I didn’t climb all the way to the summit of Purple Peak.

I climbed to the saddle, hopped the fence and started up, plodding along behind the boys who charged for the top. I stopped about three quarters of the way up and sat down in the grass, listening to the morning birds whistle, and the bees hum in the tall grass. The black beans hanging on the bushes around me started to crackle and pop as the sun reached them and they continued to dry. The only way to have heard them was to sit very still, and listen. I watched the camper, shrunken to the size of a sheep, waiting for us hundreds of meters below. I watched the town of Akaroa waking up: a single boat traversing the long, narrow inlet of sea like a comet arcing across a liquid sky. Hannah, who had hiked with her fiddle under one arm, filled the valley with music that echoed, with baas of countless sheep, off of the stone cliffs. Her green and red parrot feather, all the way from Guatemala, danced in the wind to the music. A lonely cow lowed in the distance. A single prop plane lifted over the crest of a mountain and dove deep following the valley out toward the sea with a mosquito whine. I sipped my tea. I wiggled my toes in my new hiking boots. I counted butterflies, the colour of toast.