Kindness in a tough spot

Saltmarsh plants are there for our enjoyment, but possibly not theirs, writes Clare Fraser.

Aramoana is many things, the most obvious being the awful events that happened there 33 years ago. But what human-inhabited spot on Earth has not witnessed the inhumane and even the horrific?

And Aramoana is more than its recent human past. It marks the destination of the harbour’s pathway to the sea. The white sandy beach allows for an escapist turning of the back on our human madness, facing dreamily seawards towards South America where our albatrosses reach in 12 days. Hitch a ride?

No; stay grounded. Behind the beach is a short boardwalk. Sturdy and solid, it crosses a saltmarsh that daily withstands the tide’s comings and goings, inundation and exposure, over and over again.

Not only does the saltmarsh cope with this stuff but it actively rolls with the punches.

The walk starts at land’s edge passing familiar flaxes and classic coastal scrub. But the further you go, the closer you get to the harbour and the more salty and watery and tough the environment — and the more remarkable the plants. Short and stubby, functional and no-frills, they get on with life, no dramas.

Plants at the very edge of the harbour are so staunch that they’re just as happy on land as in salt water, like a penguin of the plant world.

At low tide seagrass lies loosely against the ground, sunbathing. Once the water is back the plant springs to life, swaying underwater like seaweed.

Should we take nature’s lead and toughen up too? Maybe, maybe not. Maybe we already do enough of the "Fine thanks, yeah. All good".

Maybe these plants are secretly hating life in their own mouthless version of stoic silence. Some people believe in plant sentience.

What is clear is that human-induced grotesquery, suffering and misery, and even despair, are part of life.

So is pleasure, though. We humans are just as good at being kind to each other as cruel.

Detour on your return to appreciate Dunedin City Council’s heartwarm of an upgraded playground, a celebration of our instinct to nurture and care for others, even strangers.

We’re such a social animal that we’ve organised ourselves collectively at the government level to try to look after each other.

All around the world we do it. That has to count for something.