Kerikeri

Kerikeri, the largest town in Northland, New Zealand, is a tourist destination 240 kilometres north of Auckland and 80 kilometres north of the northern region's largest city, Whangarei.

It is sometimes called the Cradle of the Nation, as it was the site of the first permanent mission station in the country, and it has some of the most historic buildings in the country.

Today we drove to Kerikeri to visit Old Packhouse Market which is the Bay of Islands largest market, open every Saturday & Sunday.

We did not find it all that good but it did have a few stalls which were nice. What we did find interesting was a elderly man and lady make some wonderful children's toys including Gollywogs and they explained how the name Gollywog came about. I researched this when we were home and this is what I found:

"One theory of the origin of the name “Golliwogg” says that while British soldiers held Egypt in the second half of the 19th century they had Egyptian laborers that worked for them. Workers wore insignia W.O.G.S. on their armbands which meant “Working on Government Service”. British troops spoke of them as “ghouls” - which is an Arabic word for a desert ghost. Egyptian children played with black dolls which they would sometimes give to British soldiers or they would buy dolls from children. That dolls were later called “Ghuliwogs” and later “Golliwogg”. How much truth is in this theory - it is not known.

“Golliwogg” doll in time became very controversial. While some see it as a part of tradition and part of childhood, other see it as racist. That is why they started disappearing from shops and advertisements."

We also visited a choclate factory and had hot chocolate's in the cafe, yummo.Read more