Eutopia...or something like it

Scots Wha' Hae...frae Pictou way... 

     Today we drove to the Waipu museum, where we learned the story of a group of just under a thousand highland Scots who followed a charismatic leader, Norman McLeod, to Pictou, then Cape Breton where they settled in St. Ann for thirty years, and finally to New Zealand. 

    The Rev. McLeod was a fanatical Presbyterian Calvinist, to the point of being a cult leader, and he denounced all other ministers he encountered. His followers, known as "Normanites", who were suddenly bereft of clan chieftains because of their self-preserving betrayals amid the highland clearances, flocked to hear McLeod's sermons and accept him as a religious leader to replace the chieftains. 

    Their descendants number in the tens of thousands, after only a hundred and fifty years. They began arriving here as my great-great-grandfather Thomas was serving in the Crimean War. When the Scots "restored" their traditions, they took to it whole-heartedly: kilts and tartans, pipes and all, even though the pipes would not have been permitted by the strict Calvinist code that the Reverend insisted on. There is now a world famous Highland Games in Waipu every year, with renowned pipers and pipe bands. 

    On the way there, we stopped at the ultra-charming Eutopia Café in Kaiwaka Village. 

    On the way home, we drove down the coast, enjoying beach and ocean vistas, and the odd sight like the blue Pukeko we surprised on the road (I couldn't get my camera turned on in time for a shot), and the goat that was obviously "on the lam"...but the best spot of all was the Te Arai beach, a gorgeous, isolated spot used occasionally by a surf school - perfect beach and waves to learn to hang ten - and fewer bathers than you can count on the fingers of one hand. 

    Today's photo album is called "Eutopia, or something like it..."

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