The Seafarer

Julie, Sylvienne, Tom and Blondie

Anything to declare?

We arrived at Auckland on Tuesday, tired after an extremely turbulent flight. The good thing was that we had a direct transfer to a hotel in the centre of the city. Ron, our friendly taxi driver led the way explaining some of the niceities along the way. For example, there’s One Tree Hill which is now No Tree Hill since a group of Maories recently cut down the one and only tree – to be honest hardly even a hill, more a bump.

In some ways our arrival in New Zealand was unwelcoming – I think we got the wrong shift of the customs officers who wanted to go through every single question we’d already answered on the question list. We were sent to line three where I was requested to unlock my case and remove my ‘used’ hiking boots. I had already told them that they were clean but NZ needs to check everything again. Luckily there were no unidentified Wouwse Plantage scorpions or Rucphense Bos kabouters lurking in the depths of my soles – Phew!

The Macademias

Wednesday we arrived in Waipu, a pretty uninteresting town on the North East coast of North Island. Our hosts were Tom and Sylvienne who welcomed us with a true hearty spirit, backed up by Blondie one of their three dogs. Living in the middle of nowhere (almost) Tom and Sylvienne have an orchard of macademia nut trees, Tom has just finished building a boat, Sylvienne has an art gallery as well as running the B & B and there are numerous other animals to be looked after. These people don’t sit still, and when we asked them what they do for entertainment – well they just go to Sydney for a few days to a show.

Waipu is a Scottish town in New Zealand, at least that is what some people proclaim. In 1852 Norman Mc Cleaod who was a Scottish presbyterian minister led his flock across the Atlanctic to start a new life in Nova Scotia. They had been outraged by the behavior of the Scottish lairds who were clearing their farms of crofters and labourers to replace them with sheep (more profitable). Mc Cleaod was outspoken and from what we can gather not a particularly nice man and he seemed to fall out with everyone. To cut a long story short from Nova Scotia they sailed to Australia and then to avoid the gold rush, they moved to Waipu after having negotiated with the authorities about land.  Some say that Maoris were displaced in all this, others that Mc Cleaod didn’t actually build anything in Waipu apart from a church – whichever way you look at it there were 960 ‘Scots’ who started the present population on the town.

The Seafarer 

The coastline here is wonderful and we walked all along from Waipu Cove to Langs beach. I was thinking of the Old English poem ‘The Seafarer’ there’s that line phaere ic ne gehydrene butan glymman zee – There I heard nothing but the raging of the sea, the ice cold wave.

Oh yes, and before I forget Sylvienne told me she had been recommend the book ‘Brideflight’ and asked me if I’d heard about it. Well, Colleen, how proud I felt to tell her my friend had translated that!

Hot Water Beach
De foto helemaal bovenaan Julie's verhaal had ik gisteren willen plaatsen, maar het was al laat zich en dan slaat de vermoeidheid soms toe. Klik hier voor de website van de B&B voor het geval jullie nog eens kennis willen maken met de Nieuw Zeelandse gastvrijheid.
Van Waipu naar Whitianga is een paar uur rijden door afwisselend landschap, waaronder de stedelijke omgeving en drukte van weer Auckland. We hebben onderweg er het gemak van genomen. Dat is hier niet zo moeilijk want op het rijgedrag van de Nieuw Zeelanders is niets, maar dan ook helemaal niets aan te merken. Nergens ter wereld verplaatst het verkeer zich zo rustig, zo gedisciplineerd over de wegen als hier. Snelheidsbeperkingen worden niet overschreden, inhalen, ook als dat ruim en veilig kan, gebeurt nauwelijks en bumberkleven is al helemaal zeldzaam. Het is een verademing als je het vergelijkt met het vaak agressieve rijgedrag in Europa.
Het is nu zaterdag 23.30 uur. We hebben een comfortabel motel in Whitianga op het Coromandel Peninsula gevonden waar we de komende drie nachten verblijven. Hoogtepunt van deze streek is Hot Water Beach waar je bij eb (morgen rond 18.30 uur) op het strand een gat kan graven om vervolgens in warm tot heet water te gaan liggen. Het is een van de vele thermale gebieden op het noorder eiland. Het lukt ons nog steeds om ons niet te haasten, ook al realiseren we ons dat we voor het zuider eiland misschien minder tijd hebben dan we gehoopt hadden. Maar goed, beter zo dan als een gek door het land crossen en niet meer genieten. Dan gaan we nog maar een keer terug.