Over a decade ago I sat on the verandah of the top storey of the Tiger Eye Guest House in Manali, listening to an Italian man explain the way the world really works. At the time, I couldn’t work out whether Enrico was a genius or seriously unhinged from reality but he was impossible not to like and I count the time I spent with him, relaxing on the verandah with a beer and a plate of veg momos, among the highlights of my time in India. One thing he said in particular has stayed with me.
“There are no coincidences,’ he insisted. “They’re against
the laws of physics.”
Whether he was right or not, I’ve often wondered about that claim. Most recently, on an overnight walk to Iron Gate hut in the headwaters of the Oroua River in the Ruahine, two things happened that might be considered coincidental. The first occurred as I was about to leave the car and start walking. I’d been relishing the fact that mine was the only vehicle at the carpark, meaning I’d have the whole valley — and, most importantly, the hut — to myself, when a ute roared up and stopped nearby. A short, lively man jumped out of the driver’s seat and started talking. He and his wife and son had driven from near Wellington. Barry used to work for the New Zealand Forest Service decades ago and the conversation soon got around to photography. He’d known John Johns, the legendary NZFS wildlife photographer who, Barry claimed, worked exclusively in black-and-white. Perhaps that’s not surprising in that era but — here’s the coincidence — I was struck by the fact Barry mentioned it without knowing I’d recently been thinking hard about B&W photography.
The second coincidence happened as I walked out from Iron
Gate hut the following day. Some time after leaving, I was thinking how I
hadn’t seen or even heard a whio and how this would be the first time in many
trips that I’d missed out on the delight of meeting these beautiful birds. I tried
to be philosophical rather than disappointed but I’d become so used to great
encounters with whio on my trips over the last several years that not seeing
one left me eager to do another trip where I’d have a better chance of seeing
them. The thought lingered but eventually other things distracted me. Just
before the descent to Tunupo Creek I took a short diversion to look out over
the deep valley from the top of a big, savagely eroded slip. I stood a metre
back from the undercut lip, enjoying the sense of height, the sound of the
river far below, the steep beech-forested mountainsides. A tiny bright spot at
the edge of the water caught my eye and despite the distance I knew this wasn’t
just another boulder. I saw it move slightly. A shag, perhaps? It moved again,
and this time I was sure — I was looking at the bright bill of a whio. I
started to unpack the camera and big lens for a closer inspection, and as I
opened the pack I heard the whistle. The bird in the river was a male whio. I
photographed it for the record and was about to pack the camera away when I saw
something else moving. Checking through the lens, I saw another whio trundling
across the boulders towards the male. The two birds swam a little way
downstream and as I photographed and recorded a short video I thought how I’d
had my meeting after all, from an unlikely place, almost at the last possible
moment of the trip, and not long after I’d been thinking all opportunities had
gone.
Coincidence? Probably, but Enrico would have disagreed, and I suspect he'd have been right.
River-bed boulder
turning into a whio
as the dawn light grows
Notes:
1. I'm working on a related post about black-and-white photography. Now, though, I'm about to leave for another three days in the Ruahine.
2. Those last three lines might look like a haiku but using that term is fraught as well as potentially a form of appropriation. I prefer to think of 'haiku' written in English as 'inspired by' haiku — as 'haiku-like things' (HLT) đŸ™‚Besides, the obsession with form (the irritating 5-7-5 syllable count in particular) is not just based on a misconception of the Japanese form but, as the late Cyril Childs pointed out, is like 'focusing on the cage that surrounds the singing bird.' Yes, I often use the 5-7-5 pattern but only as an interesting and useful constraint.
Photos (please click the images to view a better version):
1. Astelia, stump, and rain at Maropea Forks hut in the Ruahine, July 2024
2. Young Red Beech forest at Triangle hut, Ruahine, February 2026
3. Male Whio whistling in the Pohangina River, Ruahine, November 2021
Photos and original text © 2021 Pete McGregor
