Date night

While Baba and Babo had dinner with the girls and put them to bed, Lucas and I had the rare opportunity for a date night. We walked the half hour into town, got dinner from a food cart and ate on the pier. Across from us we watched the Whitianga ferry cross back and forth to the other shore.

We decided to take it across for a gold coin each. The trip took less than a minute. Across the harbor we found a trail, and followed it. It led us to the old Maori pa site, high up on the ridge overlooking Whitianga. A pa is a defensive settlement, inhabited when the tribe is under attack or in retreat. I realized I've never seen any remnant of Maori civilization, despite the pervasiveness of their modern culture and language.

A beautiful view of Whitianga from the pa



On the backside was a sheltered marina with boats anchored in the channel as far as the eye could see.



We saw the old post holes, drilled into the rock, from the Maori settlement. When Captain Cook visited, the Maori took him to this site for a feast. He wrote about the holes too, noting that there were just burned posts there. The local tribe there had been driven off a hundred years earlier and a new tribe reigned.



Along the path the soil was made up of old shells, 'rubbish' piles from Maori shucking shellfish. It was great to discover this hidden trail and explore with Lucas, at our own pace. We walked the beach back just after dark, finally able to see where the southern cross rises at the edge of the milky way.