Tea in bed again this morning and a short lie in before showering, breakfasting and packing the car. One of the great benefits of not having the campervan is that you do not have to dismantle the bed and assemble the table before you can do anything. It gives a valuable few extra minutes in bed. Also not having to go to the shower block saves some time, although I do sometimes miss that early morning interaction with life. Not often, just occasionally. By 09.15 we were heading away from town following the North side of Lake Rotorua towards Tauranga. We had only been going for about 15 minutes when the drizzle started and by the time we reached Tauranga it was fully formed rain. We stopped briefly to pick up dinner in one of the huge supermarkets in town before following the coast round Tauranga harbour to Katikati. As you drive through this part of the country, you soon realise that this is Mecca for kiwi fruit growing, with field after field of them and associated mega processing plants.
Using our natural ability to find unusual cafes, we saw a sign for Katikati Heritage Museum and cafe. Not for one second believing that the two were actually one, we turned off the main highway and into the car park of the cafe, which was of course also the heritage museum. As soon as we turned into the car park, we saw the pile of what can only be described as junk surrounding the cafe. There were old tractor bits, farm implements and numerous other bits of unidentifiable tot along with a collection of rusting old bicycles all to be passed before gaining entrance to the cafe. As we entered – empty – just like previous bizarre cafes we have visited recently. Then an aging lady popped out from the back and warmly greeted us, just like Arkwright in ‘Open All Hours’. We were in her catchment area, just like a pair of flies heading towards a Venus Fly Trap. We had the intention of having a cup of tea and a coffee; she had other thoughts. Within seconds we parted with NZ$21 for a toasted egg and bacon sandwich and a giant slab of carrot cake as well as the tea and coffee. She was such a friendly person enquiring about our holiday and where we were going, what we were going to do etc. Little did we know that this was valuable ammunition for her to extract further dollars from us. She informed us that the Coromandel Peninsular would be mega busy this weekend as there was a beach festival of old cars which always attracted thousands of people and anyway, the forecast was for heavy rain all weekend, so we wouldn’t see anything.
Having eaten the food and drunk our beverages, we were just about to leave, when the offer of a tour round the museum was tossed onto the table. We politely tried to decline, but she started the high pressure sales pitch – did we know what was growing in the fields around us? How can we drive through somewhere without knowing something about the local history and local Maori culture? The fact that we had been to a Maori evening the previous evening cut no ice with her, she was talking local; around Katikati. Then came the ace card, her 81 year old husband. You just knew there was no way out so we surrendered to the half hour tour of the ‘museum’. She offered not to charge us if we didn’t think it was worth it, so there was absolutely no return now, plus it was pouring with rain so we would not be missing ant coastal scenery.
It would take ages to cover all the history that this old lady imparted on us, but it is safe to say she knew her stuff and most importantly she was madly passionate about it, which made it all the more compelling and interesting. About 10 minutes into her presentation, 4 other people turned up, two of whom had just moved into Katikati from Ireland and the others were Kiwis. The old lady’s eyes lit up, an opportunity to convert new locals. This blog would go on for hours if we covered everything about the museum, but the fact that much of the European history is associated with Irish immigrants at the turn of the century, it made the new visitors perfect fodder for her.
The entire contents of the museum had been purchased from the estate of a couple who had died in a car crash and turned into museum exhibits over about 10 years. As we had entered the cafe for our tea, I said to Maureen, when does a pile of junk become a museum. I think the answer to that is when you have someone as passionate as this old lady who can pull all the junk together into one complete story. This museum contained an amazing collection of Maori and Irish historic artefacts as well as an unbelievable collection of memorabilia dating from the turn of the century through to 1960’s/70’s. The collection of cameras alone would have probably put any other museum’s collection to shame.
Nancy on the pump organ with two early gramaphones
Nancy demonstrating an early 3D viewer
Just as we all thought that we were finished, she announced that there was more upstairs and ace popped up again to take over the upstairs tour and presentation. He was every bit as passionate as Nancy, his wife and he was so proud to pass his knowledge of the hundreds if not thousands of exhibits in the museum.
The device that Norm is holding is for removing sheeps tails. It basically gets almost red hot and burns the tail off without any blood loss as it seals it at the same time.
The half hour tour was in fact one and a half hours of pure passion and worth every penny of the entrance fee, which we willingly all paid. This place is a must to visit if you ever come to New Zealand. Unfortunately, neither of the two old folks will last forever and it makes you wonder what will happen to all the exhibits, when they pass away, because without their knowledge, it could easily become just a pile of junk.
Eventually we broke away from Arkwright and were on the road again heading towards Waihi, where we stopped for a very late lunch. It was decision time. Should we go to Coromandel or leave the peninsular alone and head towards Auckland? We decided to go for the peninsular in the hope that the rain would leave off and we would get to see some scenery.
We arrived in Coromandel about 5pm having seen almost nothing of the scenery as it was still raining! Unfortunately, the weather forecast on tv this evening is for two days of rain, so we may miss a lot more scenery between here and the Bay if Islands, our next targeted stop.
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