Wednesday, February 1: We've been in New Zealand for a month! I had planned to make an entry every day, but we seem to fill our days. This week we are spending in the Feilding area renewing old friendships. Yesterday we went to the movies to see The World's Fastest Indian with Anthony Hopkins. It is the story of a New Zealander, Burt Munro, who broke the land speed ecord for under 1000cc motorcycles in the early 1960s with a 1924 Indian motorcycle that he rebuilt himself. It is a touching and humorous story. We recomend it. Today Buzz and Max have gone tramping (the NZ word for hiking) through the Manawatu Gorge. It is about a two hour walk. Cathy and I will drive to meet them at the end of the track and we'll all have lunch together. Tomorrow we are having a dinner party with a few friends...I will be the cook. Friday, February 3: We had a great day yesterday. First there was an outing to Palmerston North which included a visit to the Taylor Jensen gallery where we saw beautiful art and fine crafts by native artis, a light lunch at the cafe at the PN library and on to the fish market to buy slamon for our dinner party. The party was excellent. Our friends Lloyd and Krista Evans and Rauf and Jo Rangooni joined us for the evening. We caught up on the comings and goings of everyone's children, talked a bit of politics and generally enjoyed the company. The food was great, too..if I do say so myself. This morning, Cathy and Masx headed off to gisborne to go to a weedding. Buzz and i wsent to morning tea with Doris and Roger Berry. they are keeping well and we had a nice morning. Then we packed the car and headed for Taranaki...nnorth west of Feilding. Monday, February 6: It has been an intresting couple of days. We got as far as Patea on Friday evening and found a vacancy at the only motel in town. Saurday morning we headed to Hawera and a visit with Bill Bestall, a veterinarian who worked in the same Vet Club as Buzz did when we first came to NZ in 1971. Suffice it to say that Bill had a great deal to share with us including the sad news of his wife's death in 2003. We stayed most of the day with him heading north to New Plymouth at 5PM. We got to New Plymouth only to find that there was not a hotel,motel,or any other accommodation availble in all of Taranaki. We had not taken into consideration the double whammee of it being Waitangi weekend (more about that later) and a huge concert at the TSB Bowl (like ). We called every place in the guide book. Finally we gave up, booked a place in Taumranui...160Km away and set off. The road from New Plymouth to Taumaanui is part secondary road and part "other" which can mean anything from partially paved to all gravel. It almost always means hilly, twisting and narrow. We were a bit taken aback when the road sign toward Taumaranui indicated the raod was nicknamed "The forgotten land Hghway" It was certinly not a highyway in any sense of the word as used in the Untied States. It took us about three hours driving slowly and carefully over the mountains to Taumaranui. Buzz once again prooved his mettle as a back roads driver. Although the drive was tense, there was a fabulous sunset to compensate a bit. On Sunday, we left Taumaranui heading South to Wanganui...abandoning all plans for a leisurely drive south along the Taranaki coast. We stopped near Owhango and went for a short...the signpost said it would take 1.5hour...walk in the bush. It was a bit of a challenge for me but truly worthwhile. The trail went through meadow, along a river, uphill and down (many times) through thick bush back to the river, another meadow and bak to the carpark. It took us just under the 1.5 hours suggested on the sign; so I felt I had done reasonably well. The steep climbs up are ******* the heart, and the steep walks down are ******* the knees!! WE also stopped to view the beuatiful Ruakawa falls. We got to Wanganui in the late afternoon, checked into a motel and had a bit of a look around the city. Today, Monday, is Waitangi Day. it is the anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi which - depending on your point of view - settled the conflict between Maori and Pakeha (white man). As in all treaties where white europeans conquered non white indigenous people, there has been conflict over the years...particularly in recent times as more Maori are better educated. Today was a relatively calm celebration of the day as Maori and Pakeha alike seem determined to solve their differences in a nonviolent, less confrontational manner. We left Wangnui late in the morning. when we got to Feilding we drove to Menzies Ford, a picnic area on the Oroua River where we frequently took our kids for summer suppers when we lived here. We walked down to the river which looks pretty much the same and had our lunch at a picnic table close by. Home again we unpacked the car, Buzz is reading, and I am ccatching up on email and this journal. I am really enjoying having both the computer and my digital camera on this trip. Now to get to another broadband access to upload some photos.