This Way of Life

THIS WAY OF LIFE

Set against the looming shadow of the Ruahine Ranges, the Ottley-Karena family live a tough but ultimately joyful life in the very heart of nature.

Sumner Burstyn Photography by Thomas Burstyn and Norbert Guenther

THIS WAY OF LIFE

Sumner Burstyn Photography by Thomas Burstyn and Norbert Guenther

Introducing the Ottley-Karenas

Beach camp

Moving

Colleen and the kids at home

Wellie and Colleen in Berlin

The boys go eeling

Peter and Wellie go hunting

Aurora and Peter break in horses (and Peter has an accident)

Aurora and Salty

Pania injures herself and Corby saves the day

The horses get a new home

High above the Tukituki

The new house

Acknowledgements

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HarperCollinsPublishers

First published in 2012by HarperCollinsPublishers (New Zealand) LimitedPO Box 1, Shortland Street, Auckland 1140

Copyright © Sumner Burstyn 2012

Sumner Burstyn asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers.

HarperCollinsPublishers31 View Road, Glenfield, Auckland 0627, New ZealandLevel 13, 201 Elizabeth Street, Sydney, NSW 2000, AustraliaA 53, Sector 57, Noida, UP, India77–85 Fulham Palace Road, London, W6 8JB, United Kingdom2 Bloor Street East, 20th floor, Toronto, Ontario M4W 1A8, Canada10 East 53rd Street, New York, NY 10022, USA

National Library of New Zealand Cataloguing-in-Publication DataBurstyn, Barbara.This way of life / by Sumner Burstyn ; photography by Thomas Burstyn and Norbert Guenther. ISBN 978-1-86950-964-41. Karena, Peter. 2. Karena, Colleen. 3. Ottley-Karena family. 4. Rural families—New Zealand—Ruahine Range. 5. Self-reliant living—New Zealand—Ruahine Range. 6. Country life—New Zealand—Ruahine Range. 7. Maori (New Zealand people)—New Zealand—Ruahine Range—Biography. 8. Ruahine Range (N.Z.) [1. Tāngata. reo 2. Whānau. reo 3. Taiao. reo 4. Hōiho. reo] I. Burstyn, Thomas. II. Guenther, Norbert. III. Title. IV. This way of life.306.85209229346—dc 23

ISBN: 978 1 86950 964 4

Cover and internals design by Ande Kuric and Sally Greer, Beatnik DesignCover image by Thomas BurstynInternal photographs by Thomas Burstyn (pages 6 [centre, centre-right, bottom centre], 7–11, 30 [left], 43, 50, 52 [bottom left and right], 54–5, 57, 60, 62, 64–6, 68–71, 80–1, 87, 98, 101, 115, 129, 133, 136, 139, 142, 144–6, 148–9, 153–6, 170–2 and 174–189); Norbert Guenther (pages 6 [top left, centre and right, centre left, bottom left, bottom right ], 12, 15–6, 18–20, 22, 24–8, 30 [right], 31–5, 37, 39–42, 44–9, 51, 52 [top], 56, 58–9, 72–3, 75, 77–9, 83, 85, 89–90, 92–3, 95–7, 99–100, 102, 105–7, 109, 113, 116, 119–20, 122–8, 131, 134–5, 138, 140, 151, 158, 160–3, 165–6 and 192); and Amelia Burstyn (page 82).Publisher: Alison Brook

Printed by RR Donnelley, China, on 128gsm Matt Art

Meet the Ottley-Karena whanau. Mum Colleen and Dad Peter and the kids: Llewellyn (Wellie) aged 14, twins Aurora and Malachi 13, Elias 12, Corban (Corby) 10, Salem 5 and baby Augustine.

Seven kids is a lot of family. Today they live in a big ramshackle house in Havelock North in Hawke’s Bay. The house has a large section with lots of old trees and secret overgrown pathways and hiding places.

But the family did not always live in such a big house. Five years ago they lived in Omahu, a small village on the back road between Napier and Hastings. Their house was across the road from their school. It was over a hundred years old and next to a graveyard, where all their ancestors were buried.

