Since the last post, we’ve been having fun welcoming US Midwesterners :) to our corner of the world in New Zealand. And that is my excuse for not writing, I’m sure you’ll all have forgotten about us by now. Clint Farlinger and brother Carl came for only two nights Jan 29 & 30, and now we have Laurel Gamm and Charles Stephens, whom we’ve come to know through sister Robyn. Kevin took the Farlinger bros to the Otaki Gorge (twice, but that’s another story) and the following day we had hoped to accompany them north enroute to Auckland and their eventual departure….instead, as it was rainy and we didn’t HAVE to travel (as opposed to they who did) we sent them on their way to what was hopefully and eventually a scenic route north to Tongariro. Clint is a free-lance professional photographer, so NZ should provide plenty of material...IF the weather cooperates. Laurel and Charles arrived last Friday Feb 4 and we managed to get more time out of them :) The four of us headed up north and east on Saturday, determined by where in the north island it would not be raining, and it worked! We got to Napier and had a leisurely lunch outside, and visited one of NZ’s ubiquitous stores selling beautiful clothing made from merino wool and possum. Eeeuww, really, possum, you say? Yes, but wait, these are not the opossums that we see at home (although I guess both can be spelled that way). They are smaller but not much, akin to a weasel if you ask me and have a luscious brown fur coat. (and that is another story too, about a road kill…..all for Leslie’s benefit, of course) Anyway, they are a non-native pest in NZ, having been introduced years ago (late 1800’s?) to jumpstart a fur industry. Of course, they have no natural predators here and they eat things like kiwi eggs, and are a huge problem. People do hunt and trap them, and the DNR poisons them. Anyway, I digress, sorry...the possum fur is combined with merino wool to make an exceptionally soft and warm hat, scarf, sweater, gloves…..and expensive, natch. Stores can be found easily that are dedicated to the sale of these products. AND, this one in Napier actually had a little possum museum with dioramas of stuffed possums! Cute….? But we learned something..they are marsupials, who woulda thunk? So we made some smallish purchases, gifts of course heheh. Then the guys headed off to get fishing licenses, while Laurel and I wandered in amongst the very cool art deco architecture (including a very cool store…..gifts, of course, gifts) Napier was hit by an earthquake in 1931 and so the buildings built to replace what was ruined (much of it’s downtown and waterfront) is in art deco style. They have a huge annual art deco festival in February even, with lots of cars, costumes, music and history of the era. Laurel and I want to go!
Next we headed up to Te Urewera national park, and another lucky find, the Whakamarino Lodge, which is near Lake Waikaremoana (and remember, WH is pronounced like an F…?!?) It took us all weekend to figure out how to say the latter, thanks to Charles :) for getting it right from somebody’s mouth. Anyway, the lodge is iwi-owned, meaning a Maori tribe owns it, cool. We had our own 2 bedroom apartment and the lake all to ourselves, there was literally no one else there. Why, you say? Because it’s just a little, heheh, off the beaten track. We tried to stay a second night but they were expecting a group of 35 for the week, so our worry for their long-term viability was dissipated a bit. And, in the end, it was good we couldn’t stay, somebody was looking out for us. We went just a wee little bit up the road, maybe an hour, to find a cabin, the last one, on Lake Waikaremoana itself. Mostly metal (as in gravel, one lane, windy) road, ending at a beautiful lake ringed by lots of hilly, green bluffs. Which must have fish in it, hmmm. We explored trails not too far from the cabin, surrounding what really can best be described as a waterfall complex. (At this point, I hadn’t found my camera…...in my bag, so technically I had not lost it, right?) There were maybe five different falls, like a series of three some of which split into two, and we walked all around to see all of them from all vantage points, cool. Stopped at a big flat stone across from one, which we also had all to ourselves, for a picnic and some of us took a BRIEF swim (some of us just really didn’t need to get cooled off). Hiked back, then hiked an hour to get a dinghy at another unpronounceable lake that starts with a W and has about 4 consonants and 10 vowels. Kevin and Charles tried their darndest, but there were NO fish in that lake, beautiful though it was. We could tell, ‘cuz we could see to the bottom. Hiked down, and for the second time in 2 weeks, Kevin and Leslie timed it so we got back to our new cute cabin for four just in time for...dark and dinner. We are promising to do better now, really. Anyway, that brings us to why it was good we couldn’t stay a second night at the W Lodge...because the next morning, we got packed and out of there in a reasonable time, and we did not see another place of lodging for a loooong time. We drove and drove (thanks, Kevin, I’m saying “we” quite figuratively) on an again windy, narrow, metal road. At one point we came to an island of privately owned land in the middle of the park. It has few houses, with one place of business where there was a loo and coffee available. We surmised (wisely I’m sure) that this is where the descendants of the Ngāi Tūhoe live. Ngāi Tūhoe was the last Maori tribe to sign the Treaty of Waitangi, if indeed they ever did. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Waitangi and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ng%C4%81i_T%C5%ABhoe Signs in the building were in Maori, which is not in itself so unusual in NZ, as it is one of three official languages, along with English and sign language. Usually, however, it is written below the English; in this case, for what looked like the iwi agenda meeting, it was the only language written. It seemed to us that there is a lot of pride in remaining on this piece of land. The Maori have a political party, and some representation in Parliament, and there is ongoing negotiation about repatriation for some parts of the country. At least one of the national parks (Tongariro, that we’ve visited) was given to the people of New Zealand by a Maori chief. I could digress here and go into more about the Maori, but I think I’ll save that for another post.
We finished up our trip that day with a picnic on the banks of Lake Taupo, and followed that by using the laptop and 3G T-Stick to call all 6 of our collective kids. Of course, it was during the Super Bowl, so some were unavailable..but we did find out that the Packers were ahead :) I took Laurel & Charles to the train station the next day, about half an hour away, to send them on their way to the South Island for several days. Happy trails, L&C, until we meet again.
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