Kayaking

Day 11   Saturday, March 23, 2019   Bay of Islands

This was the highlight of our day. With 15 other kayaks, we paddled from Haruru Falls back to the bay. Then we hiked to the Waitangi Treaty House, followed by the shuttle into Paihia for lunch, free wifi, and strolling. Another beautiful day. Kia Ora!

We dropped anchor at 7:30, and our excursion departed the ship at 8:45. On the tender ride to shore, Janet sat next to a woman with eight children, plus she was raising a kid determined by DNA testing to be her husband's child. Oh my.

We boarded a bus and drove all of 1/4 mile across the bridge over the Waitangi River to where our kayaking shed was. We got our life preservers, and shed anything we would not be able to carry on the kayaks. We then bused a few miles upriver to just below the falls.

 Land training! They instructed us while we sat there on the shore.

It looked pretty funny. After the training, one at a time, we carried our boats to the water, climbed in, and shoved off.

 Then the waiting began. With 15 boats, everything took a long time to raft together to do anything, and then to un-raft.

More waiting. We finally all launched, rafted together, and listened to some history about this area. In the Māori days, this deep basin below the falls and the river back to Waitangi supported nine Māori villages. When the British arrived, they made it a port. The thriving trading station that grew up here soon had a coach stop and the country's first licensed pub, granted by Queen Victoria. Scows sailed up the river, furs were traded, and kauri logs were floated down and barged away for milling.

We lined up to the side of Haruru Falls so they could take our photos one by one right in front of the falls. Haruru Falls is only one of two horseshoe falls in the world, the other being Niagara's Horseshoe Falls (slightly more famous than this one!). This season was autumn, so the falls were at their lowest. They said that in the spring, it is HUGE, so I looked for such a photo on the Internet. Here's what I found:

Sure enough, that looks like 100 times the amount of water we saw that day. "Haruru" means "big noise." In this photo, I can see why.

Those of us near the front of the line then waited and waited for everyone to get their photos taken. We then paddled down the river and into a mangrove forest. We finally all rafted up for a lecture.

As we un-rafted, we headed out to "challenge" a Māori waka full of tourists going upriver. They all growled at us, and we were instructed to growl back and stick our tongues out. Touristy fun.

 We learned about the Flying Penguins, which are actually South Georgian Diving Petrels. They have webbed feet, so it's hard for them to land in the trees. You can see two nests up there to the right.

Yes, they do sorta look like penguins with their coloring. I read that these petrels are actually one of the most common birds in the world with several million breeding pairs. They're just not common in NZ, this being one of only a few places to find them.

 Look at those nests!

Rafted up to hear about the Māori village in the distance, which is no longer active, but they were persuaded to leave their structures for tourist purposes. The guide told us a long Māori legend about a chief talking to the dolphins to seek his daughter who had run off with a young man from another village. 

 This was next to the Māori village, for a touristy photo op.

 

 

We then paddled back to the start, turned in our stuff, and bused all the 1/4 mile back to the tender dock. We changed clothes and set out to visit the Waitangi House.

Our anchored ship. To the right of it is a mainland peninsula, which includes the city of Russell. It was the Capital of NZ for a single year, in 1841. It was a shore-leave destination for sailors, and its lawless and bawdy reputation resulted in its being called "Hellhole of the Pacific." We learned about the famous flagpole on Flagpole Hill, which was cut down four times by the Māori in 1844 and 45 as a protest to new British rules. Each time it was cut down, the British replaced it, but it wouldn't last long. The fourth time, Māori warriors killed the soldiers guarding it, to be able to get their access to cut it down.  After that one, they didn't put up a new one until 1858 when the Māori chiefs approved of a new "oneness" with Queen Victoria. That fifth pole still stands.

Our tenders, one coming, one going. But we headed off walking to the historic Treaty House.

This was about as close as we could get to anything historic near the Treaty House, because it turned out to be too expensive ($50 U.S. each) once we reached the entrance. This was a full-size replica of a Māori war canoe. The Māori originally landed right in this area, when they came by large canoes from Polynesia.

On February 6, 1840, the British and Māori Chiefs from the North Island met at the house here to sign a rights treaty that is still in force to this day. The Treaty of Waitangi is respected by the NZ government and continues to provide a framework for land, cultural, and political rights to the Māori. The entire country recognizes February 6 each year as a national holiday. (You sure cannot say that about any other treaty signed between the conquering white man and the indigenous population in a country or area.)

From Wikipedia: "It was drafted with the intention of establishing a British Governor, recognizing Māori ownership of their lands, forests and other possessions, and giving Māori the rights of British subjects. It was intended to ensure that the Māori people would not feel that their rights had been ignored. Once it had been written and translated, it was first signed by Northern Māori leaders at Waitangi and subsequent copies were taken around New Zealand and over the following months about 530 to 540 Māori, at least 13 of them women, signed the Treaty.

"During the second half of the 19th century, the government mostly ignored the Treaty and a court case judgment in 1877 declared it to be "a simple nullity". However, beginning in the 1950s, Māori increasingly sought to use the Treaty as a platform for claiming additional rights to sovereignty and to reclaim lost land, and governments in the 1960s and 1970s were responsive to these arguments, giving the Treaty an increasingly central role in the interpretation of land rights and relations between Māori people and the state. In 1975, the Treaty of Waitangi Act was passed establishing the Waitangi Tribunal as a permanent commission of inquiry tasked with interpreting the Treaty, researching breaches of the Treaty, and to suggest means of redress."

 We walked back from the Treaty Grounds to the shuttle, and came into the nearby little town of Paihai, where we found this little place for a fish-n-chips lunch.

 Across the street was this old stone shed owned by the founding Williams family, but next to it was the library where dozens of people were getting free wifi. We joined them! This shed is the area's oldest surviving building, dating from 1834.

After the wifi session, we strolled down the road to see some historic sites. We thought this stone arch in front of modern apartments was interesting.

 This "old stone church", the St. Paul's Anglican Church, was built in 1925 and is the fifth church on this site.

 The big grave monument is for Henry Williams (died 1887), the missionary founder of Paihai in 1823. He built the 1st church on this site. His brother Wm arrived in 1826.

Our ship is WAY out there. I'm still wearing my swim trunks from the kayaking.

 The little pier where many excursions departed that day.

Cool carved dolphins near the pier. We then got on the shuttle, with no line, versus the LONG line we'd seen earlier.

From the shuttle ride back to the tender pier, I got this photo of the Māori "totem poles", and learned later that New Zealand's first cricket match was held here in 1835.

We pulled anchor at 5:00, and enjoyed our buffet dinner with views of the many islands as we sailed north. The theater show was billed as "Fireworks on Four Strings", a violinist named Chris Watkins. We enjoyed his show, but he was a bit over the top with his gay nature and clothing.

Nice setting sun as we passed a couple islands to the west. After the show, we settled into the Bellini Bar to enjoy the music of Acoustic Rush Duo (we liked his violin even more) followed by 50s and 60s music by the ship's band. Janet had a gin n tonic and I had an incredible 24K-gold margarita.

Back in the room we watched news of the Mueller report, but it was the beginning of Janet's bad cough, which lasted almost two weeks and required a doctor visit/prescriptions in Sydney. Poor thing, she had a bad night with that cough.

New Zealand was so fabulous! Next stop, Sydney.