We spent the whole afternoon at the Waitangi Treaty Grounds. The Treaty of Waitangi is the 1840 treaty between the chiefs of the Maori tribes and the British Crown which created the country of Aotearoa / New Zealand and gave the Maori British citizenship.

We started by viewing a movie of the history leading up to the signing of the Treaty, then watched a Maori cultural presentation which included the traditional Maori welcome to their marae (meeting house), some sacred songs and dances, and some games. Quite interesting, and fun because there were only four of us attending the performance that afternoon so we all got to participate.

We then took a tour of the Treaty Grounds with a Maori guide. There were only three of us on that tour, so we had a lot of opportunity for individual questions as we visited the huge 80-man waka (Maori war canoe).

We also visited the lawn where the treaty was signed (a lawn like any other) and the Maori meeting house (which is unusual in that it includes carvings in a variety of tribal styles since it is a national meeting house rather than a house for just one tribe).

We had a beautiful sunset over the Paihia Harbor.

When we saw the stars after the sky had cleared, we discovered that in the Southern Hemisphere Orion stands on his head!