KERIKERI is home to New Zealand's oldest building Kemp House, built around 1820. Nestled in its too-picturesque-for-words setting the mission house shares hallowed ground with the Stone Store, St James Anglican Church, Hongi Hika's nearby Koropiro pa site and the estuary that brought newcomers to this "meeting place of two worlds".
These days Easter egg hunts are held at the country's oldest building, llamas and other exotic pets are blessed at the pretty wooden church on the hill, steam powered boats and machines, vintage cars and shire horses pay annual homage to the past.
Further inland, the green-and-gold orchards are being brick-and-tiled and the town's shops have gone from rural service centre to disposable income incentive. Forget the citrus stalls that once fuelled passers-by; it's a cafe kick they get now. Paradoxically, the same people who bask in Kerikeri's success stymie plans for high-rises which they say would not suit the "town's character".
So are the residents of comfortable Kerikeri a little smug?
No, that's way too harsh, says Mike Simm, businessman, mover, shaker. He, his wife Lynn and their four kids moved here from Auckland 20 years ago when the Simms and two other couples bought sinking tourism operator Fullers, refloating it to success.
Simm and Kerikeri are simpatico. He's been or still is on Top Energy's board; Kerikeri High School's board, Kerikeri Civic Trust, Kerikeri Basin Sustainable Management Committee, Destination Northland and Enterprise Northland.
So he knows about local business, what brings people here, what defines the place. Kerikeri might be in the pink but it is not completely immune to life's ills.
"Kerikeri has a very tight community and has been very protective of its own," Simm says.
"Some of that is a function of a small town. That is going with the fast growth we have experienced, but it still has a very tight close-knit feel."
Simm gives the local schools a glowing report, applauds the strong parental involvement and the emphasis on respect for others.
But Kerikeri does face challenges, not least its social balance being thrown out by too many retirees, not enough workers, he says.
Old time local Charlie Smellie agrees. He's been in business - mainly as a grocer - in Kerikeri since 1939, and his parents were grocers before him. Smellie grew up behind the general store and went on to build the town's first New World in 1981.
He fondly remembers the good old days, the main street just a dirt road and four shops, when a bloke knew everybody in town.
A foundation member of Kerikeri fire brigade in 1955, Smellie spent 35 years as a volunteer fireman, a couple of terms on the old county council, 17 years in Lions, the past two years in Rotary and 25 years as a Justice of the Peace.
He prefers the image of Kerikeri as a fruit bowl, not the "biggest retirement village north of Auckland".
"All the old jafas are coming up here. There's no doubt some of them are well-heeled, but they're not developing jobs for young people. And the young ones who have gone away won't want to come back if it's only to a big retirement village."
In the meantime, how many subdivisions do you need?
"They tell me there's z 1000 sections for sale and more to come on to the market. House prices are falling too. The land they're on used to be orchards. The gold used to be growing on the trees. Now the gold is in the land and you can't blame people for cashing up."
The retiree to worker imbalance means "we need to keep up the drive to create more well-paid, attractive, stimulating jobs," Simm says. Better broadband is essential for attracting skills and relocating business. He's all for prioritising public sector infrastructure spending - upgrading Kerikeri's airport, ensuring access to beaches, helping NorthTec grow, getting a 24-hour trauma health service.
"But all said and done, it's a lovely place to live."
* KERIKERI - fruit town, boom town, retirement haven, a well-groomed, bright-white home to expats from around the world, eight years ago dubbed New Zealand's best little town, a safe and satisfied oasis in an otherwise largely socio-economically parched region.
And shaken to its core by the suspicious death of a 15-year-old girl.
For days, as police and forensic staff scoured the abandoned orchard where Libby's body was found the day after she went missing, the good folk of Kerikeri walked in a daze of disbelief.
Casually chic middle-aged women and their fat, happy dogs met in hushed tones on the town's green, pleasant streets.
Libby's fellow students and friends, needing an outlet, created a wailing wall of sorts and decked Kerikeri High School's hall with flowers and heartfelt messages.
With the best of intentions, no doubt, some people treated the media as trespassers in a private matter.
You're not wanted here, one man told us, when we pulled up outside the school.
But others would come up in the streets to tell us that Kerikeri isn't the safe and lovely place it once was, has its share of violent crimes, burglaries, drugs, the scourge of society that is P.
And now a killing.
It's a shocking crime any place, anywhere, anytime, and understandably slammed everyone into a kind of collective, stunned disbelief.
This sort of thing might happen in other places but it doesn't happen in Kerikeri.
Expat southern Californian Sean English, with the help of other parents from private Springbank School, has compiled a list of shame - at least five violent crimes over the past year. At least.
Much of the shine has gone off the golden town that lured the English family here two years ago.
Just as a sense of flight from a more sinister world brought them to Kerikeri, that same impulse could as easily take them away.
English, a patent attorney who works for international clients from home, rattles off a list of recent, frightening violent incidents.
He admits some may only be rumour, including one we heard from several others, too - that a student was raped in the high school grounds one night only weeks ago.
Police media adviser Sarah Kennett says there is absolutely no truth to that rumour. English says the story has turned up too often to be ignored.
"Either it's the best urban myth of all time, or it's true. If in 12 months' time I hear there's been another rape, murder, bashing, then we're leaving.
"If this has been just an anomaly, just a bad year, that's something else."
And where's the civic leadership in the face of community concerns, English asks?
Mayor Wayne Brown has been happy enough to go public about the MetService getting the weather forecast wrong.
Why isn't he speaking out over this terrible crime?
Why isn't he driving a campaign for public safety?
Brown is - and this is surprising, considering his usual running-mouth style - momentarily lost for words.
He has been quoted in print and on air several times about how appalled he is at Libby's death.
"It's ill-founded criticism,' he eventually splutters, then warms up.
"I'm horrified by what's happened, naturally, but I respect the family's right to privacy, and the police's right to get on with their jobs without a mayor wading in and telling them how to do it.
"And it's a bit early to start drawing the statistical analyses."
At no stage had Kerikeri residents come to one of the always-open council or community board meetings and raised an issue of increasing violence, perceived or real, Brown says.
And that, according to English, typifies what he sees in Kerikeri.
"People have to acknowledge a problem before they can deal with it," he says.
"Here they don't even seem to want to acknowledge it."
It's not all black& white in ... KERIKERI
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