Northwards!

Currently up country in a winsy beachside town north of Auckland. Very pretty environment ... but what else do you ever say about NZ.

It's not possible to tell any stories without photographs so you'll just have to wait till I get back to HK for the bulk of what's happening.

Anything to talk about without photos?  Oh yeah!  Big story at the moment: a registered Maori company was buying up huge swathes of farmland around here spruiking it as "our traditional land" and the local Maori who - obviously - are actually from the area started going "say what?" and, because no one inter-tribal could vouch for them, began an investigation into who they really were and it turned out to be a clique of Arab businessmen from Dubai, so furious local Maori tribes took their lawyer, who set up the company, to Maori court and now he's going to jail for up to seven years.  Yayyy!

I guess that's the moral lesson here: don't call yourself "the traditional owner" of any land within a country that still has a strong and living tradition of tribal land ownership!