InTRODUCInG THE OTTLEY-KAREnAS

98THIS WAY OF LIFE

One day, their house burned down. The family was away camping at the beach when the fire started in the middle of the night. They found out about it early the next morning. Because Wellie is the oldest he got to go with his parents to see what was left after the fire. Salem went too because she was a new baby, wrapped up in a blanket.

Wellie remembers that day clearly. He could smell the musty wet smoke as they drove past the graveyard. At first, from the front, the damage did not look too bad, and he was hopeful, but as they went up the driveway Wellie could see there was a large black hole in the side of the house where the lounge used to be. Most of the floor was gone. All their furniture and books were destroyed. It was like someone had scooped the guts out of their home.

‘Even our clothes hanging in the wardrobes were just strips of burned material.’ For Wellie, one of the saddest things was losing the freezer full of meat his dad had hunted.

‘My dad worked really hard to get that meat. It was enough to feed us for a couple of months. I felt very bad for him.’

Wellie says if he thinks about it now, it can still make him cry. His father grew up in the house with 11 brothers and sisters.

‘Ottley-Karenas had lived in the house for over a century. My great-grandparents lived there too. I miss the history. You could feel all the ancestors. Even though it was falling down a bit, we always felt really proud to live there. Most of my brothers and sisters were born there too. It was our history.’

InTRODUCInG THE OTTLEY-KAREnAS

BEACH CAMPEvery summer the Ottley-Karena family goes camping. One of their favourite places is Waimarama Beach. After the house burns down the family realizes they will have to live at their seaside camp. They need to find a home not just for themselves but for all their horses as well.

Waimarama Beach is famous in Hawke’s Bay. The sand is golden and the beach curves in a long half-moon. Motu-o-Kura or Bare Island sits like a new tooth at one end of the bay. In the evening when the sun sets, the island glows golden as it fades into the sea.

The camp is tucked away behind a sand dune, protected from the onshore winds. There is no road to the camp. Instead the Ottley-Karenas have to drive carefully along the edge of the beach. Sometimes the four-wheel drive gets stuck in deep sand. One time when there is a big storm, waves wash all the way up to the track and in the morning Peter has to clear a new route out.

When the kids walk from the road to the camp across the rolling sand dunes it takes a long time. Rabbits jump out from behind the clumps of marram grass. There is a river estuary that flows into the sea. Everyone calls it ‘the lagoon’, and it twists and turns its way, with old weeping willow trees touching the ground.

1514THIS WAY OF LIFE BEACH CAMP

Before the fire the Ottley-Karenas had parked their caravan at the beach ready for their summer holiday. So now Colleen and Peter sleep with Salem (who is the baby) in the caravan. The boys, Wellie, Malachi and Elias, sleep in one tent. The girls, Aurora and Corban, sleep in the other. Because of the fire they don’t have a lot of clothes so it is easy to keep the tents tidy. The kids all love living at the beach, and the whole family will stay here at the beach camp for five months.

When they first move here it is the summer school holidays. Every day they wake up early and swim in the lagoon. All the Ottley-Karena children can swim really well. They lie on their boogie boards hidden under the willow trees that hang right into the water. In one place beside the lagoon the sand bank is very high and sloped. The kids get a good run up and leap over the edge. They land on the lower slope of the sand bank and slide down into the water.

The water in the lagoon is warm and slow moving so they can float on their boogie boards almost all the way to the sea. But they are not allowed to go into the ocean without an adult. The sea can get very rough and it isn’t always easy to tell if it is safe to swim. The area for swimming between the flags is at the other end of the beach, so the big kids always make sure the younger ones know the rules. The first rule is: never go into any water alone. The second is: always have an adult with you if you are swimming in the sea. The third rule is: always look after each other.

Often when the children are swimming in the lagoon the adults are at the camp nearby, busy doing things. The older Ottley-Karena kids are really good at looking after the younger ones. Wellie says it is one of the responsibilities of being the oldest.

‘I do take it very seriously.’Malachi says it makes Wellie bossy, but the others don’t seem to mind.

