Waitangi doing the shuffle

SO you're a little over Waitangi Day - it's had blanket coverage in newspapers, on tele and radio.
But getting the news to those who were not among the 50,000 people there is more of a feat than a fete.
For two days the Advocate's small crew - most of the time one reporter and one photographer - is run ragged trying to be in several places at once.
Te Tii, or the lower marae as it's called, is tucked between the estuary and the beach on the south side of the Waitangi River mouth and there's always a lot of action down there.
It's not far across the Waitangi bridge to the Treaty House grounds where there is also plenty of action, but the one-way road system is choked. It's quicker to hoof it than drive between the two venues - but it's all uphill in one direction. Our photographer Tania Webb was snapping the Waitangi action on Monday. On Tuesday reporter Mike Barrington and photographer John Stone are on duty.
Te Tii (the "lower") Marae is abuzz with photo opps and good copy. Among the show ponies is current glamour boy John Key who arrives holding hands with Waitangi maven and matriarch Titiwhai Harawira. TVNZ-sponsored and camouflage-garbed activist Tame Iti also gets a warm welcome to a visit that is little more than a Tuhoe support and funds seeking exercise. Heavyweights from the main political parties look quite at home at a venue that's often a flashpoint for dissent.
I take over from Mike and catch the end of a forum where party leaders or their Maori spokespeople try to win the crowd's hearts and minds. The Green's Jeanette Fitzsimons gets a warm response, Labour's Parekura Horomia is jeered, John Key very smoothly says bugger all... and so it goes on. Fortunately, it doesn't go on too long.
That night brilliant tangata reggae band House of Shem performs to an appreciative crowd. When the gig ends a film about the Maori Battalion is shown.
The jam-packed tent town outside the big marquee-meeting house is packed with famous and infamous faces, flax weaving, flag flying, fast food, families, entertainers, rastas, preachers, patched gangsters, wide-eyed tourists. There's all the music, laughter, chat and good vibe you'd expect at this important national festival - and copy enough to fill dozens of newspapers.
But surely, you have to wonder, somewhere someone's plotting something disruptive ... it is the eve of Waitangi Day after all.
Meanwhile, it's also pumping up at the Treaty Grounds. There's been a vice-regal honour guard rehearsal, a navel band practise and numerous greetings and meetings.
A totally different crowd has congregated in the Copthorne resort hotel. Soon the Waitangi Room is awash the Governor General's guests - the Prime Minister and other Ministers of the Crown, sirs and ladies, civic leaders, bureaucrats, Maori leaders, business leaders, a couple of rear admirals (one from the Swedish navy, one from ours), American consul, Pacific peoples, Indians, Africans, Asians and an army of security types (with earpieces and wires protruding from the collars of their snappy suits).
Down at the waka house on Hobson Beach another reggae band - the also brilliant 1814 - entertains a chilled out crowd. Earlier in the day a Celtic folk group held the stage.
Two surfers - one of them Far North mayor Wayne Brown who has slipped away from the vice-regal soiree - surf the nearby reef.
As far as the Advocate having to be places, day one is done and dusted but our photos and stories won't be ready and emailed until nearly midnight.
The next day starts at 5am with the dawn ceremony at the Waitangi Treaty Grounds' carved meeting house. It's followed by the hoi polloi's breakfast at the Copthorne. The Prime Minister hosts a more exclusive event next door before striding off for press conferences, a walkabout and a waka ride.
Across the road at the domain it's gala day for health organisations, clubs, iwi groups - you name it, they're there. Among the events is a taiaha fighting display that attracts the PM's attention.
Down at Te Tii, there's an unscheduled ``press conference' for Tame Iti. Iti is taken aback, he says, because he thought it would include other speakers.
I've dashed down there for the debacle set up mainly by TVNZ whose phalanx of reporters, researchers and presenters has already taken over the front rows. John Stone has stayed up at the Treaty Grounds to meet up with newly arrived chief reporter Peter de Graaf who is following Helen Clark around.
A waka fleet paddles spectacularly off-shore at Te Tii and a powerful combined kapa haka thunders on the beach.
Thousands of sightseers clog the bridge.
I run back up the damned hill.
It's nearly midday and there's time for a cuppa before the quiet moment is shattered by the Navy's 21 gun salute. Jolted back into work mode, John and I check out the entertainment at the soundshell by the waka house. We bump into Whangarei's Tibetan Buddhist monks and a high lama who has travelled from India to experience his third Waitangi Day.
Peter is now down at Te Tii from where the traditional hikoi will leave and John takes off to position himself in the road to get a good shot of the marchers. I head up to the flagpole and ask family groups and foreigners their impressions of Waitangi Day. Very positive, very laid back, a real celebration, they all say.
When a line of armour-vested police appears from behind the bushes and takes up position around the flagpole, a collective "oooh" of anticipation rises from picnickers and onlookers.
The thin blue line's arrival is a sign the hikoi is on its way. People move closer. The hikoi might be serious stuff to those with a point to make, but for others the posturing, tongue-poking and taunting is entertainment.
There's not much heat in it this year and, a haka or two after arriving, the hikoi disbands.
There are plenty of official activities yet to go - the navy band's "Beat Retreat" with the Governor General for example and a lot more talk talk talk - but our team's work is done.
We head back to Whangarei to collate our stories and photos for the next day's paper.
As always, Waitangi Day has provided something for everyone.