Story: Converted to Slow Travel One Fast Day

We haven’t started our Big Trip yet. Although the adults have traveled right round the world, only three of the eight children have been outside our homeland, New Zealand. However, we’re *practising* here.

Whilst camping “up north”, it seemed a good time to try Doing-The-Tourist-Thing, especially as we had never taken the children to this part of our country before. Some of them had sighted the Treaty of Waitangi in Wellington, but none had been to the first signing place. And they still haven’t - we ran out of time. But we did look across from the ferry to the Waitangi Treaty Grounds. And we drove past in a rush to meet that ferry.

But let me back up a bit. The plan was to visit the Stone Store, New Zealand’s oldest surviving stone building, and Pompallier House, where, according to Grandpa, there is a magnificent hands-on display of how early French settlers printed books.

In the back of our minds we had been thinking that when we travel it would be a good idea to try to accomplish no more than two things in a day. We now KNOW this is an excellent piece of advice!

Upon arriving at the Stone Store we were offered a passport, which allowed us entry to *four* historic sites, including both the ones we wanted to see. Once you have the passport, of course you want to see everything. And we did. But only just.

At the Stone Store the guide-in-authentic-dress gave a very informative chat about the locale and shared stories of historical interest. Real tourist stuff.

Next door to the Stone Store is Kemp House, the house, which boasts the oldest wooden floorboards in all of Australasia. We stepped gingerly, wondered where all the children used to sleep and moved on. We had four places to visit.

But before we could go too much further we needed food. Another stop at another touristy-looking-building: Kerikeri’s main supermarket has a facade to look just like the Stone Store! Not wanting to waste any time (this day turned out to not be about slow travel, remember) we ate in the carpark of a chocolate-making factory. Our nine-year-old-wannabe-chef, had specifically requested a visit there and as it was en route to where we were going and there was free chocolate tasting to tempt the rest of us, how could we say, “No”?

We wasted a bit of time missing the turnoff to Te Waimate. But was it really wasted? The countryside was gorgeous, exquisite, quintessential kiwi country. Rolling hills, beautiful trees, sheep, farmhouses. The kind of thing people travel around the world to see!

Fifth stop of the day….Te Waimate Mission House, with church next door. If we’d realised that eventually we would run out of time at Pompallier House, we might not have wandered around the graveyard reading tombstones…..we may have left the Mission House with its cellar and amazing kitchen for our next visit.

The plan was then to drive to Paihia and catch a ferry to Russell. But wait, there’s a sign pointing to some waterfalls. Why not stop and have a look? Who knows when we’ll be up this way again?

After the short interlude, we continued on, driving PAST the Treaty Grounds, but not venturing in, understanding that we would be lucky to even make it to the ferry, let alone Pompallier House that day.

Dash for the ferry. To the adults, it was just a way of getting to our destination. To the children, it was part of the adventure.

Pompallier House turned out to be all Grandpa had promised. Unfortunately we did not have anywhere near time enough to appreciate it. Some of us caught the tail end of a guided tour - not this writer though; she was attached to the Youngest Member, who had quite simply had enough by this stage and was very vocal in her protest. We would have loved to have been there earlier and been able to make prints and soak leather and try our hand at book-binding. It would have been a much nicer place to stop for lunch - the vegetable garden and orchard with croquet lawn were most inviting.

Wandering back to the ferry, we discovered an old whaling boat, boosting the day’s itinerary to ten items thus far. Still to come was the return ferry trip, snacking on the side of the road because dinner was obviously going to be very late, the drive back to camp and cooking hamburgers to feed those hungry tummies. No-one noticed the hour - there were too many things to talk about, too many memories to relive, intense discussion to decide the *favourite of the day*

We never did decide the best thing, but we did learn

1) go slow: you can’t do everything, so choose what’s important to do

2) go slow: leave enough time for unexpected explorations along the way so you don’t have to rush

3) go slow: take time to take it all in