Paihia Harbour

Early-ish start this morning as Jo dropped us in the city to pick up our hire car ready to head north. Turns out there was a problem with the old banger we were supposed to have so they upgraded us to something a bit newer for free! Seemed to take ages to sort everything as the guy serving us was a bit mental and kept going off on a tangent! Weird …

Up early again this morning to check out of our hotel before making our way to the harbour to catch our boat for the trip around the islands. After collecting more passengers from Russell we set off out to see the first island. Another boat had set off at similar time and had already found some dolphins so we followed and pulled up to where they …

Beach Walk und dann übernachten bei Auckland - Takapuna 28 Feb: Rotura (te Puia) - Lake Taupo - übernachten in Napier …

Today was our chance to do some diving. We were up before dawn to get ready after getting in late last night (OK, late for us, it was ten pm). When we went up for breakfast we found out that our hostess had been removed to the hospital for acute malaria the previous afternoon. We were relieved to find out that this disease was not acquired in NZ …

So we made it to Dargaville, in a fashion.

The flight from LA to Auckland was a pretty uneventful night flight; the usual film, meal, lights out,sleep. That was until the teenage boy on the row in front starting shouting in his sleep, "no, no, nooooo," waking a number of other passengers, who proceeded to scream in terror causing nightmare …

Picked up the Camper Van, better that we had thought the company had upgraded us to a 6 berth. Stopped at supermarket stocked up the van and off we go. Travelling up the east coast through Whangarei to Paihi on the bay of Islands. Spent our first night parked outside the local fire station and the toilets, van very roomy and comfortable …

Went for a trip to Russell, which was beautiful. Had lunch, then caught the boat over to Paihia. This was good but I got sun burnt.

Rachel and Nick headed back to Auckland …

We got up for our last time in Auckland, had brekkie then caught a taxi to pick up the campervan back near the airport. This might seem like a bit of an extravagance for backpackers but the bus to the airport is $16 each or a taxi was $35 for both of us. As a bonus we got loads of local info and driving tips from the lady taxi driver, she was full …

After a night with no sleep (maybe aftermaths of the jetlag) we start in the morning from Auckland City across the Harbor Bridge towards the North via the Northern Motorway. Drive along the west coast of the Hauraki Gulf up to Warkworth, then inland to Wellsford and further north to Bream Bay. There we choose to make a stop at Marsden Point, but we …

... ticket to see (forgotten his name - young Geordie comedian with long curly black hair - winner of Edinburgh Festival). The Comedy Festival of New Zealand is on this week. Walk up to Sky-Tower were the show is taking place. On the way through the casino ...

... Haruru Falls. After a short stay there, we headed back over to Opua where the ferries depart regularly for Russell. The harbour there was beautiful. We continued inland to an old historical train town called Kawakawa where we stopped for lunch and ...

... java, I'm afraid - I board the very clean, comfortable, big windowed "Magic Bus" which is to be my transportation throughout New Zealand. I travel out of the city through picturesque rolling green hills and dairylands, up the west coast to the Hokianga ...

... in maintaining the appropriate course - although I would never profess to be a sailor! That was to be our last night in New Zealand, so after dinner we retired once we had made a couple of phone calls home to let Andrea's grandparents know of our ...

... town... It has one big tourist attraction, the Waitangi Treaty grounds (place). This is where the most important thing in New Zealand's (short) history happened. It is where the Treaty of Waitangi was signed. It is so important to New Zealanders ...

... to have tea at a village on the about two hours away. Then we headed to the Kauri forest where the largest Kauri tree in New Zealand is. Tane Mahuta is 2000 years old and a really big tree so its quite impressive. then we headed round to Paihia stopping ...

... walk to the one horse town before lighting the nice warm fire (Paul was the local wood-chopper for the night). We watched a New Zealand film the following morning which was excellent, The Whale Watchers - it was all about Maori culture, so an ideal ...

... we took the ferry from Paihia to Russell, a short 15 minute hop across the bay. Russell was one of the first settlements in New Zealand by westerners and became renowned as a centre for debauchery as it was an ideal spot for whaling ship captains to drop ...

... . According to Wikipedia (the font of all knowledge) the marine reserve was created in 1975, was the first of its kind in New Zealand, and attracts around 200,000 visitors a year. Which is quite a lot I’d say especially as it wasn’t that ...

... the end of sailing. After stowing everything on board (we tend to over cater), we ummed and ahhed about leaving our snug harbour and heading out to the islands. Looking around though, everything was a whiteout, so it was decided to head back into Paihia ...