If Wills and Kate include Northland in next year's royal visit to New Zealand the red carpet and great waka Ngatokimatawhaorua will be waiting for them at Waitangi.
While the royal itinerary has yet to be announced it seems likely the first visit by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge will include the place where representatives of Prince William's great-great-great-great-grandmother, Queen Victoria, signed the Treaty of Waitangi almost 174 years ago.
Queen Elizabeth was taken for a paddle in the 1970s, as were Prince Charles and Lady Diana in 1983, in the waka taua (war canoe) she dubbed HMS Ngatokimatawhaorua. Given that history, Waitangi National Trust chief executive Greg McManus said it would be appropriate for the royal couple to take a Bay trip in the great waka. If they did not want to take along the young Prince George, who will by then be nine months old, there were plenty of willing babysitters at the Treaty Grounds.
If the couple wanted to stay for dinner the trust would put on a hangi and one of its highly regarded cultural shows.
Mr McManus said he had yet to take a call from Kensington Palace but that was possibly because he was on holiday.