Lakeside

Somewhere in the middle of the South Island (New Zealand), we decided to camp. The air held a chilly bite that stung my nose slightly, not in an unpleasant manner – this was the bite of fresh air, carrying with it the timeless notes of the huge glaciers that lie less than an hour’s drive away. It smacked of the pristine sharpness that lingers after a lightning storm – there was no scent, yet it was unmistakable that we were in glacier country.

We stopped at a campsite by a lake. It was surrounded by a narrow rocky beach, embraced on both sides by the towering cliffs that could only have been carved by millennia of creeping ice. It would have looked like it hadn’t been touched by man since then, if not for the large parking lot and the landscaped flat grassland next to it that marked out a designated camp site. Despite this, it was a pleasant spot – there were few people this time of the year. The sun was shining, it warmed the air and we were tempted to spend some time here.

A solitary white car by the parking lot closest to the beach had its doors open, a Japanese girl was camping out in her car after driving around New Zealand for 4 months. She nodded, and went back to her sandwich. Sitting on top of the hood of her car, she turned her gaze towards the lake, her lips in a pensively unsmiling line, her jaws moving meditatively while chewing her sandwich. Some ducks waddled up to her car, they were ignored.

Indignant at this futile effort, the ducks stepped back on the rocky beach. A blonde girl was reading – sunlight was at its brightest splendour this time of the day, and she dared the cold by lying out on her blanket clad in a bikini. She wouldn’t have been out of place on a Hawaiian beach commercial, except there were no palm fronds, only temperate forests. There were no curling surfs, only a still and motionless water that stretched out towards the horizon.

We walked up towards the water, and noticed a little wooden jetty. A slightly sun-tinged old man was sitting on the edge, with his legs hanging over the side, peering into the water. Curious, we walked up and peered into it with him. Under the pier was crystal clear waters, untouched by pollution, slightly marred by the ripples left behind by a wandering black swan.

“What are you looking at?”

“They won’t come out when it’s too bright. Just wait. They’ll be out soon enough.”

As if in answer, a stray cloud crept in front of the sun. As the shadow crawled across the jetty, then across the water, they seemed to appear out of the darkness with a soundless, eerie grace.

Morays, of all sizes, swirling around the jetty beams. Their graceful tails played with the wisps of floating algae clinging to the jetty. Their bodies twirled around each other, then parted – came together in another knot, and parted again. A smooth elegant dance that had no start and no end, as one with the icy waters that were their home. We watched, entranced, as they swam in search of food. Their smooth twisting bodies alternatively formed figure-8s, then S’s, then O’s, in such beautiful motions that we forgot about the time.

As the stray cloud finally moved on and the sun was able to shed its rays again, the morays darted back under the jetty, once again out of light and out of sight. I looked at Jo and sighed with regret – it was too beautiful but too short.

In a strange serendipitous response to my thoughts, the blonde girl got up from her blanket and her book, and strode towards the jetty with the slow but confident move of someone who has been here before. In almost as smooth a motion as the morays, her arms raised as she reached the end of the jetty, and her lithe form sprang and sliced into the water like a perfect arch. When her head finally broke the surface of the water to gasp for air, I was already taking off my shoes and socks. Surely this was the way! How many times in my life can I say I swam in a glacier lake? And got to see morays up close?

In my bathing suit, I crept gingerly over the pebbly beach and let the water edge lap at my toes. Then another step, and the icy grip of the lake latched on to my ankles. My mind says “Get Out! Too Bloody Cold!” but the lake wouldn’t let me, I kept going.

The allure of this pristine crystal water, the blue sky, the hovering mountains, the quacking ducks and the absolute peace of stealing a moment from Mother Nature, was too strong. Every step I took into the water, I lost feeling in another part of my body. But my heart would beat a little slower, my breath deepened, and I felt like I could taste the biting air that hung over the lake. All my senses above the water were sharpened, I could see the crisp outline of the faraway outcropping. Each branch of the trees at the lake’s far edge was visible, each duck’s feathers so stark against the blue of the water. Entranced, I kept going and the water reaches my chest.

Then I felt it. A light smooth brush against my calf, so fleeting I thought it was a muscle twitch. I looked down, and there it was. A moray swam past my legs, then circled back to under the jetty’s shadow.

I don’t remember the last time I felt so elated, to be so close to something so elusive. I couldn’t reach down to feel it, my back was still numb from the cold. But I looked at the duck floating next to me, and I laughed joyously. “Did you see that?!” I asked, and the duck quacked in discontent and paddled away. I looked back at Jo, and he was laughing at me. “Had enough? Still feel your toes?”

I laughed again, and I turned to look back at the majestic mountains, the blue endless lake, and the row of ducks that have paddled off in annoyance at tourists. It felt so natural to be a part of this beauty, even if nothing on me would have been beautiful at that moment – not the goosebumps, the old bathing suit, the extra cellulite. But there, it didn’t matter. Goosebumps, cellulite, even a runny nose, were all part of this.

This moment was true. This moment was beautiful, timeless and endless. I was beautiful, timeless and endless. With a slight skip, I launched forward and the icy water closed over my head in welcome.