Trees and a Treaty

We are up and at 'em after a wake up call at 6am. Bags out at 7am and breakfast then with departure at 8am.

Breakfast at the Crowne Plaza was top notch and just before 8am, we meet out Coach Captain and Guide, Dave. The coach is sensational with only 20 seats in the space normally occupied by 48. We have 2 seats per row with 1 on either side of the aisle. It’s like business class on a plane with heaps of room for bags, individually controlled aircon at each seat and the ability to recline the seat if a Nanna Nap is required. I guess if you are going to be on a coach tour, this is as comfortable a way to do it as there is.

The weather is looking good and tipped to reach 29 up in the Bay Of Islands. A quick drive around Auckland was the first thing on our schedule today. It was quick too as there are major road works being done on the weekend and access is denied to a lot of the landmarks over that time. It’s almost impossible to form an opinion of Auckland from that quick sortie but we return to Auckland on Tuesday. Not sure what is happening in regards to Auckland on our tour on Tuesday and Wednesday so we will wait and see. First impressions of Auckland though are that it is nothing special.

The coach then headed north after crossing the Auckland Harbour Bridge and joining Highway 1 at Northcote. St Mary’s Bay is where we entered the bridge on the Auckland City side of the harbour.

We are headed for Matakohe and the Kauri Tree Museum, a distance of around 140 kms I believe. The countryside is green and lush and quite hilly and much the same all the way to Matakohe. We did visit a small museum, Parry Kauri Park at Warkworth about half way but that was very small and it’s main value to us was using the dunnies. There were some interesting farm machinery implements and some relocated old buildings but it didn’t take long to see them all. There were boardwalks to view Kauri Trees and other things but time did not permit much more than visiting the one to a Kauri Tree. Being a visitor, I thought it polite to do this. I couldn’t get any interest from my 3 travelling companions. My short walk confirmed the fact that the Kauri Trees are bloody big huers.

We were on our way again before too long and I dozed off and woke up with about 5 minutes from Matakohe and the Kauri Museum.

The museum, to the south of the Waipoua Forest, contains many exhibits that tell the story of the pioneering days when early European settlers in the area extracted kauri timber and kauri gum.

The museum has over 4000 sq metres of undercover exhibits, including the largest collection of kauri gum in the world, and the

largest collection of kauri furniture. The museum includes a working mock-up of a steam sawmill. It has a model of a 1900s kauri house with furniture and models in the dress of the early years, and an extensive collection of photographs and pioneering memorabilia. On the wall, there are full-scale circumference outlines of the huge trees. One of the trees illustrated had a circumference of 8 and 1/2 metres so it was a big bugger.

The Kari Tree is 2nd only in size to the American sequoia tree and it’s timber was keenly sought. It has been harvested almost to extinction according to the museum guide.

All in all it was an interesting visit even though I was not looking forward to it. I think the others also found it interesting. However, a return visit is not high on anyone’s agenda!

We lunched at a cafe there before setting off for Whangerei and Paihia in the Bay Of Islands. Whangerei sits on the banks of the Hatea River and really , it was just a pit stop for us. The marina area was jumping on this very pleasant Sunday arvo and the number of yachts and pleasure craft was amazing. Heaps of cafes, bars and restaurants were all were doing a brisk trade. Lesley and I had an ice cream, resisting the temptation to have something stronger, before reboarding the coach. Ron was making sure we didn’t miss the coach. I am pretty certain he has never been late for anything in his life.

The coach, ably driven by Dave, wended its way on some fairly winding bitumen and it was good to reach Paihia, our home for the next 2 nights. Just on the other side of the town are the Waitangi Treaty Grounds. Here The North Island Maori Chieftains signed a treaty with the British Crown in February 1840. The Treaty is

generally considered the founding document of New Zealand as a nation although from what we could gather from the Maori Guide, Johnny, the British did not observe the spirit of the treaty nor many of the conditions or clauses of the treaty. That would not surprise anyone in Australia or other parts of the Commonwealth. There wasn’t all that much to see. There was the original house of a British resident, James Busby, who was a party in the initial attempts to negotiate a treaty. Then we ventured to a Maori meeting house. If you wanted to look inside, shoes had to be removed. To Ron and I, it didn’t really look all that interesting and we found a shady spot to rest while the girls went in. They had rejoined us in less than 5 minutes.

Next was the actual site of the signing on a vast expanse of lawn marked today by a flag pole with 3 branches. One for the Maori flag, one for the NZ flag and of course, one for the Union Jack. Johnny then lead us down a track to the beach behind which was a long open sided structure. It houses 2 huge Maori War Canoes known as Waka’s. Johnny explained everything about them before our excursion ended. It was about 4.45pm and all of us had run our race.

Dave drove us to the Hotel Scenic where we were very quickly checked in. We were meeting in the bar for a pre dinner drink at 6.30 so a quick Nanna Nap was my only intention. The hotel is Scenic by name but not by nature. There was no view but nevertheless, it was more than ok. Ground floor units, modern room and a laundry opposite the room. The meal was bloody good as well. It was a buffet but each of the selections passed the taste test according to our group. After the delicious tomato and herb soup, I tried the pork roast of the day and the fish which was crumbed Hoki. Lesley had the same and we thoroughly enjoyed them. We had the customary cleansers. This time for me it was Speights Summit on the recommendation of the most authoritive beer expert in the world, Wingy, my golfing mate. There was nothing wrong with it at all, quite the opposite. But I did need to sample it a few times to confirm his judgement.

It was time for bed after a great 2nd day of our holiday