Why we named our home Āhuru Mōwai
We were in Dubrovnik, Croatia when we started looking for our forever home. It was November 2017 and Mark and I had been traveling since we left our jobs and packed up our central Sydney apartment in February of that year. For us travel was a way to forget everything we knew about ourselves and take the time to figure out what kind of future we wanted.
In Copenhagen, Denmark we mapped out our dreams with post-it notes on the walls of an Airbnb out of a Scandinavian lifestyle magazine. A bit of land. Close to the ocean. Somewhere we could build a haven for ourselves and our whānau. A few weeks later when I saw the Trade Me listing for this property, I knew it was perfect for us. It wasn’t as big as Mark’s ideal five acres. And it wasn’t as close to the water as I would have liked. But it was protected by Manaia maunga to the southwest and faced Kauri Mountain to the northeast. The elevated section was safe from floods and tsunamis, with a view across farmland out to the Poor Knights.
I knew straight away that this was our home, but I also wanted to feel like I wasn’t only making a heart-led decision. I created dossiers for five properties in total so that we could logically compare the merits of each. Thankfully logic lined up with my heart and we went ahead and bought the land for our forever home from the other side of the world, sight unseen.
When we came home to Aotearoa New Zealand a few months later and finally got to stand on our land we knew we’d made the right decision. Our son Connor, Mark’s boy from his first marriage, came up with the perfect name for our home: Āhuru Mōwai, a calm place, sheltered haven.
He kāinga haumaru, he āhuru mōwai mōku (PK 2008:89). / A safe home, a sheltered haven for me.
That’s exactly what it’s become. Friends of ours who were up over the holidays said they always felt like coming up to our place is like therapy. We love that we’re creating a haven not only for ourselves, but for our wider whānau as well.
We’re looking for a metal artist to create a sign for our gate, please send any recommendations to us.