The Bay of Plenty isn't quite as it sounds, it covers quite a big area of land from Gisborne north a good 100 odd kilometres and goes inland quits some way too..

Anyway, back in the day when James Cook was surveying the country by ship, he stopped in the area as he was running short of supplies and thought to do a deal with the local Iwi and trade for food.. One thing he noticed on going ashore was how plentiful the food was, and how well it grew..

Good old Captain Cook tried to do a deal with the chief of the local Iwi, but despite his attempts at getting a fair deal, he was turned down.. After trying to bargain with the locals for a few days Cook decided to move on and head north and try trading in the next settlement he got to, which I might add he did successfully, but upon leaving the Bay of Plenty Cook updated his maps and log and called the place as it's known now, the Bay of Plenty..

I might add that Cook also made notes in his log saying that despite the locals having plenty of food to trade, they were too mean to do so and that any others passing that way needing supplies shouldn't stop for them as it was unlikely the natives would trade..

The area is now quite a large gannet colony, it also has a golf course there, but back in the day when Captain Cook was exploring the area it wasn't named..

The reason the cape was given the name 'Cape Kidnappers' was because there was a bit of a skirmish going on between Captain Cook and the local Iwi there, the local maori waited until they could catch Cook unaware and kidnapped one of the crew from Cooks ship.. If I remember correctly it was a cabin boy who got kidnapped..

It took quite a bit of bargaining and talking, but eventually the crew member was given back.. Captain Cook decided that 'Cape Kidnappers was a good name given what happened and the names stuck..

Nowadays there's daily trips along the cape, those that're up to walking can walk the 6 miles along the beach to see the gannets, this walk can only be done once the tide is on the way out as it comes right in to the cliffs at high tide.. There's also a tour company that takes bus loads of people out along the top of the cliffs to the gannets, I've never done the trip this way, but I believe the folk doing it get a bit of a talk about the area and the history behind it..

I have been up on the cliffs and far enough along to see some of the views up there, most of the Hawkes Bay region can be seen, both north and south, on a good day the view can stretch as far as Mahia in the north and 'Young Nicks Head' can be seen in northern Hawkes Bay.. 'Young Nicks Head' is another story, and I've forgotten a couple of the facts about it at the moment..

As far as I know Kidnappers is the only gannet colony in the country, and possibly the southern hemisphere.. The gannets will be leaving the area soon as the year's breading season is all but over, but they'll be back to nest in the same area, and with the same mate next spring..

I think it's worth a trip to go out there, now the minibus trips go out, the 3 hour trip can see you learn a bit, see some great views and get to see the gannets of course...

175 years ago the treaty was signed by most Iwi and the Governor Genera* ml of the time, the date was 6 February 1840.. Chiefs and the Governor General met at Waitangi, which is in the Bay of Islands in the northern part of the north island..

Not all chiefs were present for the signing, but most got to 'Tii Tee Marae' at Waitangi for several days, then signed the treaty which effectively made this the birth of the country as we know it now..

Today has seen celebrations variously around the country on both many different maraes and in many towns and cities..

There has been a lot of protests in past years as some thought the treat was a one sided document and wanted to see things change so they favoured both maori and pakeha alike, luckily a lot of issues have been sorted out over recent years, so the protests have pretty well stopped now, especially as the government is settling treaty claims, and doing so reasonably fairly..

There has of course been quite a few claims not settled, I remember Ngati Tuwharetoa iwi in Taupo were trying to claim the air space above the lake as there's, so wanted to charge people to fly over the lake if the claim went through, which it didn't.. There's been other similar claims which got rejected, but the Iwi that have put in reasonable claims have to a larger extent got pretty much what they asked for..

Is the country a better place for having the treaty? Time will tell I guess, but so far things have improved for both maori and european alike most of the time...

I'm not sure if fantails are only found here in NZ or not, but I remember being told a few different stories about what it means should one fly inside our houses, I was only 5 or 6 years old when I was told the stories, so of course I couldn't remember them.. I've not long been on Google and was surprised to find an answer which I've put below.. It's kind of sad a cute little bird like the fantail has a bad rep..


The fantail or piwakawaka is one of our native birds. ... The Maori people consider it bad luck if a fantail flies inside a building. They say the fantail is a messenger and it's appearance means death or news of death is imminent.

15 March 2019: Two mosques saw a gunman go in and kill 51 and wound 48 innocent people, there's still an air of shock and disbelief with who ever we talk to, a little country of 5 million people at the bottom end of nowhere that's always tried to help others, our troops have only gone overseas to help with medical aid rather than fight on the fronts with other countries troops..

I note our PM said yesterday that military style weapons will be banned here, I personally am not sure that's the answer, guns don't kill, people do, INO the laws around owning weapons need to be changed, if you want high powerd weapons then there should be random checks on owners by both police and psycologists if a person wants to keep weapons and their firearms licence, getting a firearms licence should mean tougher background checks and a psychiatric check to ensure a person is fit to own weapons..

I've watched the news on TV and online, the day after the massacre all the flower shops in Dunedin had run out of flowers, folk were buying them and going to Christchurch to remember the dead, they showed the flowers left by people at one location and there was thousands of bunches there within 48 hours, they were 70 to 80 bunches deep for possibly 200 metres in under 48 hours..

