The tiny northern Hawkes Bay settlement of Nuhaka has chess champions, a large Latter-day Saints congregation and a large apple & kiwifruit orchard that looks like it will need more than 100 seasonal workers this year. It's also been a centre for Māori language revival thanks to people like Liz Hunkin.
Anyone you talk to from Nuhaka will tell you about their awesome community, the surfing nearby, the gentle climate and the strong chess culture that started at the local primary school after a visit from Genesis Potini's Eastern Knights.
Liz Hunkin spent her primary school years there, attending the Nuhaka Native School, which was just across the river from the public school where the Pākehā kids went. (The school's finally merged in the early 1960's)
But can you imagine, this gentle little [Ngāti] Rakaipaaka and Ngati Rangi girl going off to school as a wide-eyed five year old only to find she wasn't allowed to talk.
"We saw our cousins get caned for speaking Māori. We learnt to be silent.
"But English didn't take long to learn," she says with a smile.
Looking back now, Liz says it's sad to think that she and other young Māori just accepted the sub-text that te reo "was of no use" and didn't think to question it.
Luckily, her nanny saw the value of education and was happy for Liz to go to school, although she said: "when you are home, you're mine."
Growing up, Liz did hear Te Reo spoken, marae visits were commonplace and you'd find everyone out in the fields when the moon was right for planting.
"Us children sat under the trees where the lunches were kept. We knew which auntie made the best Māori bread."
As a young adult, Liz spent nearly three decades away from Nuhaka, returning in 1984.
She says she always knew she'd come home to the place where everyone was whānau, where people look out for one another.
If the young folk have been out collecting kina or pāua, there will always be some for Liz's table.
The 82-year-old has been an exemplar of giving back herself.
Decades ago, she set up a training organisation teaching te reo and much of the Māori language revival throughout the East Coast is because of her work.
Liz just loves Nuhaka.
"I get told 'gosh, you're looking well' and I reckon it's the climate, the puha [a native green vegetable] in Nuhaka. That's why I'm always telling the ones away 'Come home, you get to have real puha instead of buying from you-don't-know-where'."
- Listen to John Bluck's memories of his 1950s Nuhaka childhood in the RNZ audio series Nuhaka Dreaming.
