The Bay Of Islands

Playing With Crabs

It's quite amazing how many public holidays they seem to have here in New Zealand. Either that or they decided to get the formalities over with and just group them all into one month. The weekend that followed my trek around volcanic centres within the Tongariro National Park, appeared to be another period of extended time off work. Not one for missing an opportunity, Tom, Kate, Rob, Harriet and myself decided to go on a little road trip.

With 5 of us crammed into Rob's Honda we headed up north. Geographically, Auckland is pretty north itself when looking at a map of NZ. Yet, take a trip over the Harbour Bridge and you find yourself cruising up a narrowing stretch of land known as Northland. It peaks at a place called Cape Reinga after a ride along Ninety Mile Beach (which isn't actually ninety miles - it's about 60). It takes about 8 hours or so from Auckland to get there and we decided this was a little to far to travel this time around. Instead, about halfway up is a place called the Bay of Islands. Situated in the heart of the Northland region, the Bay of Islands is aparently famed for it's stunning coastal scenery and forms one of New Zealand's major attractions.

As the site of NZ's first permanent English settlement, the region also has enormous historical significance. It was here that the Treaty of Waitangi was drawn up, the linchpin of race relations in modern-day NZ. The Treaty goes back to 1840, when on the 6th of February, the English government and the Maori Chiefs struck a deal for peacful living within the country and the founding document now has a standing similar to the US constitution. We arrived in the Bay of Island's on the 6th February and the public holiday that we were celebrating was Waitangi Day.

After stopping in a few places on the way (and spotting the NZ famous - "Treehouse" restaurant, which is as it says but looks amazing even if you do have to book 6 months in advance of getting a table), we finally made it to a small sea-side town called Russell. It's a mission to drive to so instead you can get the car ferry over a small stretch of water from Paihia. We didn't really have time to look around Russell for now - instead we dumped our bags and got the ferry back to check out the town of Waitangi.

Waitangi on Waitangi Day, as you can imagine, was packed. It was full of street stalls and market stands selling all sorts of items along the beach front. Kids were jumping off a fair sized bridge into the ocean and generally everyone was having a good time in a festival atmosphere. Apart from the odd traveller like ourselves, the area was dominated by Maori's who take this celebration incredibly seriously. We had a look at the famous sight too - the Treaty House where the documents were signed and aside, generally wondered the street's taking it all in. A short walk from Waitangi is Paihia - a small, pretty beach town that has become a major traveller destination over recent years for everyone wanting to chill out. We spent a bit of time looking around before ending up in a pub. After a day of celebrations we caught the ferry back to Russell. Harriet, Tom and myself somehow ended up on Long Beach drinking and playing games until the early hours of the following day. Messy.

The next day, we checked out Russell. It's an historical and quiet town full of cafe's and quaint gift shops. It has a very old feel to it and although seems quite charming now, once had a more shady past. According to Charles Darwin, Russell was full of 'the refuse of society' in 1835 - and with us there - I suppose little has changed in 170 odd years!!!

Usually you don't often have to book hostels or any other type of accommodation in NZ as a general rule. That is unless it's a festival or public holiday. Due to our lack of planning, we thus had to leave our current accommodation in Russell and instead searched for a place in Paihia. Ten minutes outside the town we found this most amazing little place. The hostel had a pool table and table tennis, a great deck with hammocks and a river with rope-swing attached. It also had free use of kayaks. Needless to say, we spent most of the day lazing about and jumping into the river. Later the cards came out, as did the alcohol....... and a few drunken hours later I'm playing Harriet at table tennis and we're both unable to hit anything except perhaps each other.

Just around the corner from the hostel is the Haruru Falls and the following day - Rob, Kate and myself went to check it out followed by a walk in the surrounding forest, known as the Waitangi National Reserve. It's an area of Kiwi habitat but we never managed to spot one. In fact in the 6 months that I have been here, I still haven't seen a Kiwi bird yet - in it's habitat or otherwise.

On our way back to Auckland we stopped off at a variety of locations. There are some pretty cool places between Auckland and the Bay of Islands and we did a good job to see many of them. Before we left we visited the oldest church in the country which suprisingly didn't look as old as I had imagined - although to be honest NZ isn't really that old istelf and I hadn't actually imagined what it would look like anyway. Heading back down south, we stopped at a small town called Kawakawa, which is famous for having some rather artistic public toilets. They were designed by internationally renowned artist, ecologist and architect, Friedensreich Hundertwasser and we admired the artistic form, colours and shapes while relieving ourselves. We also stopped at some other amazing waterfalls, a glow-worm cave where we got a guided walk and marvelled at the bright lighted faeces and also took a break at the town of Whangarei.

Eventually we returned, absolutely shattered - but some of us hard-core travellers still had a last bit of energy to make it to Auckland's Albert Park where there was an Asian lantern festival. The glowing lanterns lit up the night sky, accompanied by Asian food stalls, music and a good time.

It was another packed weekend and certainly a good time was had all round. It would take me at least a week to recover.......oh wait.....it was back to work.