Happiness is ... a converted truck, a fishing rod and a place to get away from it all... By MIKE CREAN - The Press

Ivan and Linda Eastwood recline in the rear of their furniture truck and watch the sea.

The truck is parked on a patch of flat ground, its back to the sea, beside the gravel track that runs 2km along a terrace above the beach at Napenape, south of Cheviot.

The Ashburton couple have converted the truck to a mobile home. When I visit, the rear doors are flung wide to the ocean view, but an adapted glass shower door, fitted just inside, provides shelter from cold sea breezes. An awning on the side of the truck shades water tanks and a fish-cleaning area. Clothing hangs to dry on a line tied to a spindly tree.

To the Eastwoods, this is almost heaven. It is the sixth time they have camped here.

Ivan says it is the best surfcasting beach within four hours drive from home. The Catlins area on the South Otago coast is better for fishing, and when they lived at Gore and Dunedin, they went there often. But the drive south is long and slow in the truck.

"I would catch as many fish in one hour at the Catlins as I do in a whole day here," he says.

When I arrive, skirting carefully around Baz, a huge, bristling belgian shepherd tethered to the truck by a long rope, Ivan is cleaning a blue cod he has just caught. Soon it will be sizzling in the pan for their dinner.

The wide expanse of Napenape is almost deserted today. Half a dozen hardy regulars from Christchurch, camped in tents and vans on another strip of flat land above the beach, are tinkering with a malfunctioning quad-bike - and that's the total population. It's hard to believe the area was crammed with 200 anglers for the annual surfcasting competition a month ago.

That day Ivan saw a man hook a 25kg conger eel. When he hung it from the top of his house-bus, its tail reached the ground.

The sights, sounds and smells, almost as much as the fishing, are what keep bringing the Eastwoods back to Napenape.

"The vista is always changing - the sea's colours, the moods of the sky. You never get sick of looking out there, because there's something happening all the time," Ivan says.

As we gaze seaward, a gannet dives with a neat splash and scatters a school of mullets, the late afternoon sun illuminates a container ship drifting by on the horizon, a seal slumbers on the shingly strand.

Each day the Eastwoods watch a little parade of seals that passes near the truck. The previous day, they were entertained by a pod of playful dolphins. They estimated 50 to 100, flipping and flopping just off shore.

On the landward side, fantails flutter in native bush that thrusts up through narrow gullies to limestone pillars sculpted by the weather. Birdsong carries in the air from a bush reserve nearby.

The end of the beach is guarded by abrupt limestone cliffs bleached to whiteness. Around the rocks at their feet, fat paua wait to be gathered.

Ivan says the sea drops steeply from the shore and strong currents run. No way would he venture into the water. However, experienced and well-equipped divers swim out to the reef, whose rocks protrude above the waves at low tide, for crayfish. Their only fear is stingrays lurking in the murk that is stirred up as currents and waves eat at the limestone reef.

No-one I ask knows what Napenape means. One camper reckons he read somewhere it translates as "water so cold it numbs the body". My guess is it's Maori for "getting away from it all". There is no fresh water here, no electricity, no telephone and a 50km drive over some pretty rough road to the nearest shops, at Cheviot.

A former camping ground lies under tonnes of rubble from a giant landslip a few years ago. The Department of Conservation has erected a sign by this little Pompeii, warning visitors of the risk of landslides after heavy rain. It poured two days ago - I hurry past.

The risk of interment in dirt and rock explains why campers choose sites on the seaward side of the road, although when the area gets busy, they pick places at the foot of the crumbling hillside and hope for the best.

To get to Napenape, drive north of Christchurch on State Highway 1 for an hour. A few kilometres past Greta Valley, the road to Napenape is signposted to the right.

The mostly shingle road winds through rugged hill country where beef cattle graze. Follow the signs, cross the Blythe River bridge, then descend to the coast. There the road veers right and rolls up onto the terrace above Napenape Beach.

If you don't have a truck you can always hire a Campervan and enjoy it for yourself!