Dear Diary

17th February.


We are still shaking, literally. We woke up today feeling great, but we didn’t know how the day was going to end. At 7 am the telephone rang. We had a full program, so if we were going to make it we needed to hurry up! At 8 am everybody was ready to go and the taxi drove us to the Hokianga Harbour, Northland, New Zealand. When we decided to visit New Zealand both friends and tourist operators recommended us to order an organized powhiri. A powhiri is a traditional Mãori welcoming and challenge. We were all looking forward to this and the excitement was big on the one hour drive to Hokianga Harbour. We sang many songs and Caroline entertained us with some of her less good jokes. It made it a lot easier because it was a bumpy ride. But even though the entertainment was top, I was the lucky one to throw up. I can honestly say that it has been a long time since the sight of a mountain top has cheered me that much.

Spectacular wood art

After the traditional welcoming with the challenge and all we went inside a house that had the whole inside covered by wood art. We had a wonderful time. The Maoris told us a lot about their culture, and they seemed like very nice people. After songs, tales it was time to eat. While we were sitting on the ground the ground suddenly started to shake. In the start we didn’t notice and continue on our meal. But we discovered pretty fast that the shaking was not caused of someone losing their plates. It was a real earthquake! The Mãoris started running around, placing all of their belongings on the ground. It was clear that this was a situation they had gone through before. It felt quite chaotic at the time when it all happened but when we look back on the situation we could see that they had a pretty good control over it.


I had taken a lot of pictures, but unfortunately my camera got lost under the earthquake. So to your satisfaction you only get pictures taken from Google.


Lots of love,
Christine