[Pakeha Boy]

Mentioned on another thread was the history of Britain.
NZ also has its own history, a lot of it quite obscure and yet very colourful, ie, the Bay of Islands used to be known as the "hell hole of the Pacific" by the old whalers and sailors, now its a primo tourist destination, Mt. Ruapehu used to be nearly a third as high again, the gum diggers in Northland to the gold diggers in Southland, Phar-Lap (RIP!).............there's a great slice of it out there, who's got some interesting yarns then?
Fire Away....

[ali]

last time i was in the museum in Oamaru they had areally good display on the early immigrants from uk, oamaru was in those days a main port (bigger than dunedin to the south) where the first frozen sheep were exported to uk, however the harbour was quite treacherous so the ships would have to drop anchor just out to sea. the settlers would have to get ashore on smaller boats and god knows how many of them were drowned in rough sea on this last leg of about 300 metres, imagine it, spending weeks on end on a damp freezing cold ship, and when you finally get there -with land in sight- you have to do that, and then don't even make it , or make it with a member of your family gone!!!! makes a 24 hour flight on sing. air look like a doddle really.
al