The tension between humans and the changing land surface is dramatic here in New Zealand. Tonight’s chefs dinner was cooked by an eloquent chef on a debris flow.
David the owner of Mahana Lodge met us at the dock atop the shallow blue green waters of the Sound wearing a flowered shirt, flip flops, blue shorts and matching blue glasses. The wind had blown his white hair askew. At dinner, he stood at the end of the long wooden dinner table, now Chef David, wearing clean red ked’s, matching red shorts and a double breasted white chefs jacket with two rows of shiny black buttons. His glasses were white and now his hair was neatly combed away from his face. His timing of the meal for 8 guests was precisely timed with the pace designed ensure time for his introduction to the food. When he met us at the dock his hair was wind blown and his glasses were a bit askew. We were eating in an makeshift outdoor space with a fiberglass roof and opaque plastic stretched between posts to protect us from blowing rain. The extreme weather event in July had turned the burbling brook outside our window into a roaring monster that buried the half of the low lying yellow lodge. The diggers have been excavating the building for months leaving 3 hours before we stepped onto the dock. The entire hillside l next to the dock wear we landed let go leaving a two lane erotically slide of dirt and upside down trees. Beneath the two story scarp next to the road, the slip or landslide are called here, pushed all the trees into the water where remain stranded on their sides at the low tide mark. Life with debris flows in a climate with more extreme rain events is challenging.

We rode in on the mailboat that delivers mail and dog biscuits to the full time residences on Marlbough Sound. When farming was the main industry in these valleys, the mail delivery boat the farmers often forgot the boat was coming. The boat skippers trained the dogs to expect treats so the barking would bring their owners down to meet the mail boat. Charlie, a graying black lab with a limp, carried the red canvas mail bag out to the end of the dock, Harvey barked and barked but sat as the boat approaches. Chancy and Harvey wag their entire bodies as the boat approaches sitting as soon as we are close to the dock. Carl the boat driver gives each dog a triangular biscuit. Despite the mail delivery these clusters of seaside houses do not make a town. Not enough children for a school since the 1950s. The shoreline is mostly summer homes. The thriving aquaculture does not support these relatively isolated shoreline communities. We are on the shoulder season with the moorings still empty and the tethered lines for jet ski parking hanging loosely above the water.

All along out ride to Mahana Lodge. the entire hillsides had let go. Houses at the top of the hills saw their yards shrink. Homes in the middle of the hills we pushed aside by the rush of dirt, rocks and trees. Building on the flat land where the creeks meet the ocean were wrapped in debris flows. 70 houses were slapped with a red stick and declared uninhabitable (more than 1.5 % of the homes here). With the diggers gone, Chef Dave is absolutely in control of the kitchen. Before opening the lodge he ran restaurants and a yacht charter operation in Fiji. The Lodge is being reassembled and replanted. Some on the lawn is brilliant green. Some of the mud is still covered with bits of blue seeds that will soon sprout into more grass for fixture guests at the glorious site. Dealing with debris flows is easier than worrying about your guests sinking their boats.