Wairoa isn't the prettiest town in the country, surrounded by green hills poxy with erosion, but the little museum showed real pride in their most famous son, George Nepia, member of The Invincibles, the All Blacks team of 1924-5 that won every one of their games on overseas tour. I was more taken by the story of Scottish settler Neil Walker, who sent his brother to fetch back to the farm the lady he arranged to come out from home to be his wife - but Peter was the one who married Miss Frew. And then they both died young and Neil brought up their children. Awww.
The best bit of Wairoa is the Bar, down at the river mouth where the turquoise sea breaks over the shingle bank and the black sand is littered with silver driftwood. There was a skylark singing, the sun was warm and it was almost as beautiful as the Mahia Peninsula, which has all that plus white cliffs and enough remoteness to make it feel like an achievement to have got there.
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