Last week I had the pleasure, and I will add privilege, of spending two days on Great Barrier Island, New Zealand’s fourth largest island and the largest of Auckland’s Hauraki Gulf. The island is a paradox to me: I had heard a lot of it but knew nothing about it. What did I know? The odd murder, a disappearance or two, a brutal kidnapping. Nothing you wouldn’t find on the Mainland but more acute on a smallish island with a permanent population of fewer than 1000. So Fryday went there with a sense of adventure, and adventure it was from beginning to end—and end that will never end as the memories live on. This is one of the most beautiful places in New Zealand and one of the laziest most relaxing I have been to. Even a day on the island seems longer as if each day is reluctant to depart--something it shares with at least one of the island’s two airlines but that is a story for another time. And then there are the people—the islanders—in no hurry to embrace much that is modern and in no hurry at all to embrace Auckland but will welcome Aucklanders. And that makes a refreshing change from some of the places I visit. And a special one. Don’t get me wrong; many of the people in many of the places Fryday visits in the course of work are “special.” But not like Great Barrier. Despite my predictions and predilections there was not a banjo to be heard. Not one.
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