The drive from Hick’s Bay to Tikitiki wasn’t too bad. We passed the church and had to turn around and head back to it. From the outside it looked like any other church, with the siding painted beige and the roof a nice green tile. We walked around the church, not quite sure if it was open to the public. At the front were two sets of double doors. Mom tried one of the doors and it was open, so we went inside.
The church at Tikitiki:
The inside of the churce was entirely Maori. The pews had Maori carvings on the ends, the pulpit had traditional flax weavings and wood carvings, and even the piano was placed underneath two arms of carvings. The best thing in the church were the cushions. I’m not sure if each family provided their own cushions for the pews, but there were a multitude of hand-made cushions on the pews. Some were quite crudely constructed while others were beautifully stitched.
From Tikitiki the road deteriorated. There were numerous washouts from the previous year that were still waiting to be fixed. The best thing about roads in New Zealand, however, is that there are signs to alert you to every obstacle and road condition. Also, there are signs to indicate a reasonable speed around the obstacles or across the road. Unlike Canada, where a 30 km/h corner can be taken at 60 km/h, in New Zealand if the sign advises you to drive at 30 km/h, that’s because you really need to drive at 30 km/h. And, as soon as you’ve passed through the 30 km/h zone you can resume the usual 100 km/h speed along crazy, twisty country roads.
The other interesting thing about the road from Tikitiki to Tokomaru Bay is that we saw a lot of birds and livestock. By that, I mean that at one point I nearly ran over a hawk that was eating a newly-killed opossum in the middle of the road. I also had to dodge numerous magpies and the occassional pheasant. Just when I was starting to get tired I nearly drove into two pigs that had escaped the farm and gone walkabout. There were also a few sheep on the road, and a herd of cows being transferred to a new paddock.
We arrived in Tokomaru Bay and stopped at the 4 Square to buy sweets for the kids and a couple of bottles of wine for dinner. We arrived at their house around 6pm and were greeted with hugs, which we fouled up by extending our hands for a handshake. This confused the kids to no end. We were invited inside where we were invited to talk about our travels until tea was served. There wasn’t enough room at the table for everyone so the adults sat at the table and the kids sat on the floor (Bill and Jan have six kids). The owner of the 4 Square, Bruce, also joined us for tea.
After dinner Bill and Jan arranged a game called Rat in which six different sweets were arranged on a plate. One person was sent out of the room while everyone else chose a sweet, which became the Rat. The person was then invited back into the room and had to choose one sweet at a time. If it wasn’t the Rat they could keep the sweet. If it was the Rat they could keep any sweets that they had already, but forfeited any further chances to choose sweets. The sweets were stocked up again and the process of choosing the Rat started again.
We talked a bit about Maori culture after dinner but felt a bit uncomfortable because Bill and Bruce disparaged the Tamaki Maori Village tour and hangi that we enjoyed so much in Rotorua. Perhaps ‘disparaged’ is too strong a word. They called it the “plastic Maori” experience. I pushed on, however, asking about economic development and other issues. Bill deferred to Bruce, who filled us in on local business and non-business.
The kids had gone to bed earlier, but the adults went to bed around 9pm. Mom and I were sleeping in the boys’ room. Mom had a twin bed and I had the lower bunk bed. We slept heavily and didn’t wake until well after 8am. The kids were already up and enjoying a healthy breakfast of muesli, yoghurt, and milk as well as hot porridge.
After breakfast we walked to the lower paddock where the kids fed the pigs and collected eggs from the chicken coop. We walked through some gates to the neighbour’s land (Papa Shorty) and walked up a steep hill until we had a full view of Tokomaru Bay. It was absolutely beautiful. On the way down the hill the kids found horse mushrooms and watercress. They collected them for tea, and Mom and I marvelled at how knowledgeable the kids were about the land.
Buela with eggs in her hat:
Joshua climbing over the fence:
Isaac climbing over the fence:
Grace in her sunhat:
Jan and Beula:
Israel at the peak of the hill:
Didi with mushrooms:
I mentioned that it would be a lovely day to swim and asked if the kids could come for a swim. (Jan home-school’s the kids.) She said that would be fine so the kids changed into their wet suits and Mom and I changed into our swim suits. The first beach that we tried had a strong rip tide so we drove past town to another beach. There were big waves at the beach that felt like they would pull you out to sea, but they didn’t. The kids pulled out their boogie boards and swam out into the ocean to catch the waves. I went out with them and thoroughly enjoyed floating about in the warm Pacific Ocean.
