Lyn Ross of Waikaraka wrote her first letter to Sheila Cumming of Scotland when she was in form one at Whangarei Intermediate School.
Forty years later, the letters are still coming.
The women began writing to each other after the two schools had arranged a penpal exchange. Each child was paired with
another on the other side of the world.
And Mrs Cumming has now spent her first Christmas in New Zealand, visiting Mrs Ross and her family.
"It's been brilliant," Mrs Cumming said in her broad Scottish burr. "A lot warmer than at home, it's freezing there."
She made the trip with her children, James, 16, and Sarah, 12. Sarah, a keen Highland dancer at home in Dufftown (between Inverness and Aberdeen), even had a fling at Waipu's Highland Games on New Year's Day.
"Lyn rang up the organiser and asked if she could enter," Mrs Cumming said. After a couple of lessons with the locals, Sarah was ready to go. "She won a few medals ... but she couldn't compete for the top prizes because it would rule her out of the competitions at home."
There was no set pattern to the regularity of the womens' letters. "I just wrote when I felt like it," Mrs Ross said.
Mrs Ross visited Mrs Cumming three years ago, which was "mind-boggling". She produces a photo of a young Sheila taken outside her family home in Dufftown when she was aged around 10.
"Just after all that time hearing about it, it was amazing to finally get there," she said, her previous foreign travel being only as far as Australia.
Similarly, Mrs Cumming finally visited "the bach" she had heard Mrs Ross describe all these years - at Whangaroa Harbour.
"I'd heard so much about it in letters," Mrs Cumming said. "She always talked about going on long summer holidays there. If we go to the beach we go on day trips and not much more."
Mrs Ross has been the ultimate Northland tour guide in the month the Cummings have been here. A memorable day for Mrs Cumming was the climb up Mt Manaia at Whangarei Heads.
"The kids didn't think I could do it," she said. "They took a photo of me at the top for proof that I got there!"
However she left the complete scale to the summit to her son; Mrs Cumming was quite happy with the safety of the viewing platform. "The view was just brilliant," she said.
And in the days of dot.coms replacing postage stamps, have the letters of old been replaced with emails?
"No!" the women say emphatically.
Which makes you think they will be sending each other letters for another 40 years.
Lyn Ross of Waikaraka wrote her first letter to Sheila Cumming of Scotland when she was in form one at Whangarei Intermediate School.
Forty years later, the letters are still coming.
The women began writing to each other after the two schools had arranged a penpal exchange. Each child was paired with
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