Picnic On Lake Tunawakepeke

It was the first Saturday of the August holidays. "Can we go for a picnic to Lake Tunawakapeke Mum?" asked Mary at breakfast. "It's going to be a lovely day."
"Yes, when the butter is made," replied mother. "Even if it's holidays, that has to be done every Saturday." So while the two younger children washed the dishes and then brought in the wood; their father had cut the wood for the stove, Mary tipped the cream into the wooden churn, and started to turn the handle. Swish, swish went the cream, and it was still swishing when the dishes were finished.
"I'll have a go," said Edith. "You get our picnic ready." She put her book on top of the churn and started to turn. Her mother laughed.
"If you turn faster in an exciting part, the butter will come sooner, but don't forget to turn at all or you'll never get away for your picnic."
"Let's make a fire and boil some cocoa," suggested seven year old Alexa. So they collected a little billy and a box of matches. Mother helped to make some sandwiches, and with a handfull of dates and a couple of apples each everything was packed into the school bags. Mr Williamson took great care in his orchard, and the apples kept fresh until Christmastime, though always many pounds were dried as well, and the childeren liked to chew these too. There was not much chance to buy fresh fruit, so if you had none, you just did without but diseases and, blights were not so devastating then as they seem to be now.
Soon the swish, swish in the churn turned to flop! flop! The buttermilk was drained off.
''Please give me a drink," said Alexa, so the three girls each had a cup of buttermilk.
"I'll put the rest into your bowls for the scones," Edith told her mother as she swished cold water through the churn while Mary made the bench ready and scalded the butter pats. Soon the golden butter was put onto the marble slab, and the two girls pressed out all the water, added the salt an then put about half a pound onto two butter dishes, leaving the rest in a big golden block. Sometimes they made the butter into tiny balls, or lily shapes but, "Nothing fancy today," said Edith as they put it into the safe, shutting the door carefully to make sure no flies were able to get in.
Then they were free to catch their ponies; a quick brush and off they went. They cantered down the farm keeping a sharp look out for rabbit burrows.
"Wherever there is a piece of log showing, there is bound to be a rabbit burrow, and if Monty puts his foot in a soft place, he might turn a somersault," Mary told her little sister. But she already knew from experience.
"No galloping over the paddocks," sighed Edith, "When we want to race, we do it on the road. As the road is sand and there's not much traffic, it's quite alright." They rode slowly along the macrocarpa hedge looking for birds nests. There was a nest almost on the top branch of one of the trees, and Edith stood up on Beauty's back to look in.
"There are four blue eggs with black spots. It's a thrush's nest," she said. Nobody wanted an egg, so they left the nest and rode on to the back of the farm. The gate through the neighbour's property was a Taranaki gate tied with wire and, much to their disgust, the girls had to get off and open it, but at last they were through, being careful to tie it tightly again.
"You'd better follow behind," Mary told her sisters. "We don't want to be caught in any bogs." Big clumps of rushes grew here, and sedges with brown and gold leaves that cut if you rubbed against them. A faintly defined track wound its way in and out, and the ponies followed carefully.

Edith Explores The Old Maori Fortifications

"This is a rabbit road," said Alexa suddenly. "It goes to the rabbit king's palace, and there's his guard." A grey rabbit sat on a patch of beautiful red and green moss, watching them approach.
"Isn't he soft and beautiful," breathed the childeren. "He isn't frightened a bit. I think I could catch him," whispered Mary, but as she reached down, the rabbit drummed with his back legs and disappeared. Five or six black swans flew off as they approached, but the pukekos just looked curiously at the horses, and went on poking among the rushes.
"There aren't as many swans as there used to be," observed Mary. "Uncle Sam said the lake was black with them when he first came here."
"There is not nearly as much water," said Edith. I think they are going to drain the lake right away." A drain, about three feet wide cut directly accross their way.
"It's too wide for Alexa to jump," said Mary regretfully. "We'll have to leave the ponies here. Let's tie them to this patch of manuka." A log was laid over the drain, and, holding hands the girls walked across. "There is a big patch of wai wai," Mary said. "It's usually very boggy where that tiny rush grows through the moss. Be careful." She trod on a clump of sledge which started to rock and sway, and as she jumped back onto higher ground, brown water oozed into the holes her feet had made. They walked along an old kauri log, half buried under the moss, marvelling at the beauty of the tiny ferns that grew on the sheltered side of it. At the end of the log lay a little pool. Long leaves of toi toi trailed in the dark brown water, and a crooked manuka bent over it. A dainty nest lined with wool and decorated with lichen and moss hung on one of the branches. The far end of the pool was covered with a thick yellow scum.  "It's the colour of a poisonous snake," said Edith. "I don't like it."
"I don't like the mosquitos either," said Mary. The insects were buzzing thickly over the still water, but was it instinct or curiousity that made them come investigate the visitors?
"They may have come to look, but they stayed to bite," said Mary slapping her legs. "I would like that nest but I don't want to fall in. There might be an eel there."
"Do you think an eel would hurt us," asked Alexa curiously.
"Well they eat the calves that get bogged," said her sister.
 "Let's go on." But the ground was too wet to get off the log at that end. As the girls stood up to go back, Mary said, "Look! Look over there." Across the desolate waste of rushes and cutty grass, they could see a row of posts, twelve to eighteen feet high, blackened with fire but still in very definite rows.
"Those trees didn't grow like that," said Edith. "Whatever can it be."
"No," said Mary. "Those are manawa posts. Manawa doesn't grow now, but the Maoris must have put those posts in the lake hundreds of years ago so that they could build their village on top. This was a deep lake once. The peat preserves the timber, you know." The children knew that. Their father had told them that the kauri wood they burned in the stove had been growing probably thousands of years before. They knew that the peat had grown over the fallen trees and that now draining the soil was making it sink so that the timber was once more coming to the surface.
"Those trees have all been burned," said Edith suddenly. "Even from here you can see that. Do you think that an enemy tribe came and burnt their village." As she scuffed the log under her feet, she saw something diffferent and bending down to look, discovered that it was a stone axe, a Maori axe lost long ago in the swamp. Waving it in her hand she yelled. "We will chase away the enemy." And she jumped off the log. The ground squelched, and before she could even shout, had sunk to her knees. with real fright now she shrieked, floundering deeper. Mary lay on the log. She stretched out her hand. Her sister grabbed it, and was soon scrambling into a safer position again.
"I'm hungry. I want my dinner," said Alexa suddenly.
"We'll go back to the horses to have it,"they decided. "The ground is dryer there." But by now the sun had gone behind the grey c1ouds that blotted out the blue sky. A gusty wind came whining across the lake, rustling the stiff leaves of the sedges which clacked together like millions of tiny elves.
"It's too windy to make a fire," Mary decided regretfully. The children had seen how a peat fire could run in a gusty wind. The cocoa was drunk cold, and then the bottle was tossed down as they hunted for the tiny orange berries they called "hot pokers". All at once there was an eerie moan. Alexa clutched her sister's hand.
"Whatever is that?" she asked. They all stood up to listen. Even the larks were silent now. There was no sound except the harsh notes of the rattling rushes. There it came again, deep and long, and drawn out.
"The horns of elf-land faintly blowing," quoted Mary. But Edith said: "It's the spirit of the lake as it doesn't want to be made into a paddock." Mary suddenly remembered where she had heard that sound before, and laughing she picked up the bottle and blew into it. The sound came again. "It was only the wind in the bottle," they chuckled.

References:
Rushes ‘an Raupo, To cows an’ Clover by Edith Williamson