And everyone looks after Salem, who is just starting to crawl. Malachi says that they have friends who are not allowed to stay with them because their parents are worried they might get hurt. But he says they are always careful. ‘We know how to swim really well — except Elias is not such a good swimmer so we always watch him.’

1716THIS WAY OF LIFE BEACH CAMP

By the time the boys drag their raft all the way to the road it is already getting dark. They hide the raft under some branches ready for the next day. All the way back to camp they try to scare each other with horror stories. Malachi’s stories always turn into jokes, but Elias makes up the best scary stories.

The next morning they get up really early. As they walk across the sandy paddocks their jeans get wet with the dew on the tall grass. Together the boys drag the raft into the lagoon. Malachi trips over and gets his T-shirt wet too. Because he is already soaked it is his job to launch the raft from the water’s edge once the others are aboard.

They discover the raft floats really well, but there is not enough current to push it down towards the sea and their camp. So Wellie ties a rope onto it and the boys take turns pulling it from the shore. Elias says it doesn’t work very well because the lagoon has narrow places and sometimes there are too many branches hanging down to get through. The boys have to keep hauling the raft out of the water and dragging it to the next clear part. Nearer the camp there is a place where the lagoon is wider and the water is quite deep so they float past the tents and the caravan and call out to their mum. She walks to the edge of the water with Salem on her hip and smiles and waves to them.

Colleen says she really wants to tell the boys to be careful of the tide — that it might take them out to sea. But she says she also knows they will not allow that to happen as they have talked about the tides and how easy it is to get caught.

‘I am sure they will all jump off where the lagoon starts to cut through the hard sand, just before it reaches the sea.’

Which, of course, they do. Once they are down at the beach it is too difficult to pull the heavy raft back up so they leave it near the surf. A few days later the sea comes up in a high tide and takes their raft away.

Later that summer a friend comes to visit and brings a canoe with him. All the kids take turns paddling in it, and find it a lot easier to handle than the raft. They can paddle into all the little nooks and crannies and navigate those tight parts of the creek where the raft was too big to manage. They can also stand up in the canoe and use the paddle to push it along. It takes a while to learn how to balance and everyone falls out as they are learning.

Elias says the best thing about camping at the beach is the bridge they have built across a skinny part of the lagoon. It is Elias’s idea. An old willow tree has fallen over, so the Ottley-Karena boys tie ropes to it and try to pull it to the lagoon, but it is too heavy. Other kids who are staying nearby come to help them. Together the boys drag the log right across the lagoon. Because the bridge is almost hidden beneath the weeping willows it is a good place for peeing.

‘We line up to see who can pee the furthest,’ Malachi says. The boys also try to push each other off the log and into the water.

‘It’s not very deep there so you just get a bit wet,’ says Elias.After that, one of them decides to build a raft. Malachi says it was his

idea but the others say it was their idea too. The boys use off-cuts of wood from the horse yards their dad is building. They find some old plastic barrels and screw their lids down tight. They nail boards together to make a platform and leave some holes for the rope. Then they tie the barrels under the raft. They have to drag the raft over the sand hills to the top end of the lagoon, which takes a long time. The river that forms the lagoon comes out from under the road bridge then snakes through the sand dunes for a kilometre or two, right past the Ottley-Karenas’ camp and out to the sea.

THIS WAY OF LIFE

Set against the looming shadow of the Ruahine Ranges, the Ottley-Karena family live a tough but ultimately joyful life in the very heart of nature.

In an isolated and rural New Zealand, Peter and Colleen Ottley-Karena raise their seven children on the thin edge between freedom and disaster. The children are brought up to respect nature, their horses and each other. Regardless of their lack of material wealth, they never lose sight of the magic in everyday tasks — collecting eggs, helping their dad to break in horses, or hunting and preparing food for their family. Untamed and unafraid, the idea of risk is alien to them. To watch then seven-year-old Aurora expertly ride a massive stallion bareback with no more than a rope halter asks us to re-examine our ideas of what children are capable of. With its genesis in the multi-award-winning 2009 documentary of the same name, we see where the Ottley-Karena family is now. Faced with a range of new challenges, they approach life with characteristic dignity and strength. But is their unique lifestyle one that is sustainable in the long term?

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NON-FICTION