Early hours of 1st January 2017 in New Zealand.

With the exception of Tonga and Samoa (which cheat a little and have their time set to GMT -13 hours even though they are strictly on the other side of the International Dateline and so should actually be the last places on earth to greet the new day), New Zealand is one of the first countries to greet the New Year. After a lovely gathering on Lauri and Chuck’s fine new boat, Randall and I played Mexican-train dominoes with Martha and then managed to stay away until midnight. I posted this blog update then, in the first hours of 2017…but, of course, the blog-server is based in the US so it thinks we are still in 2016 and I will have to correct the date later.



Peering out of one of the Abbey Caves, Whangarei

Since Christmas, we have enjoyed several marvelous days sightseeing in the Northland. We visited the Abbey Caves, in a nearby area of limestone topography (perhaps not surprisingly, I was the only one of us to actually enter two of the caves) and we watched two northern brown kiwis foraging in an indoor, nocturnal habitat at the Kiwi North center in Whangarei. We then drove north to the Bay of Islands where we stopped to eat a picnic lunch near the flagstaff in Russell which played an important role in the early relationship of the first European settlers and the indigenous Māori people (I will add more details to the history of New Zealand later). The Northland of the North Island is known to the Māori people as Te Tai Tokerau and in addition to having the country’s highest percentage of Māori people in the population, the area also has many sites that are important in Māori culture.



The lone, scared pohutukawa tree clings to the right side of the northernmost pinnacle of Cape Reinga

Overlooking the huge Doubtless Bay on the north coast, we climbed to the top of the Rangikapiti Pa, one of many remaining earthworks of Māori defensive sites in the Northland. We drove all the way to the north end of Highway 1 and walked to the lighthouse on Cape Reinga from where we could see (between swirls of low cloud) the meeting of the Tasman Sea and Pacific Ocean. On the rocky headland just to our east, we could see a lone pohutukawa tree which is thought to be 800 years old and is very sacred in Māori tradition. It is believed that the souls of the dead, after arriving at Cape Reinga, slide down the roots of this tree to depart on their journey to their spiritual homeland. Further south along the Northland’s west coast in the Waipoua Forest, we visited the largest living Kauri tree (51.5 m tall, 13.8 m circumference, 244.5 cubic meters) which is called Tane Mahuta, named for the Māori forest god. Estimated to be between 1,200 and 2,000 years old, this tree was probably awaiting the arrival of the first humans to reach New Zealand.



Tane Mahuta, the largest living Kauri tree

In between visiting these important Māori sites: we saw the most photographed toilets in New Zealand (public facilities designed by the Austrian artist and eco-architect, Friedensreich Hundertwasser, who lived in the area for 27 years); we watched people surfing down steep, yellow sand dunes; we walked along a fine-white-sand beach; we climbed a spiral staircase that was cut into the solid trunk of a huge kauri tree that had been dug from swamps where it had rested for between 45,000 and 50,000 years; we rode on two car-ferries; and we were impressed by the current ripping out of the narrow entrance to Hokianga Harbour (New Zealand’s fourth largest estuary). After two days with plenty of clouds, we were lucky enough to see this harbor in glorious sunshine so that the contrasts between the blue sky and water, the yellow sand dunes on the north side of the entrance, the green bush on the south side, the red pohutukawa flowers, and the orange flax seeds, were take-your-breath-away spectacular. What a treat!



People surfing down sand dunes at Te Paki Stream, just inland of Ninety-Mile beach

The year 2016 was pretty strange for us in many ways and we hope that 2017 is perhaps a bit simpler and more peaceful. With all the uncertainty that the New Year will bring, at least in the political arena of US, knowing that there are still so many incredibly beautiful places in this world is somehow very reassuring. We must be hopeful that good sense prevails and protects such beauty forever.



Randall and Martha outside the Hundertwasser Public Toilets in Kawakawa