New Zealand: Phase Thirteen - Lucky?

Thankfully the last night in Little GPS was strangely fitting. There were more mozzies than the Rainman could count, I spilt a stinky beer behind the car seat which I mopped up with dirty t-shirts, the damned DVD went on far too long and I slept with a sheet over my puffy, mosquito bitten face. As unpleasant as it sounds we actually thought it was fun. We are into BDSM as well.

After waking up with muppet faces we had a quick brekky in the communal kitchen, left our supplies in the communal fridge and hit the road in search of the last remaining giant Kauries.
After a bit of a drive and a bit of a walk (Stace was just starting to feel some of the pressures of pregnancy) we found our first one.

These huge sentinels were truly breathtaking. The primeval forest was silent, damp and musty, and the solid, powerful and silent trunk just towered above us like an eternal, sad Goliath. Only a small handful of this size are in existence now, and it was like they were trying to talk above the tree line, standing on their toes just to get a peek of each other in the distance.

I was truly moved by them.

After a little drive through Opononi and Omapere (I think lots of hippies lived there once) we drove on through some beautiful territory to Waitangi where a treaty was signed. Not just any old treaty, the treaty of Waitangi! This was monumentally important for the development of New Zealand as a country. As opposed to us, where we can barely bring ourselves to say sorry after two centuries.

Even though the treaty was signed, the Maoris and the Poms beat the living shit out of eachother for a while afterwards. It did, however, recognise the Maoris as the true holders of the land and as a real people. The Kiwis, like the Canadians, are proud of this. Good on them.

The funny thing about the area, and perhaps my favourite thing, is the fact that it was all done not far from the 'hell hole of the Pacific' - Kororareka. Full of prostitutes, notorious pirates, violence, booze, and probably a bit of fun, like hopscotch or something. The area was very pretty, the grounds were very English, and the temperature and humidity was more akin to a Sydney like clime than I expected.

After this wonderful little walk we started meandering our way back to Auckland. With a small detour. A small, very special little detour. A detour with a difference, should I say.

We had to just drop into the Coopers Creek Winery, home of the favourite wine of our honeymoon in Vanuatu. FAT CAT! Yum, oh yummy yum yum with yummy yumminess with a bit of creamy yum on the yum yum.

Getting a bottle of this has been a mission of ours since we got back from our honeymoon, we even walked a few mile and explored a weird half empty building in Ultimo just to get a taste again. It was like we were smackies or something. After grabbing a couple of bottles and a silly hat we wandered out to the car. As I went to get in I looked back at the winery...

We had found our little pot of gold.