We had to visit the birth place of the nation and also go to the northern tip of the North Island.
OK, so the story of the birth of the nation is similar to many of the British colonies with a few different twists. The explorer Captain James Cook mapped NZ with the permission of the native people. The British were soon traveling to NZ for whaling and fishing. As more white men arrived there was a need for some form of governance so a Mr. James Busby was sent to do the job. Eventually the British realized the need for an agreement for the use of land. A treaty was signed in Waitangi on February 6, 1840. Of course the deal favoured one side and later land disputes erupted. The house below was the home of Mr. Busby and was bought by Governor-General Lord Bledisloe with his own private funds and gifted to the nation.
Our tour guide standing next to the largest waka in the world. It is made of three large Kauri trees. This boat is taken out on the water every year as part of celebrations on Waitangi Day. It requires 80 paddlers and can also have 55 passengers. It was built for the 1940 centenary and refurbished in 2010.
A traditional Maori meeting house was added to the property for the 1940 centenary to represent the all the Maori tribes in New Zealand.
Cape Van Diemen - Is that not a sight to behold? The Dutch explorer, Abel Tasman, who was the first Euorpean to sight the shores of the South Island of New Zealand in 1642, named the cape after the wife of his patron.
An interesting story about Abel Tasman, only related to Cape Van Diemen in that it happened on the same voyage: when Tasman anchored his boat on the coast of the South Island he saw the Māori approaching in several wakas (war canoes). One of the Māori warriors sounded a call using a sea shell. Tasman thought it was a greeting and so had his bugler answer back. It is now thought that the Māori were blowing a challenge and the bugle response might have been misunderstood as a signal that the white men were willing to fight. It is also possible that they were too close to the kumara crops, a food vitally important and one which Māori would have fiercely protected. Or another theory is that the Māori believed the white people were patupaiarehe, fair-skinned fairy folk or ghosts, who were feared because they took women and children away. Regardless of the reason, four of Tasman's sailors were killed. The Māori got quite a shock when Tasman finally fired his cannon. This all happened 120 years before the next encounter with the white man when Captain James Cook visited the islands.
Travelling further north to Cape Reinga we were fascinated by two bodies of water meeting and the resulting riptide. The Tasman Sea is on the left and the Pacific Ocean is on the right.
A little foreshadowing of things to come. Soon we will be heading to LA and on to Vancouver.
Next stop: the Te Paki Sand Dunes for a little sand surfing. All you have to do is climb the hill to have a ride.
OK, so who the heck suggested climbing a sand hill? Check out the average age of the climbers.
Stopped at the bottom. A short ride, but good. Seconds? Ahhhh, maybe one time up that hill was enough.
Another intrepid hill climber.
And the action shot -- no radar to guage speed, but definitely faster than a snow toboggan.
We stopped on 90-Mile Beach at the Hole in the Rock. Here we found out that 90-Mile Beach is actually only 64 miles long. They call it 90-Mile Beach because the Aussies have a beach that's 85 miles long. Any one-upmanship here? Go figure!
We had a nice quiet time on the beach. Not! When one tour bus pulls out another takes its place.
We stopped to see Tane Muhata, one of the oldest kauri trees in the world.
At the Kauri Museum, we were impressed by this timeline:
This swamp kauri was buried and kept from the air in sandy soil. It is 45,000 years old and still wood! Because of the nature of the minerals (or lack thereof), it did not petrify. More amazing, beside it was a piece of kauri wood that was 30 million years old and still wood. A craftsman had been allowed to cut off a few pieces and use them to make some carvings. He said the wood was excellent!
And on to Auckland, the place we started five weeks ago. We covered 6,000 km doing a figure 8 around both islands. We saw lots of amazing sights, but now it's time to turn in the van and leave this place.
Next stop, Rarotonga! We leave Aukland on Wednesday morning and arrive in Rarotonga on Tuesday afternoon. Cool stuff!
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