You are resting in a hammock in a place called Hammockville. It?s where they send burnt-out Antarcticans like you. You are a cocoon suspended between worlds. Last week you were a thousand miles from the nearest organism that produces chlorophyll, in a frozen land painted entirely with white and grey and blue. Today the world is green, and you might go deaf from the buzz and crackle of the cicadas in the forest around you. The murmur of the water lapping the stones a few meters away is the voice of New Zealand?s Queen Charlotte Sound telling you all is well. The punga people look on from deep in the fern forest.

Lochmara Lodge is used to seeing Ice People this time of year. The ten acre backpackers resort accessible only by foot or water taxi, is a perfect place to adjust your senses to leafy plants, and temperate climes. You feel like Sean, who runs the place, might be a good friend by the second day of your stay. He built Hammockville, the network of trails that meander up the hill connecting about three dozen sturdy hammocks each carefully strung for a different arrangement of forest, sea and sky. He says he also carved the punga people into the trunks of the fern trees, but you still believe the punga people were probably living here when he arrived.

At daybreak you and your friends paddle kayaks across the glassy bay. Shags and gulls and gannets wing along the water, and a New Zealand fur seal basks in the sunrise. The tide is low, and you find New Zealand green-lipped mussels along the rocks. You stand in the water beside the kayak and pry a big one loose. It is bigger than your fist, much greater than the 10cm required by the Department of Conservation.

You?ve never seen a mussel this big, let alone collected one yourself. You pry loose the smaller creatures that live upon them: barnacles and crabs and chitons and even smaller mussels, and clonk the keepers down in the bottom of your boat. Before you know it, you have eight or ten. You will steam them later with garlic and wine. They will be so fresh you can crush them with your tongue. ?Kai ora,? you say. ?This is a life.?

It has been months since you cooked for yourself, and even washed your own dishes. You recall the joy of chopping fresh food, of having your hands in warm soapy water. You wash your own dishes, and then you wash some that are not yours.

In the kitchen, a big theological discussion has begun. You enjoyed talking about mussels and birds, so you take the house guitar outside to a hammock and strum the songs you can remember:

?When you see the Southern Cross for the first time
You understand now why you came this way.?

And you are actually looking at the Southern Cross in a sky full of stars you do not recognize. Orion is in the far north, but he is hanging upside down. Above the lodge, the gully where the creek comes down to the sound is alive with glow worms. These tiny creatures spin a web, phosphoresce at their tip, and wait for an unsuspecting bug to find the pale green light irresistible. When you walk through the gully, it is like constellations beneath your feet and along the slopes beside you.

Sean has chickens, a pig and two fawns grazing in his orchard. He keeps native birds on the premises: kakariki, tui and weka. Some of them will be returned to nearby islands once introduced pests like the possum have been eradicated. You take a good look, as you will probably never see another of the elusive weka.

Soon Jess the dog is barking. There is a boat entering the bay. This is your water taxi coming to take you back to a place with roads and traffic and billboards. You rise from the hammock, inhale. This careful regimen of hammock time and lazy meals has helped you recovered something of yourself. You sling your backpack onto your back and tromp down to the jetty. You can feel the punga people behind you in the forest watching.