So I’m walking down the road in this wayward northern settlement of Rawene. It’s 30 degrees and the wide Hokianga river is still, the sky is a deep blue and the herons and pied cormorants line up on the mudflats ready for the next fishing opportunity. I’m off to the boardwalk over the mangrove trees where someone saw a kingfisher yesterday, and where last night I glimpsed a rare White Heron. They are resurfacing the road, a team of 6. I say hello in a sub colonial accent to be clear I’m not local – just in case it’s not obvious. A woman strides over, holds out her hand, and says ‘G’day! Would you like some chocolate? I’ve plenty….’

That’s what they’re like up here, in Maori rich country. Open, welcoming, curious. It was the same yesterday, when I was over at The Bay of Islands, stopping at Russell – the louche playground favoured by anglers, silver surfers and city escapees who still want weed and designer coffee. ThIs place was known as the Hellhole of the Pacific – the first white settler town, where naval discipline gave way over the years to debauched whalers, hustlers and prostitutes. S had told me to visit The Swordfish Club – the sort of place you find in liminal Essex estuary villages, like Burnham on Crouch, except the trophies were huge sword fish heads, and the dark wood winner boards were like a Hertfordshire golf club circa 1950. Then there was the 19th century Christian Mission where they translated the bible from Latin into Maori, printed 40,000 copies on a Caxton press, tanned the covers from local hide, and bound the books to give away, easy, like JW leaflets. On the tour, L put me to work on the press, and I was careful there, minding my ps and qs, to quoin a phrase. She thought I was the strong silent type (i.e. a blank), as I reached for some excellent, capital letters from the upper case – and proved myself to be a Man on a Mission…

I’d first been a ferry ride away at the Waitangi Treaty Grounds where the British persuaded the trusting Maori to sign away their rights to self governance in return for protection by Queen Vic from less civilised invaders (the French). They thought they were retaining all their historic rights, but the word ‘Sovereignty’ was poorly understood then. Hmm. No such problems with that word now.

In Maori culture, visitors are treated as equals (and potential traders – they’re not entirely spiritual!), but as usual, we let them down for a hundred and fifty years, as we took them for what we could get. The growing liberation movement of the 1960s, and the inspiring leadership of a strong woman, Whina Cooper, led to the Treaty Act which forced the colonialist government to live up to the principles of the 1840 treaty. Since then, Maori culture has been promoted and embraced, and historic land fraud redressed.

Maori principles appeal so easily: they are quite pantheistic – god is in all things, everything has a life force or anima. That’s apparent in their respect for the natural world, the imagery in their song and dance for both war and peace, and the way they talk to you. As if you’ve always known one another, as people privileged to be here, as beings with lineage to lives back and forward.

I was meandering in the Kauri forests the other day, to see the huge trees, and one Maori tribe stations volunteers near the largest – 2,000 years old. One welcomed me, and sang a prayer for me to the tree, deeply felt, like a Tui, thoughtful and sonorous. Another explained to me the ecosystem of this tree… how Kauri grow to a certain height, and then stop, growing only outward then, this one to a height of 90 feet and a staggering girth of 50 feet. He told me how 138 different plants and trees are growing on the top platform of the one Kauri tree, and how the tree’s gum (it looks like amber) would accumulate where the tree didn’t want plants to colonise it. But the Kauri is in some ways fragile and endangered. Its roots are shallow, and a symbiotic relationship with trees close by ensures the roots are held in place by other trees. Maoris refer to the trees as ‘families’ – mutually dependant. So you can guess, people traipsing over the root systems is not too clever. They are also suffering from dieback… a water born spore that infects and kills them. The dual threat has led to many tree deaths, and for us well-wishing, awestruck humans it now means heavily restricted access, and boot disinfectant stations at all entrances and exits.

So I was having my first day ‘off’, lounging about on the deck at the Boatyard Café, replanning my trip without my Non-TC, and asking my journalistic questions about NZ to a group of six Kiwis. Two run the B&B: J and D are both 79, and are at pains to tell me how so far they haven’t been together for 18 years. J was originally Dutch and has recently patented a machine for folding fitted sheets. His house is jammed full with thousands of books, empty bottles, models of the Golden Hind and Endeavour (not Morse), home made chandeliers, and yes, both bric and brac. They all tell me about earthquakes and volcanoes , how the Aussies are basically OK even if they are racist bigots – ‘after all so were we once’. They tell me which walks to take and which not, how to avoid tourists, but I can’t goad them by pitting North island against South. But it’s all I can do to keep them off Bxxxxt. Everyone loves the Queen, and she’s second in the pecking order only to blinking Princess Di. Even the tour of the treaty grounds majored on her (and the disdained personage Charles’) visit here. The Maori guide spent 10 minutes of an hour’s tour describing how her charm had persuaded Maoris to break with all tradition, causing anguish amongst the women when she asked for a ride in a War canoe – and the men said yes. Oh, let the poor woman be. Let us all be. Please!

I’m on a 10 hour train ride to Wellington now, supposedly one of the world’s Great Train Journeys. It’s not. Five hours in, and it’s all sheep and rolling hills and pasture. Tourists (as distinct from we Travellers) are snapping sheep and cooing, multiple babies are crying, there’s a lot of Kiwi Rail sandwich wrappers and crisp packets being scrunched, and I’m going to have a kip for an hour in the hope the scenery hots up and starts to not resemble Scotland.

Ooh, they’ve just announced the long climb up to to the volcanic plateau….