Jul 7, 2008

Waiheke Island

Tide Marks I'd been trying to get in touch with Tom for days. We'd been swapping emails and missing replies and hadn't got it together but he phoned on Saturday night and we arranged to meet up on Waiheke Island for some coffee and a Maori protest march about local government changes.

When in Rome....

We got on the ferry for the forty-minute crossing and it hurtled across the Hauraki Gulf (probably) and docked in a beautiful cove, sheltered from the wind and as quiet as a quiet thing.

A bus ride up to Oneroa and we had the Lazy Lounge, our rendezvous, scoped. We were deliberately two hours early, so we went down to the Beach and sauntered there for a while before embarking on a tour of the underwhelming high-street experience that the village had to offer.

Then to the Lazy Lounge - which was closed - but we met up with Tom, his wife Marijke and offspring Oliver and Esmee (no accent) and adjourned for pizza and coffee.

Then down to the march. It was supposed to kick off from the Marai (sacred temple of the local Maori) nut we were late... the protocol for getting into a Marai is to wait to be noticed and to be called in, and Tom didn't want to break the rules, so were on the horns of a dilemma and thinking of knocking it on the head and going to a playground when our problem was solved by the sight of thrity or forty people marching up the beach towards us, big red banner flying in the wind, singing Polynesian harmonies.

And so we watched a ritual play itself out in the Maori language before we took our shoes off and entered the hall for a political meeting.

The situation is this: the Auckland council is proposing local council amalgamations and the Waihekians want to take the opportunity to improve there situation, convinced that they can given more autonomously with greater efficiency. The council has appointed a Royal Commission to look into the possibilities and asking for input, and the meeting was to keep the grass roots informed and to suggest how they might conttribute most effectively.

Which was all well and good and very nice, and quite entertaining in its own way, and it was nice to have a cup of coffee afterwards.

But I won't say too much, after all it's probably a hot potato for Aucklanders at the moment and I don't really want to get myself into hot water via Google.

Afterwards we wetn back to Tom's place which was very nice if a little unfinished (they've bought a shed and pretty much built a house around it) where we chatted and nibbled and got treated to pasta and pesto before catching the ferry back home after dark.

I'm glad we got it together to meet up; I hadn't seen Tom for probably twenty-odd years and he hadn't changed much really. We had a nice time with them and Eloise got on really well with their kids.

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