When I penned the first chapter of Finding Miriama, it was in fact the second chapter, if that makes sense. The story originally began at the end of Joseph's life, which at the time seemed like a novel idea (see what I did there?), but after a while I realised that revealing the ending can be a bit of a story spoiler, so I relegated that chapter to near the end, where it belongs.
So the first chapter it set in a beautiful part of New Zealand called Kawhia, and includes the Aotea peninsula. I recently spent a weekend there and can see why these people from the Tainui tribe decided to stay. Here are some photos which show how it might have looked, and how it looks today. It is still unspoiled in that the population is not growing and as a result it is not suffering from the tourism fallout which is happening in many other places such as Raglan, and the locals like it that way,
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