weekend trip with BU to North Island

BU paid for a weekend trip to Northland, which is area above Auckland. That was one week after the devonport trip. On the first day we saw one of the largest trees in new zealand. It is called a kumari tree, and they are really tall and straight, and they shed their bark to prevent other plants from growing on them, but tons of plants grow in the tree tops. There are not many of them because the old whalers and ships used them for masts. It was really cool, and reminded me off what i would imagine the red woods would look like. Then we went dune surfing. There were these huge sand dunes that led into the water. We went down the sand dunes on buggy boards into the water, and saw who go the farthest. Then we went to the town in the bay of islands called Paihia. It was a resort town, but for New Zealanders. In the morning we went to the town of Russels on a ferry, which use to be the hell hole of the pacific. It is where many of the whalers would come, and it was full of all kinds of sin. Now it is a small and quite town. We went on a tour of the old governor's building. It was once converted into a tannery and book binding facility, so we were given tanning demonstration and learned how old fashioned books were printed. In the afternoon I went deep sea fishing, and we ate the fish for dinner. The next day we left for home. We stopped at the grounds were the treaty of whaitangi was signed. This is the first treaty signed between the Maori and the Europeans. Be for the treaty they lived in relative harmony because the Maori needed the guns in order to defend themselves from other iwi (tribes) and the Europeans needed the port and the trading. But the excessive amount of whalers came with a excessive amount of sin. So the governor proposed a treaty to ensure that the Maori kept their sovereignty and the Europeans had the right to govern their own people. However, there was a "mistranslation" between the Maori and English version, and the Maori ended up signing over their rights to the land. funny how that happens. Well, this started a war, and has caused disagreement between the Maori and the Pakhea (white new zealanders) since. The Maori are still in courts arguing for the return of land and rights that was stolen a long time ago. Some iwi's have received their land back, most have not. It is all decided on iwi basis, not Maori or individual basis. At the grounds where the treaty was signed, they built a Marae to represent the Maori at this important site. A Marae is the meeting house for the Maori. They have there "written language" represented in the carvings of all their gods and stories throughout the Marae. Also shown in the pictures is a traditional Maori waka (canoe) that was made out of 1 kauri tree. They were bringing it back in from the water after testing it's sea worthiness when we got there. After this we stopped at a beach to play touch rugby (so much fun). P.S. the tree below is a kauri tree, and would take approximately 10 people to hug the tree.