Bay of Islands Hostels - Reviews and Rates

Saturday and we drove into Kaitaia and had lunch at the Tru Time Cafe lovely fish and chips. On the wall in the cafe there was a map of the world and customers were encouraged to write a message on the wall around it stating were you are from, so after lunch I wrote on there Clare from Stockton on Tees and Ian from Devon UK. We then drove down t...

Still having some time left in the afternoon, we decided to visit the Waitangi Treaty grounds which are just outside of Paihia. The Waitangi Treaty was made in the 1840's with the local native peoples (Maori's) giving them the Queen's protection against the French. For $12NZD, we watched a nice audio-visual presentation summarizing the history o...

Another early start and we're off on a boat touring the Bay of Islands. As mentioned previously, it's a large bay full of islands - over 140 of them. Some are large with villages on, others are merely rocks in the sea. It was a lovely warm sunny morning and the sea was millpond flat. We saw some local wildlife - mostly birds including a single, ...

Yesterday Elen and I picked up a very cute little 2-door car (it was red) and managed top drive it out of the city without too much trouble. Well, Elen drove, I navigated. One good thing about New Zealand is that they drive on the same side o the road as we do so it's almost like being at home driving through country, although with a few more co...

Day 13 - Bay of Islands We left Rotorua heading up to Auckland for lunch and a trip up the 328 metre high Sky Tower. We said a sad farewell to some beloved new friends and welcomed the new members to our group as we travelled further north to Paihia in the Bay of Islands. Arriving late afternoon we settled into our accomdation for the night. Day...

Northland is situated , well you guessed it North of Auckland. We chose to travel here first because it close to Auckland and I had heard that it was one of the most beautiful places in New Zealand, especially at this time of year - when everywhere is else is starting to get cold Northland is still temperate and nice, so a good place to start re...

From Whangerai we drove up the coast road into Russell, which is a historic pretty town that is now a very desirable place to live and has a bit of a snooty atmosphere. It was too expensive for us to stay so we took the car ferry across to Paihia from where all the boat trips exploring the Bay of Islands are arranged. We stayed at another Backpa...

Martin and I borrowed my sister's car and hit the road north of Auckland, heading for the Bay of Islands on the east coast. Martin is very happy to have a car with more "guts" than the rental as it makes passing on these twisty, turny roads a lot easier! The countryside was drier than I remembered, but I know there's been a lack of rain. The roa...

We had said our goodbyes to everyone again, I think this might be the last time we see some of them for a long while, Scott was heading down to the South Island, Claire and Caroline would also start their travels soon. It was a good night, as you can see from the photos. Esther and I had chosen to travel back to the Bay of Islands with Stray aga...