Small Pleasures

The tiny dimensions of a crib on the Otago coastline are magnified by the manifold delights it offers its owners

“WE HAVE TO PUT that ladder across the steps,” explains Robert, “or the seals climb up and make a hell of a mess at the front door.” Bolshie seals with sloppy table manners, pods of orca cruising the coast and right whales passing by add to the teeming aquatica of Wickliffe Bay, a tidal inlet on Otago’s Peninsula. Perched on a steep kerchief of land overlooking the bay, as cute as those cheeks nana loved to pinch, is Wickliffe Cottage.

Robert Clark and Lyndall Frost decided on a simpler life 10 years ago, exchanging Auckland for Robert’s home town of Dunedin.

“Robert’s father was living here, and at 90 still in good health, so we decided to be closer in his remaining years,” says Lyndall. “We often remember him, always laughing.” Robert had left Dunedin at 17 and always yearned to come back, pulled by the memory of a childhood spent outdoors. “After the Sunday roast, Dad would take us for a walk on Victory Beach or over the hill to Sandfly Bay.”

Tiny Wickliffe Cottage teeters on the plump rump of the pulchritudinous Peninsula like a cup-cake on a pony. Lyndall opens the French doors off the powder-blue bedroom and the water below immediately bobs with a paddling of ducks. Mr Drake puts on a show of macho posturing. The ladies turn their backs; he’s trying too hard.

Robert tells the tale of the crib’s stewardship. “The Easter after Dad died, we took some scones out to his old friend Jim (a salty sea dog who prefers a good piece of string to a belt’s convention) at Wickliffe Bay. ‘It would be really nice to live here, Jim,’ I said.

“‘Well, you could buy the house next door. It’s for sale,’ said Jim. His words hung in the air like magic. We didn’t think twice; we had to have it.” The floor was rotten, the inside painted bright orange. Lyndall hung up white sheets to hide the mouse holes. “We had birds in the ceiling, birds in the boat shed, birds in the walls. The birds are still here, but we’ve convinced them to let us have the house.”

Wickliffe Bay sits in the lap of Mt Charles, swooped over by a varied volery. Black swans cede to tall, white, royal spoonbills. Fantails flicker in the bushes, tui and wood pigeons boodle in the pine trees. Grey herons step daintily, kingfishers streak a blue contrail. Out on the water there are miscreant shags and black-backed gulls “and quite often when we go fishing,” says Robert, “an albatross will come and sit beside us”.

Out over the bar in Robert’s 4.2-metre Stabicraft and the ocean off Cape Saunders is a rich fishing ground: blue cod, Jock Stewart, moki, trumpeter and the odd lost salmon. Sometimes in the bay there’s the shiver of a shark. Sundays are for floundering and collecting cockles. Hooker’s sea lions huff and rumble, lounging on the protective rock arm of the inlet.

This moody tidal crescent has a history of eccentric flotsam and jetsam. The steamer Victory was wrecked here in 1861, run ashore by the chief mate George Hand mistaking the inlet for Otago Heads by reason of drunkenness. “We even found an old padlock that might be from the Victory,” says Robert, gently holding history in the form of sand-polished brass.

“When we’re here we eat great big meals, use old, bone-handled cutlery and sit by the fire in worn-out chairs, drinking lots of wine.” Just 45 square metres and tickled by the high tide, the crib is embowered by lampranthus, lilac and macrocarpa. Hunkering down in the winter, sheltered from the buffeting wind, the lean space makes for an intimacy not available in town. “We often have quite deep and meaningful conversations long into the night. Get back to ourselves.”

Lyndall works as buyer for Larnach Castle’s souvenir shop, her place of employment conferring an accidental nobility with unintended consequences. “Once we were in an op shop in Waimate and I held up a compote and said to Robert, ‘this would be fabulous in the castle’. The little old ladies behind the counter thought I was completely mad: that Robert had taken me out on a wee day trip.”

Robert manages the Dunedin City Council’s property division. “I’ve been in the property business all my life,” he says. “It can be a bit flashy.” A crib of such delicate proportions represents a shedding of corporate accoutrements, the search for authenticity, sincerity. It’s the nothingness that makes it
so great.

Lyndall is a voracious collector, a second-hand squirreller of virtually anything old: antique linens and lace, battered old toys and sporting gear (favourite pieces are Robert’s father’s fencing helmet and foil). Warped, bleached and dented relics of New Zealand domestic history are her treasures... vintage cutlery (sometimes complete with family monogram) and white china jelly moulds. “I just love old things from a time when the kitchen was the heart of the home. If only they
could speak.”

“The crib is a great shut-off valve; it gives me peace,” says Robert. “When you arrive and walk down the stairs, it’s a whole change of blood pressure; your heartbeat slows. I’ll open the boat shed doors, sit there with a glass of wine and watch the sun go down.” “You feel a kinship with the water and the constantly changing tides,” suggests Lyndall. For Robert, it’s all about the fishing. “Getting your hands dirty, having a beer and talking a bit of nonsense with another bloke – it’s very relaxing.”

How does Lyndall spend her time while Robert is hunter-gathering? “I read piles of ancient decorating magazines, ponder and plan, bake and sew, talk and laugh with Jim. Sometimes a playful seal will catch my attention, rolling and flapping past with the tide. It’s not grand, but it’s a kind of perfect happiness.”