Feb 10 evening

Waitangi: peaceful and harmonious. ... Big flagpole with three flags: NZ, UK, and the United Tribal flag, which had been used by the NZ missionaries beforehand. ... Where can I buy one of those?

I could sense the history as I stood at the beach. It's where the English rowed up to sign the treaty.

A nice sunset tonight, watched from a table beside our hotel, wine glasses in hand. Pink clouds, pink water, one lit from below, one reflecting above. Reminder to all amateur photographers: the flash doesn't help for objects several miles away.

Whoever designed the shower faucet that links temperature to water pressure should be shot. ... Tomorrow, the airport! Our last night in NZ!

Feb 10 late afternoon

Waitangi: peaceful and harmonious. I could sense the history as I stood at the beach. It's where the English rowed up to sign the treaty.

Feb 10 afternoon

Up in Awanui, the big kauri-wood shop (where they caver their own) has a spiral staircase carved into a piece of tree trunk. And many other nifty sculptures. Between there and Wairere, somebody put a "scenic" and soporific (for Chunlin) mountain road.

Fish & chips & fried oysters & green mussels and Mangonui. Very good. ("Your window to weight gain!")

Beaches along a side coastal road have lots of surf and sand. No swimsuits so we just watch.

Feb 10 morning

Good Lord, it's the tenth already.

Ferryboat back to Opua, no bakeries open there either, onto toilet town. Café by the railway -- old station -- for good eggs Benedict, boysenberry crumble, the best ham Chunlin has had, and a huge glass of orange juice.

Westward and onto a gravel road to the Wairere Boulders. Property owners seem hippy farmer types, easy-going. The woman has a unique voice, high, tight, and twangy.

The boulders are big, with large crevices gouged into them -- probably acid from the kauri trees, they think. Only basalt in a region of clay.

(Chunlin's photo above)

It's hot and humid and I can't handle the heat. ... Rest on a picnic table on a hillock, letting the intermittant breeze attempt to cool us.