Parliament sat on tuesday and wednesday of this week, on tuesday they had an Imam and a few muslim representatives in the hose for prayers and to express sorrow at the event, wednesday saw a number of our MP's discussing the massacre and what could be done to help, the house has now risen until 2 April so MP's can go to their home towns, or Christchurch to help..

Our Prime Minister went to a Muslim gathering the day after the massacre to talk to the families and relatives and was then criticised the next day for wearing a scarf over her hair which is a muslim custom, I must admit to being disappointed in the critic or critics as she was showing respect by wearing a scarf..

I'll add to this over the coming days, but if anyone has questions or such, feel free to ask.. I would ask that no offensive comments be made though folks, muslims like christians are peaceful caring people and deserve our respect, they have forgiven the gunman, I'm not sure most of us could..

I'm not exactly sure of the exact origin, or dates when rewana bread was first made, but I suspect both the potato and sweet potato were both made popular when the country was colonised..

Rewana bread is basically normal bread, but instead of normal water being used to make the bread, the water from boiling either normal potatoes or kumera was used.. the only thing was thy didn't add salt to the water when cooking the potatoes or kumera..

Instead of using yeast and such to make the bread rise, there was always a supply of old potato water around, my understanding is that over time the water that was used to boil the potatoes got some similar things in it to yeast, so some of that was added when making the bread..

There's still a few older maori that have camp ovens, they used to bake the bread in the camp ovens in old fashioned bread tins..

I've never managed to get a recipe from any of the maori elders, but if i's made the old fashioned way, rewana bread is really nice, especially if it's been made with kumera water as it gets a bit of a sweet taste to it.. I found after having rewana bread the bread from the shops just wasn't the same, rewana is much nicer in my opinion...

As mentioned in my other post, this was a common way of feeding everyone, no doubt it was a common thing on maraes before NZ was colonised as most marae would consist of several hundred people when whole families were taken into account, whole family ranging from young children through to Grandparents and possibly great grandparents, as well as aunts and uncles etc..

Even now there's certain does and don't's with hangi's.. the men were responsible for doing things like the hunting and fishing, once that was done the men had to prepare the meat or fish, it was also their job to dig the hangi pit, if there wasn't already one, then of course they'd have to get the firewood and rocks..

Getting the fire lit to heat the rocks was the mens job, as was putting the food down and then getting it back up once it was cooked..

Any vegetables that went into the hangi was the womens jobs, they'd have to prepare any veges ready to go in and make sure plenty of flax was being soaked to cover the food once it was in the basket's ready to be cooked..

One big no no was women going into the hangi pit to help dig it out, and not because it was considered a mans job..

A hangi for 500 to 600 people usually took 3 to 4 hours to cook depending on the rocks, and of course how much heat was in the rocks, the hotter the better.. volcanic rocks weren't used too much, mainly because they wouldn't get very hot and because they often broke up when put on the fire to get hot..

I know our neighbours over the ditch in Australia have seen the haka a few times before one of the rugby games between our teams, but I thought I'd give an idea of the significance of it..

Originally it started as something that was to do two things, one was to scare the people that were getting invaded, the second was to get the invaders 'psyched up' before the battle..

Different Iwi or tribes some times had differing haka, but the idea's behind them were the same, try and scare the opposition as much as possible and therefore hopefully win the battle they were about to have..

Some of the Iwi used to get a bit sneeky way back when someone came to invade them and started doing the haka, they'd get some of the young good looking wahine (women) to go and distract the invaders, this quite often gave enough time for them to sneak out from the marae or pa and and get the invaders from behind.. do some damage to the invaders before they attacked..

It worked on a number of occasions too, especially if the invading party had traveled a long distance, the men were of course quite pleased to see a few good looking young women coming out to meet them, lol..

I often remember watching the rugby when I was younger, the haka wasn't always done before every game then, so some times a good scarey haka with a few tough mean faces in it was enough to psych out the other team a bit and leave things a bit more in the All Blacks favour.. it was really only done when we knew we had a harder game to play, the British and Australians always gave the All Blacks a good run for their money, so it was a good idea to try and scare them a bit beforehand..

Anyway, as I say, the haka started out as more of a war dance and designed to try and scare the opposition as much as possible, and hopefully making it easier to win the upcoming battle...

This is the maori name for the country as the first thing they saw while paddling their waka in this direction was a long strip of whitish cloud which stretched most, if not the whole length of the country..

Even the sailors coming here now know when they're nearing land as the cloud is the first thing they see..

I've been on the Cook Strait ferry for many trips to the south island, once we clear the Wellington heads and get to see down the east coast of the south island, usually all we see on a fine day is a long strip of cloud heading south along the coast, it wasn't until we got a lot closer that we saw faint bits of land through the cloud.. The site has stuck with me for some 50 years when I first saw it and asked my sailor father about it.. It's quite an awesome sight..

According to Māori history, the North Island of New Zealand is known as Te Ika a Maui – 'Maui's fish'. Maui appears in many Māori and Polynesian legends; he was the clever, gifted demigod of supernatural parents. But one of his most impressive achievements was fishing up New Zealand's North Island.

As you can see, originally there was only the south island, Maui went fishing one day and bet his catch would be more impressive than anyone elses, after some time of fighting and struggling the north island was caught and raised.. No one is sure if the legend is true or not but most believe it to be the case..

If I can find out more I'll post it for you to read..