Waipuna, the Maori people, are Polynesian by heritage who migrated to New Zealand in about the eighth century AD from Polynesia. The European explorers arrived in the seventeenth century. Most places’ names are Maori, hence, the name Waipuna. Wai is water in Maori and Puna water that bubbles from the ground, and in this case, as time passed it formed a deep pool of crystal clear water. This was where a young couple met secretly through the school holidays, and their subsequent struggle to find each other. Their travels took them to South Africa, Rhodesia, and Britain.
New Zealand is a very young country with snowy mountains, glaciers, and fiords in the south to volcanic mountains and densely bush-clad ranges in the north, with a climate that is described as Mediterranean. Peter and Barbara's families lived and worked in the Lower North Island, but actually, many of the activities took place in the Upper North Island, where the author grew up on a dairy farm. Although many of the adventures and individuals actually took place and were real, this story is fiction.
