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The fringes of the Farm bristle with spiky native nikau palms that seem plucked from a Lost in Space episode.

"You know, when they're fishing with metal line and chum, it doesn't seem like they're really going after some little calico bass," said Alex Shea, of Nikau Kai surf rentals, near the base of the pier.

But with apologies to Lee, the best story unearthed by the Miscellany author Gary Slater concerns two of his former team-mates from overseas, Allan Langer and Tawera Nikau.

Nikau, the skilful and tough Maori forward, who also gave distinguished service to Castleford, lost a leg in a motorcycle accident in 2003.

There are emerald feathery fern-trees, copper-tinted "lancewoods," with their hair-like tufts, the tropic strangeness of nikau palms, crested cabbage-trees, red birch and white ti-tree, stately kauri, splendid totara, bulky rimu, dark glossy koraka, spreading rata, and half the arboreal catalogue of the country besides.