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Whakatane, New Zealand (Aotearoa)
37° 59' S 177° 0' E
Sep 20, 2006 10:39
Distance 112km

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Other entries in Whakatane

Day 36 - Whakatane

Text written in: English

Hey, at Whakatane (pronounced with an F, not Wh, so it sounds naughty) for the next two nights. We've booked a trip to White Island for Friday. It's an active marine volcano. They'll be more info on it on the next log.

Whakatane is really nice, very sunny. There's a statue of a girl on a rock out in the water, it represents the way this town got its name. Whakatane means "to become a man", which is what this girl was suppose to have done in Maori Legend. The canoe that she and her family arrived here on was drifting out to sea and it had all their food and possesions in it. All the men had gone to investigate the new land, so she swam out to rescue the canoe. But only men are supposed to paddle these great canoes, not women, so she stood up and yelled out "I will become a man" (in Maori - I can't remember the exact words so I'm not going to try and write them) and brought the canoe safely back to the land. And thats how it got its name.

It's interesting how they've named alot of the places we've been... alot of the names have come about from love stories, some with good endings, some with bad. Often the lakes are named after love stories gone bad, where someone has died and they lake is formed from the remaining lovers tears. It's nice that there's a story/legend behind alot of the names other then "that person's wife's name" or "generals hometown before landing here".

Went for a walk around the docks, got ALOT of photo's of the above Statue (much to Lloyd's dismay) and walked through a forest thing with a million birds flying around. It was amazing how many there were, tried to get photo's of them too but kept coming out fuzzy cause they flew too fast.

Thats all for now, bye.