Donning our Sunday finest, cups of steaming coffee warming our hands, we drifted between the vendor stalls, drawn now and then to the gentle rhythm of the pony rides at the Matakana Country Market. The thunderstorm had only just slipped away, leaving the air heavy and luminous. Now the sun burned through in fragments, twinkling between oak leaves, drawing steam from the earth and coaxing the scent of fig and orange into the afternoon.
We lingered awhile, soaking in the atmosphere of live acoustic melodies, the soft hiss of sizzling food trucks, and the creative artistry of glazed pottery and wood-fired pizzas and freshly baked bread laid out in careful rows. Children darted past, barefoot and carefree, their laughter rising with the dust.
In time, we turned toward our next destination, a mere twenty-minute drive away, winding through narrow country roads that curled through rolling green hills unfolding endlessly beneath the clearing turquoise sky.
Upon arriving at our beloved beach, shoes were shed and swimsuits slipped into. Our satchels sagged beneath the weight of a home-cooked dinner, bottles of wine, and a camping stove, a picnic blanket slung loosely over sun-kissed shoulders. We wandered the length of the shore until we found our own quiet pocket – a gentle, sloping stretch of white-gold sand and glitter-capped waves for as far as the eye can see.
The wind whipped sharply across the coast, tugging at our clothes and snatching at our hair, urging us into motion. We shared a quiet knowing that a shelter would soon rise here, something sturdy and defiant.
While I sipped my wine, I roamed the shoreline in looping, playful paths, returning each time with armfuls of driftwood gathered from the tide’s offerings. Nevis, intent and unhurried, shaped an architectural marvel from sand and scraps, coaxing it into a shelter against the restless wind. Beside him, Sam crouched over the stove, tending to supper with one hand while the other carved a deep hollow into the sand – a cradle where the firewood would soon rest and flicker to life.
Sheltered in our quiet refuge, bathed in the last golden glow of sunlight and the soft, flickering burnish of fire at our feet, we shared our meal: mushroom risotto, sweet ears of corn, roasted Brussels sprouts, slices of pumpkin pie, and cupfuls of wine that carried the fading warmth of the day.
Before long, darkness descended. The fire flared and snapped, flames licking hungrily toward the heavens as rain began to fall in heavy sheets. The world turned slick and cold, dissolving into shadow and steam, and yet we delighted in it – the wild, cinematic magic of the moment.
At one point we broke into a run, plunging into the lapping waves. We floated there, suspended beneath rain and sky, submerged in the hush of the night.
There is always an unexpected pleasure in the ocean’s warmth when you’ve known the glacial bite of rivers flowing through the Canadian Rockies.
Soon after, as we curled around the fire, sleep settled over us like a deep, heavy tide. Beyond our small circle, the wind howled – restless, untamed – but within it, the blaze held its ground, casting a glow across our skin.
The embers were eventually doused and buried, leaving only a faint memory of warmth in the sand. The earth was cool and yielding beneath our feet as we climbed the dunes and set off barefoot through tall grasses, straying slowly away from the sea and into the pitch-black hush of the night.
We giggled our way into the darkness as we recalled the beach fort we had constructed against wind and rain – something makeshift, defiant, and strangely perfect. The flavour of Sam’s homemade pumpkin pie still lingered faintly, crumbly and sweet and spiced. We thought back to the songs drifting from the speaker – our favourite summer tracks from years gone by. It had that feeling: like a summer day shared with close friends, somehow folded into the middle of a stormy Easter night.
And even now, it lingers – burnished like a sunset – like something already becoming a memory as it’s lived, the kind you carry quietly long after the sand has been washed away.
