Tuesday 1 March
9.20 am - After packing all the vehicles ...
... we left Oropi School and made our way to Omokoroa Point where we caught the ferry at 10.20 am
After a short wait, while the class teacher David Northey discussed the traditional protocol with one of the locals ...
... not a warning, but a welcome from the kaumatua at the Opureora Marae, where we were due to stay for the next four days.
The boys and girls were assigned separate bedrooms, and spent some time and energy arranging mattresses, having pillow fights etc. This is the main wharenui, where the boys slept. The walls were adorned with tukutuku panels and many portraits of deceased members of the whanau, and the front of the historic building - shown below - was spectacularly decorated!
The first island activity was an introduction to fishing from the jetty, just a one-minute walk down the hill from the marae. Within a few minutes, everyone was catching, including Camilla and Louise with their first "spotties".
After we had eaten lunch and the boys had played a game of cricket ...
... we all went for a walk to the nearby Roman Catholic Church ...
... and then had a look at the beach, where there was rather too much broken glass for a safe swim.
In the late afternoon, some of the boys went off to set the flounder net near Hunter's Creek ...
... and then returned to the marae for dinner, another fishing excursion to the jetty and a game of spotlight, before turning in to bed at about 10 pm.
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