My Maori New Year

Coastal horses with East Cape in the background.

On the way from the Motu Sheep station

The wild road thru Te Urawera

The land of milk and honey...

Weta on the Wall

Morning light outside Wairoa

I spent five days driving around the East Cape of the north island. It's a very remote area with a few B&B's, about 2 gas stations (this haunts me later....as I ran out of gas and had to hitch to the next town) and a little convienence store with not-so-cold milk, and not much else. So ramen noodles, bread and Marmite were about all I had to eat. You can live on this....but I don't suggest it. I stayed the first night (it was raining again) in Te Urawera National Park. In Maori, Te Urawera translates to somthing along the lines of "burnt penis"... it might have somthing to do with the geothermal activity in the area, but I was spared of any Te Urawera myself! There was the Onopoto Cave which I hiked to. It's pretty cool, and they have giant Weta's living in there. Weta are like BIG New Zealand grasshoppers. They are harmless, but the cave smells like Weta poo. Not much to the cave, it was cold and wet and muddy and that can be fun if you are into that sort of thing. The 100km road through Te Urawera is really rough and takes a solid 4 hours to drive, so it's not really somthing to drive if you are going from A to B. I took another dirt road off this dirt road to a sheep station in the middle of nowhere. There is a free DOC campsite here with not much more than a stream and a place to pitch your tent, or in my case park you van. It was really nice and I was invited to join the Kiwi family holidaying there (it was just the 6 of us) to some traditional lemon pudding around the fire....it was delicious. Another amazing show of Kiwi hospitality. Im noticing this trend down here. I had wanted to camp for New Years at or near the lighthouse on East Cape, but after telling the family this they advised against it. I guess most of this area has been given back to the Maori and it's all private property now. Being at the lighthouse would mean that save for a few small islands off the coast I would have been one of the first people to see the new day, and in this case the new year. The way the international date line is cut, this section of NZ jutting out happens to be the first place in the world to see the new day. Leela, whom I ran into first upon settling told me of a place that's not on many of the maps called Lottin Point. One of the other people in her group said this too was Maori land and you can't camp there any more. Leela said I should at least drive out there, it was a beautiful place and I should at least see it. She said even if I cant camp there, I ought to just take a look.

******

Paradise has a meaning different to each person. For some, and in the literary sense, it evokes hedonistic laziness in a hammock between palms...cool carribean waters licking your toes. For others, paradise is the rough-hewn timber of a remote and rustic cabin in the woods. Miles from the nearest electrical outlet...where the dancing embers of the fire chase the autumn cold around the room. I knew paradise for me the moment I peaked the crest of the hill and nearly carreened off the road down to the sea below. This is when I first laid eyes on Lottin Point. A rough spit of land with carpets of green Beech and crimson Pohukatawa falling softly to the sea below. Not a beach in sight, here the angry sea meets volcanic rock; the primal union of heaven and hell on earth. Look closer and the rough edges of igneous rock are softend by the clearest sea water I have ever seen. Tidal lagoons 10 meters deep as clear and vibrant with life as any place on earth.

I knew at this moment that no matter what laws I had to break and no matter how concealed I had to make myself, I could deal with being " a few minutes behind" on my eastern sunrise dream. I had to stay here. No matter what. Turns out that one of the 2 Maori land owners in the area will let you camp on the bluffs above the sea. It's private property, but I ran into a guy who was already camping there with his wife and son and told me to just go see if its OK with Grahme up at the house. Grahme was in the shower, but the woman I spoke too told me it's fine to camp there, and whatever I could donate would be apprecited. 30 minutes prior I was ready to break the law to stay here, I would be spared.

After a totally awesome swim in the tidal lagoons and a nap in sweet New Zealand sun, I spent the night playing guitar and singing Guns and Roses songs with a Maori family and eating Paua (abalone...delish!) and Kina (sea urchin....disgusting!). Tony, his wife Kare (Carrie) and their son Maniah showed me a night I will truly never forget. I learned where the southern cross constellation can be found, and how to properly sneak up on a fish when you are spearfishing. A very usefull skill for me im sure! I had breakfast the next morning with them too. Freshly caught Butterfish and NZ sweet corn. I can't ask for a better way to have spent my new years than this, and I'm sad still to have had to leave them. When somthing is so absolutely perfect you tend to try to make the feeling last forever. If I ever feeling down in the future, I have this memory nuggest to pull out of the bin and toss around.

Tony, Maniah, Kare and yours truelyThat grassy area between the trees is where I set-up camp. You can walk down to the lagoons from there and swim.

The view across Lottin pointto the other end of this land.

**Maniah is my guess on how to spell Tony and Kare's son's name. I didn't actually get a spelling, but if it's like some other things down here I think thats how it's spelled. So this is a disclaimer that if anyone know differently, please let me know.