Northlands - Bay of Islands - a beauty!

Trip Start Feb 28, 2009
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Trip End May 02, 2009


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Where I stayed
YHA Paihia

Flag of New Zealand  ,
Friday, April 3, 2009

We picked up our car yesterday midday, got an upgrade, so now we are cruising a Nissan Bluebird from 1999. Our package is 10 days car hire and 7 days YHA accommodation and at first we thought we had been done(!), but now, adding it all up we have done an OK deal. We have a GPS, which was needed just getting out of Auckland and a second driver is free, so I took to the wheels and for the first time in years I drove us up to Bay of Islands. I think Morten was fed up with old Bluebird after just half an hour of driving as the steering is rubbish but it reminds me of my old Fiat Uno in London so I'll probably be doing most of the driving here in NZ.
So far, so good. We are now staying in our beloved YHA again and it is as expected really good. Herb garden, great cooking facilities and again it is relaxed and the people here are chilled and little older; no 18 year old Europens waiting for their parents to slam shut the pocket money funds.
The weather is what we expected although it has started to rain ("Ahh!, the first rain we have had in a month".... have we heard that time and time again on our travels??!!) so we are trying to fit in our sightseeing accordingly.

Driving up took about 4-5 hours and the scenery was quite predictably rolling hills with loads and loads of sheep. It is green as green can be, lush and very pretty. We stopped at Wakawaka (NZ has nothing but odd named towns, a bit like Wales...) to see the world famous public toilets created by Austrian artist Hundertwasser. When in Vienna a year ago we visited his gallery and his mini-village, but being in the total outbacks of NZ and seeing this toilet seemed too obscure for words. Seriously, of all the places in the world he chooses Wakawaka to place public toilet. Words fail me!
Anyway, it was, as always with his art, great fun and wacky and we enjoyed this brief detour before moving on to Paihia.

Woke up late today (ever since we have reached NZ we seem to be sleeping our little hearts out, it must we the climate) so we went down and booked all our tours for the next couple of days. More on this later...
But today we got the ferry to Russel, the first landing point for any Brit in NZ and once the capital of NZ. The boat trip over took half an hour and was a lovely sailing trip across the bay and reaching Russel is a sweetie; a very small seaside town with picket fence houses and a small bay with sailing boats. We went on one of the signposted walks and got up top to savour the great views of the Bay of Islands, absolutely stunning, with all the islands and green rolling hills in the background. Just lovely and peaceful. Ferry back again, early dinner and now sleep as we are facing a full day tomorrow with start at 7:15 (how will we ever manage after becoming sleepy heads..). We are off to 90 mile beach and Cape Reigna, and the weather will be great so we are really looking forward to it.

More from us tomorrow, a good night for now.
XX
L&M
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