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| Bay of Islands |
Kia ora!
🎵It's too orangey for crows. It's just for me and my dog. 🎵 Hands up who remembers that advert? (Do they even sell Kia Ora anymore?? Enquiring minds want to know!)
'Kia ora' is a standard greeting here in New Zealand and is also used as a farewell and an expression of thanks. It means 'Be well.' At each place on today's itinerary, we've been welcomed with this phrase by our guides.
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| McKinney Kauri tree |
After heading out of Auckland, our first stop of the day was a visit to the Parry Kauri Park in Warkworth to see the 800-year-old McKinney Kauri tree. We followed this up with a visit to the Kauri Museum in Matakohe and saw a slice of New Zealand heritage, with a sawmill, a boarding house, a post office, a Pioneer church and a school. There was ornate Kauri furniture which was built by Victorian craftsmen, as well as displays of Kauri Gum (from the resin of the tree).
Afterwards, we had a short stop in Whangarei where our Tour Guide encouraged us to try the Hokey Pokey. 'What's that?' you ask. Funnily enough, I had this exact same conversation on a writers' forum I belong to. The Americans on the site made cracks about 'That's what it's all about. You put your left leg in...' (For reference, that's what they call the Hokey Cokey. Weird, right?! New Zealanders call it the Hokey Tokey. Even weirder!)
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| Hokey Pokey icecream |
I can now reveal it's a flavour of one of my dad's favourite desserts - icecream! It's a plain vanilla icecream with small, solid lumps of honeycomb toffee. In honour of my New Zealand writer buddy (whom I'm hoping to see when our tour stops in Christchurch), I had a Hokey Pokey icecream (it was very nice!).
The last visit we did was to the Waitangi Treaty Grounds in the Bay of Islands. This was where the first accord was signed between the British Crown and the Maori people back in 1840. The inside of the carved meeting house was very impressive, and the ceremonial war canoe is the world's largest (Princess Diana has even gone for a ride in it).
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| At the Kauri Museum |
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| At the Kauri Museum |
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| At the Kauri Museum |
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| My Hokey Pokey icecream |
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| Where the Treaty of Waitangi was signed |
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| The carved meeting house |
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Inside the carved meeting house
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| Ceremonial war canoe |
Now that's a lot to remember!! Very impressive war canoe & carvings. Soggy xx
ReplyDeleteApparently, I share ancestry with the Maori lady who was our guide at the Waitangi Treaty Grounds. Good old Uncle Google certainly gets around! 😁
DeleteYay - you tried the hokey pokey ice cream!
ReplyDeleteYeah, it had to be done after you'd mentioned it on AW. 😁
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