal.  My body clenches and I imagine what I look like. A wobbly and scared human-tripod, stuck in a river.  The absurdity and danger of the situation squeezed something bubbling and sparkling out of my throat. Laughter.   Why am I here? My foot slipped and I fell beneath.

I rock onto my back and fixate on the roof of the tent. I am past the precipice of exhaustion unable to fall asleep.  I feel heavy in my body and cold in my bones, saturated from the rain and river water. I shudder in my sleeping bag and blink hard.

“Day 39 on trail, Sarah.” I croak out loud to myself. Just to hear something other than the angry river. I don’t say what I feel aloud, I don’t even let it form a sentence in my mind. But I know today hurt me, today made me feel afraid and small and alone.  This was not what I wanted this journey to be, this is not how I wanted the return to tipuna wahine’s whenua to go.

I think back to two years ago, in different country around different company. In a much warmer climate. The Yolngu women of east Arnhem Land Australia.

“Akka!” A call out from the women.
“Yo, akka!” Another response from another sister.
It’s June, middle of winter, but the temperature up here wouldn’t strike lower than 38 degrees for the entirety of this work expedition. The sisters continued their call and response as we walked in a line through the bush. The only thing keeping us together were their calls, making sure we- mainly me- didn’t stray too far from each other.  I had been living with these ladies for two weeks on their homeland country, Nynyikay. This was my second time with them looking for honey, considered special and exclusively “women’s business”. 

 

I see something white and fluffy in the distance, so starkly contrasting with the fire-burn black and deep greens of tropical northern Australia. I grip the empty ice-cream bucket in my hand and head over. I knew who that white fluff belonged too.
“Old Lady,” I call out to her. The white fluffy hair tilts forwards and falls into her eyes.
 “You have it?” She asks, meaning the bucket.
“Yo. Did you find the bees?” She nods in response and dips her face backwards into the sun. Her charcoal skin always sheens brighter around midday. The wrinkles at the corner of her eyes deepen as she stares straight into the sky with ancient intention. I looked too, struggling to spot the tiny native bees she was tailing.  Old Lady broke away from me and her staring contest with the sky and walked straight over to a red stringy bark. She removed her axe from her belt, forearms threaded with veins and wide dark hands wrapped around the shaft of the axe.
“Yapa, come.” She ordered. I knelt beside the tree and beneath her with the bucket out and ready. She swung once, the tree thudded and shuddered briefly. I had no idea how old Old Lady was, I never felt the need to ask her. She just was what she was, a strong woman operating and living on country with her sisters.

I watched the honey drip out of the red stringy tree trunk and into the bucket. I wondered, for not the first time that week, how she knew exactly where to strike a tree to find its honey. I felt the silence between us in contrast to the cacophony of birds flittering throughout the bush. It was nice, it was safe.

Old Lady broke it.
“Where are you from?”
“Western Australia?” I answered but it sounded more like a question. She seemed unhappy with my response.
“You have different skin.” Oh. It’s one thing to be asked about your skin colour by the anglo-saxon Australian, another to be asked by an Indigenous woman.
“My grandmother was a Maori woman, I have a New Zealand background…” I trailed off, staring up at Old Lady. She was nodding, I watched her lick a bit of honey off of her axe handle.
“You should go back and let her see you.”
“Oh, I never met her. She died before I was born.”
“No. Country. Country wants to see you.”
 

I open my eyes, I wake to the staunch silence. In the absence of the once roaring river and thundering rain against my tent, I smile and feel relief blossom in my belly. Marama is shining brightly through my thin roof, he was a perfect crescent tonight.  Slow realisation creeps in through my muggy mind. If I can see him, that means the clouds have passed and he can see me.

I wriggle out of my sleeping bag and grapple with the door of my tent, I pull myself outside. Motueka is no longer raging, but humming a soft song now. Marama casts his light softly around me. Just enough for me to see the mountains, to see the river, to see my valley…and maybe just enough for whenua to see me.