Trip North to the Courts of Masterton, Napier & Palmerston North - April 6th & 7th, 2012

On the Friday and Saturday of Easter weekend we decided that with the Overton's we'd travel north to Masterton, Napier and Palmerston North to take photos of the courthouses.  It's from these courts that the records come that we've been digitising for the past 8 months and will continue digitising the rest of 2012.  The map below details our trip north and the events of the trip.  Blue is trip up and red is trip back.

New Zealand has it's own "Stonehenge" similar to England.  Issue that you can see is that it's closed on holidays and the sheep could care less!

The countryside is of course very beautiful!

 

Our next stop was in Masterton to get a photo of us in front of the courthouse...we all wanted to be in the picture so....the Elders were driving by just as we were wondering what to do and took our pics!

Overton's & McVey's in front of the Masterton Courthouse

From Masterton we took a 1-hour side trip

out to the east coast to see Castlepoint Lighthouse.  The scenery on the way was beautiful!

From Castlepoint we drove back to Masterton and proceeded north to Dannevirke.  Just outside Dannevirke was this home where Matthew Cowley translated the Book of Mormon into Mauri.

 

Just down the street is this old LDS Chapel "Tamaki".  Inside were artifacts from decades of Church history.  We emailed President Kezerian and Mike Higgins and volunteered to take our equipment here to digitise what we could.  We'll see what comes from the offer.

Then on north to Hastings where we would meet up with Elder and Sister Farnes for dinner and stay the night in a motel.



Historic "Oak Avenue" in Hastings - Planted in 1874

We met the Farnes and they took us north to Napier for dinner.  I had Chicken Parmigiana...yum yum!

The Napier Coastline

Sisters Overton, Farnes and McVey
with Elders Overton, Farnes and McVey

We had planned to spend the day with the Farnes in Napier, but the weather was terrible so we took our needed photos and started the 5-hour trek back to Wellington

Here we are Saturday morning in front of the old Napier Courthouse

The Napier Courthouse

All important "Chocolate Shops" outside Napier...a must stop!

Then back on the roads and south with a stop in Palmerston North to get a photo at the courthouse just in case we get to their records while we're digitising!

 

McVey's at the Palmerston North Courthouse
7 April 2012



Trip to Auckland and North - March 20 - 30, 2012

We were asked to travel to Auckland and train a newly arrived couple on probate digitization.  The Auckland office of Archives New Zealand was beginning there project that is similar in size to Wellington and the Spencers had arrived the week before.  We flew up Tuesday night the 20th and went in the 21st to start the training.  Unfortunately the equipment didn't work so we had to extend our stay until the 30th.  All went well after the weekend so "all is well that ends well"!

Here's Jenet & Orlo Spencer being trained

We had a rental car so Saturday morning we got up and headed north with the intention of getting all the way up to the northern tip of the north island.  We bounced along the east coast on the way up and arrived too late to finish the final 100km so we got a motel room in Awanui.  We then got up early Sunday morning intending to get up to Cape Reinga early, see the sites and come back to Kaitaia to attend church....how do you say "best laid plans of mice & men"?

It took longer than expected...da...and we missed church by 30 minutes so we headed south back to Auckland.  All in all, it was a great trip and we've now seen most of the northern part of the north island.  Different than the south as you will see, but none the less very beautiful.  The map below details the trip route with the blue the trip north and the red the trip back south.

Auckland

Auckland is a beautiful metropolitan city with nearly 1.5 million residents in the greater area.  The "Sky Tower" is the needle in the middle and is known by all Kiwi's.

On of the must visits in Auckland is "One Tree Hill".  It's sort of in the middle of the city and from there you can see all around.  Actually the "One Tree" is now gone and a monument is in its place.



Looking south and yes,
 sheep still all around



Letter's in the rocks below.

A beautiful wreath at the
 base of the monument

Auckland is actually built on top of

inactive volcano's as you can see below!



Up the East Coast North of Auckland

Here's the Whangarei (pronounced Fangarei) chapel. 
We say small chapels in about every city north!

This is Whangarei Falls just outside of town.  Worth the stop and walk around

To the northeast of Whangarei is a 30-40 mile stretch of bays with hundreds of small islands.  This is Tutukaka Harbor

This is Woolley's Bay



Another Chapel in Kawakawa



We had to stop off at "Bay of Islands" & Waitangi where in 1840 the treaty between the Maori chiefs and Britain was signed.

We visited the Treaty grounds and because we had New Zealand drivers licenses, we were free.  Otherwise it was like $20 each.  This site is a good one to study about the treaty:
http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/Gallery/treaty-sigs/index.htm



William Hobson with the
British representative

This is King Tamati Waaka Nene

Traditional Maori Attire

One of the female signers

Copy of the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi



View of "Bay of Islands" from the Treaty grounds





The Treaty House of Waitangi



The British Residence



Two large Maori War Canoes

Cape Reinga

We travelled north from Waitangi and spent the night in Awanui.  Then got up at 6 to travel north for an hour to catch the sunrise from the cape.  Well worth the trip!

I'll just have a select of photo's in and around the Cape.

After visiting Cape Reinga we headed back down the Cape

We came around a corner and I said to myself, "this would be wonderful turkey ground" and sure enough, a flock of wild turkeys.  Upon investigation, there is a hunting season here.



On down the cape with a swing west to "90-Mile Beach"



 

The gravel road to 90-Mile Beach

Up and over the fence to the beach....
can you believe no hotels????

We're then off down the mail north island to Omapere shown below and Hokianga Harbour & Sand Tobogganing on the other side of the Harbour

An Anglican Chapel and and LDS Chapel in Omapere

 

Wrapping up the 3-hour drive south back to Auckland

What a beautiful 1,200km (700 miles) trip.  Worth every minute of it.  Day one was rainy, and we'd like to see the east coast "Bay of Islands" in the evening but just beautiful!