Beula in her wet suit:
Mom and her shells:
Isaac and Joshua looking for the next big wave:
Mom and Jan stayed on the beach. I tried to encourage Mom to go into the water but there was something about the pull of the waves and the shelfs of sand that made her feel unsteady on her feet. Instead, she walked up and down the beach collecting beautiful sea shells.
We packed up and headed back to the house around 1pm so the youngest, Beula, could have a nap. Mom and I each had a shower. Beula wouldn’t go to sleep, perhaps because there were exciting visitors in the house, so we left and drove to Ruatoria.
We bought ice cream at the Ruatoria 4 Square, then walked down to Hughie Hughes Electronics. Jan had encouraged us to stop in there and say hello, because Hughie is Bill’s father. Hughie was on the phone when we arrived, but when he got off the phone we explained who we were and he showed us around the store then took us on an “official” tour of Ruatoria.
Hughie showed us the ambulance station, the police station, the old post office, a closed school, where he and his wife raised their four kids, and the local rugby pitch. From there he drove on a “metal” (gravel) road to an old marae on the ocean. It was just past the farm of Sir Apirana Ngata, now occupied by his daughter and grandsons. Hughie used to take his wife and kids to the beach by the marae in the evenings for dinner and a swim. The marae was closed (Hughie was kicking himself about that, because he could have asked a couple of people to give him the key to the marae, including Sir Ngata’s daughter) so we just looked through the windows.
What surprised me were the piles of foam mattresses and bedding. Hughie explained that when the marae was used for important occassions it wasn’t uncommon to have 40 people sleeping in the marae. The bedding was just piled up in a corner until the next big event.
We walked around the cemetary behind the marae as well. Hughie said he’d like to be buried there, and half-joked that the next time we visited New Zealand he’d have to entertain us there.
Back in town we said our goodbye’s, then drove back to Bill and Jan’s. We had a delicious beef curry for dinner, then looked at a slideshow of photos that I’d taken of the kids earlier in the day. We also looked at a few movies I’d taken of the kids boogie-boarding on the beach.
We had another satisfying sleep, waking up a bit earlier this morning so we could say goodbye to Bill before he went off to work. Just after breakfast Isaac presented us with a flax basket that he’d just woven. The flax was still green but he explained that as the flax dried it would turn a wonderful bone color.
I remembered that I had some gifts in my suitcase (still in the car) so I dashed out and dug them out. I gave Jan a carved necklace of BC jade and Bill a keychain with a casting of the raven. I gave the whole family a museum-replica bowl with coastal native designs.
Jan wanted to show us their B&B before we left so she loaded the kids into the car and we all drove to the B&B, just off the highway. The guests were still there but said it was okay for us to come in. It was absolutely stunning. It had been the post office and bank for close to 100 years and had an old vault, a telegraph room, as well as a sheltered outdoor room where people could collect mail from their post boxes. They’d stripped layers of paint from every wall and surface, renovated the staff room so it could be used as a kitchen, updated the water supply to support a modern bathroom, and generally renovated the building so it was now a gorgeous Martha Stewart-type B&B. Jan was quite humble about the B&B but both Mom and I were astounded at the beauty of the building, the renovations, and the decorations. You could tell that the whole family had put a lot of heart and soul into making it a beautiful place.
We said goodbye to Jan and the kids at the B&B and travelled south towards Gisborne. I had told Jan that I wanted to stop at Whangara, the village where the movie Whale Rider had been filmed. She explained that there were no road signs pointing to Whangara. She told me to look for a particular sheep station and then a road with a sign that said “school”. I saw the sheep station and turned left when I saw the school sign. We drove down, around, up, down, around, and finally down again to a beautiful bay.
There were no signs to say that we had arrived in Whangara but I knew we’d come to the right place as soon as I saw the marae with Paikia on the peak. The marae had been altered for the movie, obviously. The central posts in the movie were ornately carved but in the actual marae were plain posts with figures in front. There was carpeting around the edges of the marae floor and in the movie the floors were all wood. Still, it was so similar to the movie that I felt goosebumps.
We walked down to the beach and saw a small boat out fishing. We walked through the shallow surf to the right, seeing a vast expanse of beach extending further south. We took several pictures then returned to our car and reluctantly left Whangara.
We found the information center in Gisborne and decided to stay at a motel instead of the hostel. We settled in at a motel on the beach and put on two loads of laundry. Tonight we’ll meet up with Stew Wylds, a New Zealander that we met in Victoria when he was there working on his master’s degree.
Tomorrow we’re off to Napier!!
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